Charity by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 22, 1866

Charity.

By R. F. Cottrell

In the Bible sense, charity is love—love to God, love to man. "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Love to God leads us to obey him; love to man leads us to do right toward him, to do to others as we would have them do to us; in short to love our neighbor as ourself. "Love worketh no ill to his neighbor." "Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Christian charity however, with all its humility and long-suffering, does not break down the distinction between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood. It rejoiceth not in iniquity, the transgression of God's law; but it rejoiceth in the truth. "Thy law is the truth." And the "all things" which charity believeth does not include the belief of a lie. It takes the most favorable view possible of human actions and motives, and labors in love to elevate all to the standard of truth; but it never compromises the truth. This is the charity of the true Christian, the charity of the Bible. And it never stands in the way of reform. It did not deter Luther from exposing the innovations and corruptions of the professed church of his times. Had this been the case, where would have been our boasted Reformation?

But the popular charity of the present day, instead of rejoicing in the truth, is a mutual compromise of the truth and right, between errorists and sinners. Nominal Christians find themselves divided into sects, and holding different and conflicting creeds. And the truth being undivided and harmonious, opposing factions cannot both be right. But instead of healing these divisions by mutually seeking for the truth as revealed in the Bible and casting away their wrongs and errors, they agree to compromise the matters of difference. Instead of mutually striving to get right, they agree to admit that of the popular denominations one is about as right as the others. They agree to disagree by a seeming admission that what little truth any one sect may hold is no better than the opposing errors held by others. And as true charity, which, while it hates sin, loves the sinner and would bring him to a knowledge and obedience of the truth that he might be saved, is the crowning grace of the Christian, so this compromising of the truth that I am describing, putting it upon a level with error, is esteemed the highest sectarian virtue. It is thought indeed to be true Christian charity.

Now the errors and confusion of the conflicting faith and practice of sectarianism, demand reform or they do not. If they do not, then error and falsehood are equal in value with the truth, and the commands of men are equal to the commands of God. But according to our Saviour, substitution and sin are not as acceptable to God as obedience and holiness. "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matt. xv, 9.

But if reform is demanded, then they who insist upon it most strenuously are exercising true Christian charity. They love God, and are willing to obey him. They love their fellows, and are striving to save them. They hate the substitution of the commandments and institutions of men in the place of the Lord's, because it is vain and exposes men to wrath. True charity labors to please God and to reform and save men—to save them from their sins and errors, and to save their souls alive in the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

But as the Romanists, in the days of Luther, thought the reformers extremely uncharitable; so those now who are not willing to be reformed—to exchange error for truth and sin for obedience—will strive to obstruct the progress of reform by a plaintive plea for charity. True charity never applies the brake to the wheels of reform. As it "rejoiceth in the truth," it delights in reform.