p. 93 | Who Shall Judge ? by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 3, 1874

Who Shall Judge ?

By R. F. Cottrell

The Lord instructs his people to be circumspect in all that he commands. Who shall say that some things which he requires are of little or no importance? Yet many, professing to be loyal to the King of Heaven, treat his word in this way. And it always happens that those things they are disposed to do are, in their estimation, important; but those things they are inclined to neglect they esteem of little or no importance.

Baptists are astonished at those who can profess the Christian name, and yet neglect to obey Christ in the institution of baptism, a duty so plainly taught in the Scriptures. But at the same time they can neglect and evade the fourth commandment of the decalogue in the same manner in which Pedo-Baptists do immersion, by something else substituted for that which is commanded, and feel easy. With them baptism, precisely as it is taught in the Scriptures, is essential and highly important. They deny the right of men to substitute sprinkling for immersion. They appeal to what is written by inspiration on the subject. But they can accept a man-made change of the Sabbath, calling a day by that sacred title that God never rested on, blest, nor sanctified, and trample the day that God claims as his rest-day, because he rested on it, under their feet, profaning that which God has sanctified and blest, and giving its title and honor to another day, one that God never bade us esteem as sacred to him.

So much by way of illustration; now let us make the application. As a people, we claim to have a special message, and, as a consequence, special light and guidance, which is taught and promised in the word of God. We have been enlightened both in regard to moral and physical law. We have been taught how to care for our bodily health so that we might have sound minds in sound bodies, and prepare ourselves for the trying times which lie between us and the coming of the Lord. We acknowledge the health reform to be important. But there are many particulars embraced in this subject, and each one thinks that some of these particulars are important, and therefore reduces them to practice, while other particulars, as plainly expressed, are not heeded. These are made non-essential. Now when we discriminate and judge between two things taught by the Spirit of God, accepting the one and neglecting the other, do we not follow our own light, and not the illumination of the Spirit? We do the one because we think it best; we neglect the other because we do not deem it important. In all this we have followed our own mind—we have been guided by ourselves. Wherein have we obeyed God?—what have we done, with the sole intention of yielding to his superior wisdom? In this course, have we not taken our own counsel?

While the Lord requires circumspection in all he has taught, who shall judge which should be accepted, and which rejected?

R. F. COTTRELL.