p. 197 | Which Should Come by Roswell F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 3, 1873

“Which Should Come.”

By Roswell F. Cottrell

“I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.”

Martha believed present truth. She believed that the Christ that had been promised had come, and that Jesus was the person. The Jews of that time, whom we now call unbelieving, would have claimed to believe the promises of a Christ to come. They would have been offended, had they been charged with unbelief. Their language would doubtless have been, “We believe in the promised Christ as much as any one; but we have some unanswerable objections to the claims of Jesus, the Nazarene. The Christ should come from Bethlehem, and not from Nazareth; and he should appear in a different way altogether.”

Certain things have come in our own day, claiming to be the promised heralds of the second advent. They were promised, and they are here. To accept and embrace them is to believe present truth. But there are thousands bearing the Christian name who see no necessity of taking any position in regard to these things. They tell us they believe the prophecies as strongly as we do. They believe in the second coming of Christ, and some of them say it is near; yes, that it may come immediately. They do not see that such a faith is absurd. The warnings promised must come before the event. But while they have no faith in the warnings that are being given, still they say the event may be at hand. Is this faith in prophecy?! Faith must have a position. The second advent is being heralded in the promised way, or it is not. If it is not, the advent is not so near. If it is, it is present truth and demands our belief. The want of a position denotes unbelief.

R. F. COTTRELL.