MORAL BLINDNESS by Roswell Fenner Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 7, 1867

MORAL BLINDNESS.

By Roswell Fenner Cottrell

ONE of the greatest difficulties to be overcome in the work of human salvation, is moral blindness. If we could see things, and especially ourselves, in the true light, we could be induced to forsake our sins, correct our errors, and come to a saving knowledge of the truth. But our moral sense is perverted, especially in respect to our own depravity; and how can the remedy be applied to our heart and conscience, when we are ignorant of our disease and cannot see that we need anything done for us? The difficulty is that we think we are rich and healthy and have need of nothing, when in fact we are poor and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked.

Under such circumstances, what hope can there be of our recovery? A short time since I wrote in respect to the Health Reform:

Treat the body according to reason; and reason will dawn in the mind. But this led to reflections like these: How can men treat their bodies according to reason, while the reasoning powers are perverted, and can only be restored to moral action by thus treating the body? If men had clearness of mind, they would correct the abuses of the body; but these abuses have stifled the voice of reason and conscience. What hope then of a recovery?

I come to the conclusion, that in order to save men from their state of depravity, physical, mental and moral, they must be led, by some means, to have faith in the assurances that come to them from without, and be led to act upon the word of others. The literally blind trust in the eye-sight of others. If the mentally and morally blind only knew their true condition and could be induced to follow implicitly the directions of the True Witness, and those who have, by following the same, got their eyes enlightened by the use of the genuine eye-salve, there would be hope of the recovery of their sight.

Thus we come to the doctrine of salvation by faith. Without faith it is clear that human salvation is impossible. The morally blind cannot see their true state. The insane cannot of himself discover his insanity; and he can hardly be convinced of the fact. So it is with the morally blind. And those who need help the most—those who are the blindest are the last to be convinced that they need anything. The blindest fancy that they see the clearest. Hence it is that but a few of the race can be induced to use the divine eye-salve. And hence it is that those who are induced by faith, to use it, discover more and more, as their sight improves, how terribly blind they were.

The wicked, the blind, object to the plan of salvation, because it proposes to save so few; but the enlightened and recovered only wonder that any of such a vile race could be saved. “The wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.”

Now, brethren, let us apply the subject to ourselves. Reproofs are given us to open our eyes that we may see. If instead of humbly receiving them, we find something in us that rises up against them, we may be sure that we need reproof, and that the only reason we do not see the need of it is that we are morally blind. “He that reproveth a scorner getteth to himself shame; and he that rebuketh a wicked man getteth himself a blot. Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee; rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.” Prov. ix. 7-9. “A reproof entereth more into a wise man than a hundred stripes into a fool.” xvii, 10.

“The true Christian loves reproof. ‘Let the righteous smite me; it shall be as an excellent oil, which does not cause a sore head.’ He who enjoys communion with God is not too proudly self-conceited to bear blame and correction; while he keeps up honest prayer, he will let nothing sour him so but that he will welcome reproof from any source as an answer to his prayer for light; and as, in the enjoyment of true religion, he wishes to avoid all sin, he cannot be angry that any of his acts or neglects are blamed. Only ‘he that doeth evil hateth the light, and will not come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved; but he that doeth truth cometh to the light.’”

If we can receive and profit by reproofs, there is a possibility that we may be saved; if not we are lost.

R. F. COTTRELL.