BISHOP A. G. HAYGOOD, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, said in commenting upon the prosecution of Adventists in Tennessee: “Singularly these violators of civil law—claiming conscience for keeping Saturday—seem to have no conscience about breaking the law of the State their citizenship binds them to support.
Is it singular that a Christian, acting in the fear of God, refuses to do wrong, even though a law of the land commands it? Is it not a singular kind of a conscience which would dictate kind of a conscience which would dictate a blind obedience to every human enactment which might assume the form of law, even though as bad as the fugitive slave law, or some law of heathen lands? Would a Christian be thus bound by his conscience in China? Or were the early Christians so bound under the laws of pagan Rome? If so, their martyrdom was due to their own folly.
Christians have always disregarded human laws when they were clearly contrary to the law of God. The Christian’s conscience can not be separated from that law, for that is the eternal rule of right. That would be a singular kind of conscience which would make human law its guide, taking no account of the law of God. That is not the kind possessed by the Adventists.