Religion and Charity by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 18, 1874

Religion and Charity.

By R. F. Cottrell

RELIGION, as a principle, seems to be a sense of the moral obligation which binds us in duty to God. True religion binds us to the one living and true God. Hence that which acknowledges more gods than one, we call false religion. According to an apostle of Jesus Christ, there is a “pure religion and undefiled,” hence we rightly infer that not all that is called religion, or professes to be such, is of this character, but it may be of an opposite character—impure and defiled.

Man seems disposed to have some sort of religion; but often ignores, or even rejects, the true, and embraces the false. And as it was the case in ancient times, and is now in heathen lands, that the people have worshiped many gods, and consequently their religion has been false, is it not possible that even now among the many discordant sects professing the religion of the Bible, there may be much religion that is false?

The great fundamental principle of the doctrine of the Bible is love—supreme love to God, and love to our neighbor equal to our love of ourselves. “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first and great commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12: 30, 31. The whole moral law of God, the ten commandments, depends upon, teaches, and enforces, these two great principles. “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt. 22: 40. The ten commandments teach us how to love God and our neighbor. Four of them teach our duty in reference directly to God; three are expressed negatively, forbidding other gods, the making and worshiping of images, and the taking of the name of God in vain; the fourth demands that God be positively honored by an observance of the memorial of his creative work. These are duties directly to God, and indirectly to our neighbor, as setting him an example. The other six relate to our duty directly to our neighbor, and indirectly to God; for we have the inspired decision, “That he who loveth God love his brother also.” See 1 John 4: 20, 21.

Now we may say that we love God, but this is not sufficient proof. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous.” 1 John 5: 3. But many in this our day have attempted to make their love to God excuse them from keeping his commandments. They have argued that these commandments have been superseded by the great precepts of love to God and man—precepts which they are pleased to call gospel precepts, ignoring the fact, that they are the great commandments “in the law”—so that they are no longer bound to keep the commandments, but “only to love God with all the heart.” One who was making this plea to excuse himself from keeping the commandments of God, was asked what he would do supposing his little son, instead of doing what he bid him do, should stand and say, “I love you, pa, I love you;” and he was constrained to reply “I’d whip him.”

Now, since the love of God cannot exist without a cheerful obedience to his commandments, what shall we do in the case of those who profess to love God and do not keep all his commandments? Shall we charitably (?) refrain from pointing out their error, and bid them God speed, on the ground that all will be right in the end, if the heart is only right? Would it not be better and more charitable to show them from the word of God what he requires of them as proof of their love?

“But men differ concerning what God requires in his commandments.”

Are the commandments so expressed that they necessarily and unavoidably differ as to the duties which they require? Then, truly, the fault is in the law. But what can be a greater sign of the deep depravity of the human heart than excusing our errors and disobedience by attaching the fault to the law and the blame to the Giver? It is false! it is false! Men can understand what God requires of them in the ten precepts of the decalogue, if they will try. I cannot, must not, dishonor God by admitting the contrary. “Let God be true,” though it prove “every man a liar.”

Wherever false religion exists, it demands a false charity. Those who have worshiped many gods could well afford to place their various gods upon a level. One was as good as another, since all were false; therefore they could have charity one for another. And there could be no reasonable objection to the worship of the one living and true God. And there would be none, but for the uncharitable exclusiveness of this religion—a religion that assumes that it alone is right, and, as a consequence, that all others are wrong. On account of this uncharitable, bigoted, fanatical exclusiveness, the worshipers of a plurality of gods have always had a pique against those who will admit but one God, and have thought that if they could only rid the earth of these, peace, harmony, and charity, would prevail in all the world. Hence the persecutions; not because there were too many gods and too many religions, but because of the uncharitableness and exclusiveness of one which assumes alone to be right, and, in so doing, condemns all the rest.

There are errors in the Christian world to-day. Where theories conflict and practices contradict, all cannot be true. But, after centuries of disputation and disunion, there seems to be a tendency to union; not a union effected by abandoning errors and embracing the truth, but by an expanded charity that puts truth and error upon a level—a union upon the doctrine that it makes no difference what one’s faith and practice is, in matters of worship, only if he is not exclusive and uncharitable. And this union, it is thought, will soon introduce the fancied millennium, when all the world will be converted to the pure and undefiled religion of Jesus Christ.

The character of this union may be inferred from the following quotation from the American Messenger. In the conclusion of an article upon “the great and bright revival movement in Scotland,” the writer says, “The extent to which ‘brethren’ now ‘dwell together in unity’ was also adverted to, and should not be overlooked. ‘At the meetings,’ said one of the speakers, ‘no one could tell, from the language of any present, to what particular branch of the church universal each belonged, so completely had all come together in the love of Christ, the ‘unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace.’”

Such a union of discordant sects—ignoring their differences, and putting truth and error upon the same level is hailed as the harbinger of good to the world. But when such a union becomes well established, woe to the exclusive and uncharitable wretch who stands firmly upon Bible truth! It is a union, it is thought, upon the great essentials, that is, upon the points wherein the mass agree; but this makes the distinctive doctrines and practices of the church, as taught in the Scriptures, non-essential. In such a union one may be immersed, sprinkled, or poured, as baptism, or not be baptized at all, and it is all the same, if his conscience is only satisfied; making the conscience of each individual the judge of duty, instead of being ruled by the word of God. And concerning the Sabbath, he may hold the commandment binding, the requiring observance of a particular day, or that it is abolished and that there is no sacred time; that a particular day, the first day of the week, is the Sabbath, or that only a seventh part of time or one day in seven is all that is required—that every day is the Sabbath, or that no day is the Sabbath—provided he conforms to the fashionable observance of the first day of the week; or, perhaps he might be allowed to keep the seventh day—the day mentioned in the commandment—provided he claims no pre-eminence for that day, but places it on a level with all other days, especially the first day of the week. But all faithful and persistent adherence to what God has said is ruled out of such a union as exclusiveness. If one insists that what God has said is superior to all that men have substituted in its place, he has no place in such a union, but is a fit subject of proscription and persecution. And this liberal union, and this broad charity, which ignores the word of God, is expected to be the basis of the millennium!

How much better to come back to the word of God and unite upon the truth.

R. F. COTTRELL.