"Odious Names no New Argument."
By R. F. Cottrell
Our caption we find penciled in the margin of a book belonging to a beloved brother in Christ, by the side of these words: "The Christians were often the victims of popular fury. The common people looked upon them as enemies of their gods, and that was equivalent to Atheism, 'The Atheists,' was the appellation of the Christians in everybody's mouth, and of Atheists the vilest and most incredible things would be believed." Neander's Church History. p. 53. Calling an opponent hard names is not a very logical argument, yet it was quite effective in the early days of the Christian Church, and it is no less so now. The Pagans, the worshipers of false gods and the rejecters of the only true God, called the Christians, the only believers in the only true and living God, Atheists, simply because they did not believe in their false gods; and this was sufficient to arouse the popular fury against them. The same argument is often used against the truth in these days of degeneracy and apostasy from the faith. We are called Jews, not because we reject Christ, but because we keep the moral law of God, the ten commandments as written by the finger of God. We are called Sadducees, not because we deny the resurrection; for we insist upon this doctrine and make it much more prominent than they who call us Sadducees do; neither because we deny the existence of spirits, as taught in the Bible; but because we do not believe just as they do about human spirits—their fabulous knowledge and activity, separated from the body by death. But these arguments have their effect, namely, to foster prejudice against the truth. It is a cheap argument to call us Materialists; and that is equivalent, in the popular mind, to infidelity. They call us Infidels, not because we disbelieve the Bible, but because we do not accept of their creed—because we do not believe, as they do, that the Bible teaches one thing when it means another. It is much cheaper to use the argument of hard names against us, than it is to meet our position, Bible in hand. Hence they choose the cheapest and most effective argument they have. No argument with the Pagans was so forcible against the Christians as to call them "the Atheists;" and no argument in these days of apostasy, is so forcible against the remnant of God's people—the people described in prophecy as keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus—as to call them Jews, Sadducees, Materialists and Infidels, or some such opprobrious epithet. How can we blame them for using the very best argument they have? But this their best argument is very injudiciously used, when it is presented to those who have candidly listened to our teaching, and have thus investigated and ascertained our position. It only has the tendency to drive such nearer the truth, as in a case which has lately come to my knowledge. It is injudicious to tell those who know better, from their own personal knowledge, that our teaching is Infidelity.