The Cause by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Sep 21, 1876

The Cause.

By James White

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS have a specific message and work, hence, when we speak of “the cause,” we have no reference to any of the operations of the Methodists, Baptists, or of any other denomination. God has given us our work in a special message, in which people of other orders cannot fully and freely unite, without changing their views on several points, especially on the practical doctrine of the Sabbath. And it is as difficult for us to unite with them, with our present convictions of truth and duty.

We hope, therefore, not to be charged with exclusiveness as a matter of choice on our part, or from bigotry, or from any other reason, while we confine ourselves faithfully to the work God has given us to do, and do not seek to embarrass others and ourselves with a union with other denominations, which, from the very nature of the case, cannot benefit either of the parties.

Seventh-day Adventists do not colonize. Where God calls them, there they remain, to let their light shine, and to develop all those characteristics which make up the decided, active, devoted, philanthropic Christian. “I pray not,” says the dear Saviour, “that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” Here is the strongest test of Christian character, to abide where God calls one in the world, may be alone, without the sympathy of one of like precious faith, and yet stand free in Christ, separated in spirit from the evils of the world.

“Ye are the light of the world,” says Christ. “A city set on an hill cannot be hid.” To colonize would seem like taking our light from every hill-top, and going down in a huddle in the valley, and hiding our light under a bushel. No, let our people remain in the communities where God has called them, as a rule, and let the moving and shifting about be the exception. But in their scattered condition, our people who live at a distance from any organized church should not be excused from bearing burdens in the great work.

Our churches have many local expenses and burdens to bear which scattered brethren know nothing of. And when it comes to the support of the general cause, in justice the scattered ones should do more liberally, as they are released from many local burdens. And yet there are hundreds of scattered ones, who have no house of worship to build and no meetings to support, who neglect to pay into the treasury a tithe even of their increase.

Many of these are local in their feelings. They might do something to sustain the cause in their immediate neighborhood, but have no special interest in the general cause. And these will frequently give of their means to help sustain other denominations the leaders of which would rejoice to see our cause come to nought for want of support.

It can be hardly expected that all those who commit themselves on the doctrines held by our people will at once feel all that interest to build up the one great cause which the old friends of the cause do. But it is reasonable, to say the least, to expect of those who come out from others, the long distance necessary to be a Seventh-day Adventist, that they will, when fully established, give their influence, and of their means to support the cause. If God has given our people a special message and work, every true man and woman among us will feel bound by obligations the most solemn and sacred to help sustain the God-given work.

We are entering upon times of tremendous moment. God in his providence is trying to teach our people great things. Men and demons have tried in every way to hinder the work; but God is teaching us that he is willing to work mightily for us, and that he will work in his own way. Nothing has grieved his Spirit, and hindered the work as much as that unbelief which questions every advance, and frequently ripens into jealousy and downright hatred toward those who labor to advance and build up the cause.

We were sorry to see something of this spirit in the Missouri Conference. And we regard the call of the President of that Conference for a day of fasting and prayer most appropriate. One of the reasons stated for the day of fasting was the fact that success had not attended tent labor the present season as formerly. We hope that dear people will turn fully to the Lord, and that all ambition as to who shall be the greatest will be put from them. And on their day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, let them bear in mind that the cause of present truth is ordained of God; that he chooses his own instruments, and that he will have his own way in the advancement of his own cause.

Wherever this spirit of blind and stubborn unbelief has been cherished, whether on the Atlantic, in the interior, or on the Pacific, it is there that the cause has come to almost a complete standstill, until it should be removed. While in those Conferences where it does not exist, there God is showing his approval of that consistent confidence which rests upon evidence, by giving his free Spirit to his servants, and causes success in the rapid advancement of his cause.

There are reasons why the cause has prospered in Michigan. About one-third of our denominational strength has been in the Peninsular State for the past fifteen years. We expect to meet 2,000 staunch friends of the cause at their camp-meeting the 19th to 26th. God bless our dear people in Michigan. They have ever stood united and firm, ready to receive the testimony of those whom God sent to them with the message of truth.

We would say to those who attribute the strength of the cause in Michigan to the labors of able ministers belonging to that Conference, that noble Michigan has for the past ten or fifteen years consented that her able ministers should labor out of the State. Eld. Loughborough has been in California more than eight years. Eld. Waggoner has labored in Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Maine, California, and Oregon. Eld. Cornell’s best labors have been in Ohio, Iowa, New York, Massachusetts, and Maine. Eld. Lawrence has labored in Ohio and Missouri. Eld. Canright in Iowa, Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Colorado, California, New York, and some in several other States. Eld. Van Horn has labored in Ohio, Minnesota, Washington Ter., California, and Oregon. And the brothers Lane both went out of Michigan to labor before they were ordained, and are now laboring, one in Indiana, the other in Virginia. And during this whole period of her great prosperity Michigan has had but little more than the labors of father Bates and father Byington and a few licensed youths.

Happy Michigan, standing in unity, confiding in the judgment and fully accepting the labors of those who have been connected with the cause from the very first, with the blessing of God, could afford to let her ablest and most experienced ministers go to other fields, and annually put $1,000 into the General Conference treasury towards the support of her true sons who were going out into all the world to preach the gospel of the last message. The good brethren in Michigan have been willing that the Lord should have his own way. And they have not stood in the way of those whom God has sent to teach them the way of life. And that strong people are now reaping the fruits of a consistent, confiding faith in those whom God chose to use to carry forward the last message.

The providence of God is calling his people out before the world, and pressing home to the minds and hearts of those among us who can discern the signs of this time the fact that the Lord will go out with us to battle. Our recent camp-meeting at Groveland, Mass., in some respects was the most remarkable of any held by us the past ten years.

Unity prevailed throughout the entire camp, business meetings moved off with a spirit of good cheer, the social religious services were excellent, and those who labored in word and doctrine enjoyed freedom and power to hold the vast assembly. Our people generally have a very limited idea of the great work to be accomplished by the last message, and, as a consequence, they are almost certain to fall behind the providence of God in their views, feelings, and efforts. A consistent faith would lead them out of the narrowness into which they are inclined to run, and would arouse them from the state of slumber into which they unconsciously fall. But unbelief and the spirit of the world stupefy, hold back from proper advance, and belittle the great cause in the eyes of many who should be fellow-helpers in the cause of truth.

The early apostles talked and acted as if the gospel of the Son of God was the biggest thing in their day. They saw this matter as it was. They viewed their message and work in a correct light. They were not extremists. They viewed truth and duty in a proper light. The gospel of Christ with its crosses and persecutions kept them from the insanity of the world, and made them act like sensible men.

The great battle for our people is to resist the stupefying influence of the world, and keep awake to the duties and dangers of our time. If the message we teach be the truth of God, for greatness and importance it is incomparable with any subject or interest that can occupy the human mind. If our cause be not the cause of God it should be at once abandoned. But if we are forced by evidence to embrace it as the cause of God, it should have the largest place in our affections, in our efforts, and in our expenditures of the means which Providence has placed at our command. J. W.