What Shall We Do? by R. F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 23, 1875

What Shall We Do?

By R. F. Cottrell

THERE is but one safe and reasonable answer, and that is, “Go forward.” It is too late to recall the profession that S. D. Adventists have made before many witnesses. To go back, there is nothing to go to; to branch off, is the inevitable way to ruin, as it has hitherto proved. The Lord has put this work in motion, and has set his seal to it. And to us who have seen and acknowledged this truth there is no honorable retreat, unless we turn square about, and assert, and prove, that the whole thing is a delusion and a fraud.

But if we accept of God’s word as describing beforehand the movements and issues of the present times, and admit his providence in fulfilling his word of promise, we can come to no other conclusion than that the time has come when the last effort to crush the truth of God and banish it from the earth is impending, and that the final warning is already being given. This being so, the work will not fail of accomplishing the design for which God has sent it; nor will it revolutionize in its course. And as the train of truth passes over the road but once, no branch tracks have been laid by sovereign Wisdom, and, consequently, the laying of them is the work of the enemy to turn men out of the way, and plunge them into perdition.

Get a strong hold upon the help handed down from above, and hold on. Selfishness, the parent sin, must die out of our hearts. Trials and sifting are before us. Who will be faithful, and get the final victory over sin? And how shall we get this victory, unless it is by pressing together and pressing forward? The great salvation set before us is worth striving for, is worth dying for. Death to self and to sin is what is demanded. R. F. Cottrell.