Untitled article by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, September 24, 1867

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 15

Eld. Cottrell’s Fourteenth Reply.

By R. F. Cottrell

ELD. N. V. HULL:

Dear Brother,— In consequence of absence from my home, yours of Aug. 8th was not received by me till yesterday, Aug. 24th. I cheerfully assent to the close of this discussion, though the evidences for the destruction of the wicked have been but hinted at, and not quoted in detail. And right here it occurs to me, that when any man affirms the destruction of the wicked, all understand him to mean what he says; but when the Bible affirms it in precisely the same words, it is claimed that it has a meaning entirely different, or a meaning never attached to the word, except in efforts to disprove the proposition, that “all the wicked will He destroy.”

I shall not object to your boasting a little as you put off your armor (for that is the proper time), provided you really think I am “overwhelmingly beaten.” But it is the misfortune of some, perhaps I ought to say good fortune, not to know it when they are beaten. If I knew I were fairly beaten, I would yield the point. It is not much to beat me; it is not the mastery I have been striving for. My cause I believe to be the truth, though never so feebly defended; and I shall yet think that “were I Brutus, and Brutus were Antony,” the case would be decided entirely differently.

I can hardly see those “puerilities” with which you are so disgusted. I have proved by express testimony of Scripture, that the righteous shall “receive . . . in the world to come, life everlasting.” As eternal life, from its very nature, can be received but once, it is not, this testimony being true, received in the “present tense,” or at conversion. Let life mean life, or holiness, or whatever you please, it is self-evident that eternal life can be received but once. It is indeed “many times stated to be the fruit of,” but never to be “received at the time of,” spiritual regeneration or conversion. The Bible does not thus contradict itself.

The prophecy of Isaiah 34th seems to take the land and people of Idumea as a type or example, and through this threaten the “indignation of the Lord” upon “all nations, and his fury upon all their armies,” in the final “day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion.” But apply it as you will, and still the forever is limited to the earth in its present state, or under the curse, which shall be removed; and so of the same expression in Revelation.

The burning day of Malachi you understand to be “now in process of fulfillment;” and consequently “all the proud,” and “all that do wickedly,” mean only Jewish sinners. I would like to know whether the postdiluvian earth and its elements have already been dissolved, or whether these things are now being melted with fervent heat, as predicted by Peter, a later prophet than Malachi. There has been one literal deluge of water, though some are willingly ignorant of it; and the heavens and the earth which are now are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. To ignore this, will not prevent its fulfillment. The new earth will succeed that burning day. Some years ago, I heard one of your spiritualizers exclaim, “We behold the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of Heaven upon the Christian Sabbath!”—alluding to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which he claimed to be the first day of the week. How stupid and blind the apostle must have been, to be looking forward for the fulfillment of that “promise,” more than thirty years afterward! 2 Pet. iii, 13.

I shall have others to judge whether your grave and emphatic charge of wittingly adding to, or perverting the word of the Lord, is sustained by facts. It is not so clearly stated, as you affirm, “that at the resurrection the saints will have given them spiritual, glorious, immortal bodies,” as it is that our vile bodies shall be changed, that this mortal shall put on immortality; that is, that the saints who are mortal now shall become immortal.

You say, “Your attention has, during our discussion, been repeatedly drawn to the fact, that neither mortality nor immortality is anywhere affirmed of the spirit of man in the Bible.” This, then, is your strongest Bible proof—that it is immortal. It is nowhere affirmed that the first day of the week is the Sabbath. Is it therefore the Sabbath? I should rather infer from your premises, that the spirit of man was not a separate entity. If it were, and immortal too, the Bible, I think, should have revealed it.

I can say with you, that “I hoped, in the beginning of our discussion, that you and I might be instrumental in drawing the Christian communities that we in some sense represent, into closer union;” and I can say, that I am not in the least discouraged, though I would gladly have seen you renounce the fable of natural immortality. I could hardly expect this, however, because, to take a public position against the truth has a tendency to confirm one in error, as I told you when you proposed the discussion. But I will not despair in your case. I fully believe that the true, loyal, law-binding, Bible-honoring Christians of our denominations, and all others, will not only come to closer union, but be perfectly united in one body before the coming of the Lord, an event which is near, even at the doors. And it is evident that whatever people have the true exposition of the third angel’s message (Rev. xiv, 9-12), they constitute the nucleus to which all the remnant of God’s people will be gathered. War will be waged upon them, because they keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. Rev. xii, 17. With that people I am determined, at all cost, to be found; and when I am convinced that your people are more zealous of the commandments of God, and are nearer to the faith once delivered to the saints, than we are—in other words, that you are the people that have the “present truth” for this generation—I will come over to you.

With many thanks to you and the editor of the Recorder, I am, as ever, your sincere friend, affectionately desirous of enjoying eternal life with you in the world to come. R. F. COTTRELL.