AN OVERSIGHT by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 18, 1901

AN OVERSIGHT

By Editor

Sometime in March, the REVIEW, in commenting upon an article, in the Examiner, had occasion to speak of Christian Sabbath-keepers, or Christians who are observers of the seventh day, and made the assertion that “the Seventh-day Baptists and the Seventh-day Adventists are the only Christian denominations that are keeping the seventh-day Sabbath.” But there is another body of Christians, having an organized existence in the United States, who, as far as we know, are as zealous Sabbath-keepers as ourselves. They take the name “Church of God,” have maintained a separate existence for many years, and publish a paper, the Bible Advocate, which circulates in about thirty-eight States of the Union, and has exerted no little influence in behalf of the seventh day. The center of their present operations is Stanberry, Mo.

The one who wrote the item referred to is now absent in a distant part of the country; and we venture to presume that the failure to mention the Church of God as included among Christian Sabbath-keepers was an oversight of hasty manuscript; or it may be that the people named were considered an offshoot of Seventh-day Adventists and so nearly allied to them that a separate mention of them would hardly be necessary. But however that may have been, we can assure our “Church of God” brethren that the REVIEW has no disposition to judge them or to ignore them as Christians, or throw an obstacle in the way of their making known their views as far as they are willing to sacrifice time and money to extend them, or can find those who wish to hear them. True, the Church of God have departed from some views which we hold to be the molding truths for the present day, and which we esteem to be very precious; such as, the three messages of Revelation 14, and the sanctuary question, which is the center and citadel of most important truths for this time. They also reject the Spirit of Prophecy, and entertain some views of the future regarding the return of the Jews and the age to come which seem to us misleading and deceptive. But they have as much right to their views as we have to ours. We shall all be tested at last by a higher standard than our creeds or opinions of one another. “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth.” Rom. 14:4. Why should any feelings exist other than those of the most kind and friendly nature between those who are trying to keep the law of God, or between those who in any place “call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours” (1 Cor. 7:2), with a desire to know Him and walk in His ways? We hold that there should not be.