p. 68 | REMARKS ON THE ABOVE by R. F. COTTRELL

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 11, 1873

REMARKS ON THE ABOVE.

By R. F. COTTRELL

The superficial reader might be led to think that Mr. Davenport was really an Adventist—a believer that the Son of man was really about to come. But after stating that the words of our Saviour in the text refer “to events that would occur at the time of his second advent,” he begins to talk of “a great catastrophe coming upon human society,” and says that “this catastrophe is in the nature of a judgment.” Why not say that “As in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and TOOK THEM ALL AWAY: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be”? The nature of the judgment is that it sweeps the world of the entire host of the ungodly. It is “a painful fact that the majority of men, even those who profess and call themselves Christians, will not receive the literal truth of these sayings.” But though they see the literal signs of the coming of Christ as predicted by himself, and witness literal judgments in all the earth—the harbingers and heralds of the great day of wrath, yet, when they come to speak of the coming of the Son of man itself, instead of admitting that what is said is meant, they will say with Mr. Davenport, that, “It is the introduction of a number of things, and must of necessity involve great and important changes,” &c., and then perhaps speak of the “removal of all things that hinder its progress,” as though the event was even now in process of coming, but some things were hindering its progress.

Well, what hinders its progress? Christendom “has departed from God.” Who is Christendom? Not the churches, by any means, whose love has grown cold, and who, while retaining the form, deny the power of godliness, Matt. 24:12; 2 Tim. 3:1–5, but “Christian nations.” What is wrong with Christian nations? how is it that they are “in revolt against God”? The prominent thing is “in the matter of legislation,” “the laws the world over are not such as God approves.” This “stands in the way of the fulfillment of God’s purpose to bring in the kingdom of his Son, and it must be done away.” Right legislation, then, will usher in the event! What laws shall we have? God and Christ must be acknowledged in the Constitution, and the “Christian Sabbath”—a man-made institution which subverts and tramples under foot one of the commandments of the decalogue, must have a law to enforce its observance. Is this the kind of legislation you would have to bring the coming of the Son of man and establish his kingdom? Well, what is the greatest obstacle in the way? “The wide-spread influence of materialism and the doctrine of annihilation.” This he deems “the most effective of any delusion to destroy piety and render religion impossible.” To whom does the speaker refer? To Adventists—to those who have been for a quarter of a century preaching from the prophecies the coming of Christ at hand. In the estimation of the speaker, they are in a worse delusion than the devotees of spiritualism, led by the host of demons, professing to be the spirits of the dead, into free-loveism and every abomination and violation of the law of God.

THE LAW OF GOD, the ten commandments, the Sabbath of this law, is what Seventh-day Adventists, as well as Seventh-day Baptists, are teaching. And while they call upon all, professors and non-professors, to revere the law of God and his Sabbath, which they are trampling under foot, the advocates of the papal Sabbath, which has usurped its place, are calling upon Christian nations to make laws for the enforcement of this counterfeit and usurper. And these human laws, to enforce human institutions to the subversion of what God has commanded, are the very things that are wanted to bring the coming of the Son of man, and establish his kingdom!!!

It would seem, then, that there are two classes, at least, of Adventists. One class are teaching that men should repent of their violations of the law of God, reform their lives, and thus get ready for the personal coming of Jesus; the other, are for enforcing, by national legislation, the very institutions which make void that law, and this for the very purpose of bringing in an imaginary kingdom, which will, as they imagine, preclude the possibility of the real coming of Jesus for at least a thousand years. Many of them think it a valid excuse for not keeping the Lord’s Sabbath, that it is not commanded a second time in the New Testament; and this furnishes them a good reason for keeping a day which, as they are obliged to admit, is not commanded either in the Old or the New. A greater number hold that the law of God cannot bind men to the observance of any particular day; while they are designing, by State legislation, to do this very thing, compelling uniformity, a thing which is truly desirable, and thus supplying a glaring deficiency in the law of God, as expounded by themselves.

“What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense, or in truth, Christ and his coming are preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” See Phil. 1:15–18.

R. F. COTTRELL.