CUMULATIVE ARGUMENT by Roswell F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 31, 1868

CUMULATIVE ARGUMENT.

By Roswell F. Cottrell

A RECENT writer, in a long-winded argument for the first-day Sabbath, said that his argument was cumulative, each point strengthening the other; and then went on with a false statement respecting a revealed fact, basing a probability upon this, and then appealing to the practice of the heathen who had departed from God into idolatry, to complete the argument and prove the testimony of the fourth commandment to be false.

This has led me to some reflections. Truth is ready made and easily stated by those who choose to accept of it. It depends upon proofs—direct revelations from God—and not upon probabilities that contradict the word of God. If we are asked why we observe the seventh day, we can give our reasons in a nutshell; reasons that will carry conviction to the heart, morally, as the little minie ball finds its way to the heart, physically. God commanded the keeping of the seventh day; every reason that existed for its institution, still exists for its continuance; and he has never taken back the command, nor changed the day.

We once heard a man try to prove that the Sabbath commandment was abolished; and he proposed to make it appear by establishing the truth of nine propositions. Had he had Bible proof of one proposition, namely, that God had abolished the Sabbath, the other eight need not have been called up. But his argument was cumulative. He must bewilder the minds of his hearers by leading them through long labyrinths of thought, so as to enable him to step by the only proof that was needed unperceived.

One of our ministers lately gave a good illustration of the cumulative argument in favor of Sunday, drawn from the eight texts that speak of the first day in the New Testament. He examined these texts one by one, showing that not one of them proved the first day to be the Sabbath, but most of them proved the direct converse of the proposition. As he was lecturing in a school-house, the black-board being behind him and the chalk lying by, as he showed each separate text amounted to nothing in favor of the first day, he made a cypher on the board to keep it in memory, till he had eight cyphers standing in a column. Then to test the combined strength of this argument which is cumulative, not depending on any one text, but upon the eight combined, he asked his hearers to add up that column of cyphers, and find what the whole amounted to.

One proof to the point is better than a dozen that say nothing to the question. One direct statement of the word of God will outweigh, with the unprejudiced seeker for truth, the longest chain of manufactured probabilities that the champions of error can forge.

R. F. COTTRELL.