Enjoying One's Own Opinion.
By R. F. COTTRELL
RETURNING home from Medina, a stranger asked to ride with me to Ridgeway. In conversation I soon found he was a professor of religion; but he did not enjoy himself very well at Ridgeway where there was no meeting for him to attend but that of the Universalists. He did not think very highly of those who believe a part of the Bible and do not believe the whole. Such faith—a faith that rejects a part of the word of God—he thought was no faith at all. He mentioned the Sabbath, calling it the seventh day. I asked him which was the seventh day—whether Sunday was not the first day and Saturday the seventh. He admitted that Saturday was the seventh day, as the Jews reckon the week; but claimed that Monday was the first day, and consequently Sunday was the seventh. And he thought we ought to keep the day on which Christ arose from the dead. I referred him to the fact that the Sabbath which the Christians kept according to the commandment was the day before the first day of the week, when they came to the sepulcher and found the Lord was risen. That the day on which Christ arose was not the seventh day which the commandment requires us to keep. Discovering that his position was a little tangled, he replied, “I believe in letting every man enjoy his own opinion.” Now that was just what he was complaining of the Universalists for—they were simply enjoying their opinion at the expense of a portion of the scriptures of truth—believing such parts as they chose, and rejecting those that do not agree with their opinion. There are multitudes of the class that believe in enjoying their own opinions; professing to be guided by the Scriptures, but virtually rejecting all that does not agree with their creed. And the worst of it is, they seem to be as unconscious of it as the person above referred to. If they could see themselves in the true light, they might be reformed; and not longer claim the right to enjoy their opinions in opposition to the word of God. On those points in which men are fully conscious of being on the side of truth, they never plead for the enjoyment of their own opinions. If they would try themselves by this infallible test, they need not wait for the judgment to cleave the scales from their eyes.