Precipitation by Cecil

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 9, 1872

Precipitation.

By Cecil

Precipitation is acting without sufficient grounds of action. Youth is the peculiar season of precipitation; the young man’s motto is “Onward!” There is no such effectual cure of this evil as experience, when a man is made to feel the effects of his precipitation, both in body and mind; and God alone can thus bring a man acquainted with himself. There is a self-blindness in precipitation; a precipitate man is at the time a blind man. “That be far from thee,” said St. Peter, “this shall not happen to thee!” “As the Lord liveth,” said David, “the man that hath done this thing shall surely die.”

There is great criminality in precipitation. A man under its influence is continually tempted to take God’s work out of his hands. It is not a state of dependence. It betrays want of patience with respect to God, and want of faith. “I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul.” It discovers a want of charity; in a rash moment we may do an injury to our neighbor which we can never repair.

There are few who do not feel that they are suffering through life the effects of their own precipitation. “He, then, that trusteth his own heart is a fool.” In precipitate moments we should learn to say, “I am not now the man to give an opinion, or to take a single step.”—Cecil.