Affirming and Repudiating
It is always necessary to affirm the truth. It is sometimes necessary to repudiate specific errors. Under certain circumstances it is just as necessary to repudiate specific errors as it is to affirm the truth. We are in a time when subtle sophistries are assuming the garb and the vocabulary of truth, and some minds are confused by mere forms and sounds. It thus becomes necessary to go beneath the surface, and to call things by their right names, in order that the people may not be deceived. In such a situation as this, when we are facing the deceptive working of the enemy, and when the direct issue between the truth and a perversion of the truth has been plainly joined, it is not possible for a faithful representative of this advent message to do his whole duty without repudiating in the most unmistakable manner all that body of teaching which rests upon scientific reasoning rather than upon the revelation made in the Word of God. Satan is just the same Satan even after he has transformed himself into an angel of light. A falsehood is just the same falsehood even after it has been woven in with some truth. We are to be governed by principles, rather than by names. It is useless to inveigh against the beast and his image, and to wink at the same evil principles masquerading under the profession of Protestantism. It is foolish to cry out against the scientific infidelity of Huxley and Spencer, and at the same time utter no word of condemnation against the teachings of the disciples of these men. It sometimes seems to be easier to detect and to denounce departures from the truth in some persons than to repudiate the same errors in other persons. We ought, however, to be governed by principles rather than by circumstances. Our teaching ought not to be merely negative,—simply denying certain things,—but our affirmative teaching ought now to include the repudiation of all that system of doctrine which is seeking the overthrow of the true gospel. The distinct issue is now becoming very clear.