LIBERTY by Dudley Marvin Canright

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 6, 1868

LIBERTY

By Dudley Marvin Canright

This age boasts of its liberty, and the American people, above all others, boast of their liberty. This is a natural result of causes. One extreme always follows another. The Americans have come from the iron rule and despotism of Europe. Here they have obtained their freedom, and it has nearly intoxicated some. They think that freedom means liberty to do as they please in everything.

The same spirit has been partaken of largely by different religious classes. As they have come out of different creed-bound churches, and obtained their liberty, they have carried their ideas of freedom to an unreasonable and unscriptural length. There are no bounds to their ideas of religious freedom. They are “God’s free men,” and no man has a right to dictate to them. All restraint, all authority, all subordination, and all rules, are “bondage” to them, a yoke which they cannot bear. Neither ministers, nor elders, nor deacons, nor church authority, are entitled to reverence from them. Their notions and whims and fanatical ideas are of more consequence than all the faith, experience, and judgment of the whole church.

Such ideas as these are peculiarly prominent among certain classes of Adventists. Its effect has been lamentable. It has nearly demoralized them. They find themselves, as a body, almost entirely unmanageable. What Paul reproved in the disorderly Corinthians, is equally true and equally merits reproof in them. “When ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation.” “Let all things be done decently, and in order.” 1 Cor. xiv, 26, 40. Let us cherish and promote order, and the means which God is using to secure this in his church. It is one of the greatest blessings which God has granted to the church in these perilous times.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

Amherst, N. H., Sept. 15, 1868.