Untitled article by Roswell F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · February 11, 1868

INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE VS. TIME-SETTING.

By Roswell F. Cottrell

The work of the Lord, in fulfillment of prophecy, is harmoniously progressive. It was promised that in the time of the end, when the sealed book should be unsealed, knowledge should be increased, and the wise should understand. Dan. xii. We are also taught that the pathway of the just is as a shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. We believe that in the time of the end, that is, in the period just preceding the second advent, we may expect a steady, progressive increase of knowledge in relation to the prophecies and their fulfillment, and the necessary work of preparation, to meet the crisis of closing probation, and stand acquitted before the Lord at his appearing. This work of the Lord will be like a regular, through train, touching each station once, but not returning, but ever moving onward to the final station, the terminus of the line.

The work of Timeists, that is, of those who for the past twenty years have been prophesying that the Lord would come at such a time, and, when that had passed, at such a time, and so on, does not bear the characteristics of a harmonious, progressive work—a steady and constantly increasing light. They quote the text, however, that knowledge should be increased, but at every step of their progress, if progress it may be called, their increasing light casts into the shades of total darkness all their former light, and claims that their former progress was no progress at all. “All our former calculations,” they are obliged to confess, “were——”

I had reached this point in the foregoing article, when I was taken sick some three months since, and the article from which I was quoting, I fail now to find. But the short of the matter is, God does not contradict himself concerning the time of the advent every six months, and it is self-evident that he does not employ men to do it for him. Hence those who have set some twenty different times for the Lord to come in as many years, are not sent of God to do such a work. The Lord does not employ men to do a work which he cannot (inasmuch as it is impossible for God to lie,) do for himself.

R. F. COTTRELL.