p. 29 | R. F. COTTERELL by R. F. Cotterell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1879

R. F. COTTERELL

By R. F. Cotterell

Self-Deception.

It is not natural for the human heart to confess its own faults without any effort at extenuation. We feel a disposition to palliate and excuse our wrongs, and to lay the blame on others. Adam's excuse was that the woman that God gave him, gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree; she claimed that the serpent beguiled her; and from that day to this the race have been disposed to follow their example.

It is easier to confess other people's faults than our own; hence we often hear one undertake the work of confessing his faults, but before his work is half done, he begins to give extenuating reasons for his course, reasons that transfer his blame to others, and instead of frankly confessing his own sins, and lamenting over the deep depravity of his own corrupt and deceitful heart, he is found confessing the sins of others which made his own bare faced and enormous sins almost, if not quite, a matter of necessity. Of course, it was sin against a plain command of the decalogue, but then he was so beguiled and infatuated that he could hardly be said to be in his right mind.

That may be so. The apostle speaks of the “deceitfulness of sin;” and it is presumable that when one yields to temptation, it really seems to him that he will be the gainer. This is all deception; for the sinner is the loser every time. Therefore, in a sense, the sinner is not of a sound mind; and the plea of insanity, which is so often made, is not very far out of the way.

This being a known and established fact, it is not necessary to revert to it in our confessions. Better, like David in Ps. 51, confess frankly to the enormity and bloodguiltiness of our transgressions, and, with a realizing sense of our deep depravity, plead for undeserved pardon.