LIBERALITY by Roswell F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 10, 1879

LIBERALITY

By Roswell F. Cottrell

LIBERALITY is a good thing, especially when exercised in the use of that which we may claim as our own; but we are often inclined to be more liberal with others' goods than with our own.

Sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness have prevailed to such a degree that a reaction has set in, and many now pride themselves upon their extreme liberality. It is well to cherish the spirit of liberality, and to extend our sympathies and good wishes to those not of our creed, even if we have to yield that which costs us a struggle; but liberality in some seems to consist in leveling all distinction between truth and error, and fellowshipping all conflicting creeds, and making divine truth of little importance. In other words, the truth of God is yielded for the sake of union. They are liberal to the extent that they will waive what they know to be the divine requirement; and this they esteem a real virtue. This I call a liberality with things which belong to God, and not to themselves.

To make myself better understood, I use the following illustration: A Baptist minister, conversing with some of his friends, to evince his liberality of sentiment and feeling, stated that he had acted as pastor of a Congregational church for a year, and enjoyed the best of feeling. Said he, “I loved those brethren, and our hearts seemed knit together, so that I felt loth to part with them. Of course,” said he, “I did not teach them my views of baptism. They knew my views, but I did not urge them upon them.” This is the tenor of the conversation.

Now that man, being a Baptist, and being professedly acting under the apostolic commission to teach all nations and baptize, spent a whole year in teaching a congregation of unbaptized persons, according to the best of his knowledge and belief, and never once presented this duty to them.

This looks like being liberal in that which was not his own. What right had he to rob God by suppressing his truth, and defraud men by keeping back a portion of the truth which it was their interest to know and obey.

This is a sample of modern liberality,—a liberality which places the truth of God upon a level with the doctrines and commandments of men. And this is the basis of the modern idea of Christian union. If they would propose a union by renouncing their errors, giving up that which is decidedly the property of sinful humanity, and holding to all that which the word of God plainly enjoins, that would be a union that would please God. Then would the church all “speak the same thing,” and there would be “no division” among them. They would be liberal of that which is their own, and not of that which belongs to God.

But we are told that men do not see things alike. That to one the Bible teaches immersion, to another sprinkling, to another pouring. To one it teaches a seventh-day Sabbath, to another a first-day Sabbath. If this is so, the fault is in the Bible, and it were better to throw it away; and this they virtually do, when they propose a union which ignores its teachings, putting no difference between truth and error—between the commandments of God and the doctrines of men. R. F. COTTRELL.