July 20, 1899
GOOD character is built not upon human law, but upon love of good principles.
IT is the province of the civil authority to deal with crime, but God’s province to deal with sin.
EVERY man has a right to rest from work on Sunday, and he has also the privilege; there is no law to prevent him from so doing.
THE laws of nature govern man’s physical wellbeing, and none of these laws were or can be framed by a legislature. Nor can any government enforce them.
IMMORALITY has vastly greater power for destruction than any human law has for salvation. The latter is not a panacea for the effects of the former.
AMS THE true standard of morality cannot change, only that authority can properly legislate upon morality which is not subject to change, and that is the authority of Omniscience.
INJUSTICE is no more binding on an individual when in the form of a statute, than before it was enacted into “law.” As justice is always binding, in justice can never be binding in any form. Therefore the paramount question is not whether a law shall be enforced or not, but whether it is just.
CONGRESS and the State legislatures are designed to represent the people of the States. No legislative body in a republican government can represent a church, or a religious organization. And for this reason churches and religious societies ought to keep out of politics.
AMS JUST laws are binding upon all individuals, and conscience is also binding upon each one, it is evident that both cannot occupy the same sphere without conflict, and therefore that their proper spheres are separate from each other. Law is not made to take the place of conscience, and conscience cannot surrender itself to law. The province of law is simply the preservation of human rights, and the office of conscience is to guide the individual in doing right. To protect rights, and to enforce right, are vastly dissimilar things.