p. 12 | Nothing to Say by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Mar 30, 1911

Nothing to Say

By F. M. W.

TIME was when the doctrines held and advocated by Seventh-day Adventists were made the object of many bitter attacks from both press and pulpit. Many religious teachers fondly hoped that by Scriptural proof they could overthrow what they considered very unscriptural doctrines. However, there has come a change of late. Many are coming to realize that the views held by this people have a firm foundation in the Scriptures of truth, and that they can not be set aside by the same authority to which they plainly appeal for confirmation.

A writer in the Way of Faith of Jan. 26, 1911, refers to this, and asks why it is that such religionists as the “Plymouth Brethren people, Annihilationists, and Seventh-day Adventists,” should be let alone to propagate their heresy on the doctrine of conditional immortality. He says:—

Strange to say, this dreary and hurtful heresy receives scant notice from preachers, whose business it is to banish all strange and erroneous doctrines from the land.

The World’s Crisis of March 1, in quoting the above criticism, justly comments as follows:—

The fact is, many preachers and Bible scholars who have examined those doctrines with the intent to refute them, as the result of such examination, like honest men, were compelled to embrace them. Others, less bold, and less ardent in search for truth, have concluded that “discretion is the better part of valor,” and are quite willing to allow conditional immortality to be presented to the people—realizing their own inability to meet that subject.

In speaking of the claims of inherent immortality, the editor of the Crisis concludes:—

Inherent immortality is simply taken for granted. Its premises are assumed; consequently its apologists can not feel sure of their position; hence they lack boldness in its defense. Those who have measured arguments against the Bible teachings of immortality through Christ and the resurrection, many of them, realize full well the weakness of their own cause.

Truth is never injured by investigation. The more it is assailed, the more its foundations are examined, the clearer grow its outlines. The Word of God is a Gibraltar of strength amid the sophistry of these last days.

F. M. W.