FALSE CHURCH LOGIC by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 15, 1880

FALSE CHURCH LOGIC.

By James White

It is a rule of grammar that two negatives, in certain positions, are equivalent to an affirmative. We believe it has never been fully decided that, in morals, or in religion, two errors make one truth, or two wrongs make one right. But the tendency is decidedly in the direction toward such a conclusion, and already some teachers are using it as a basis of argument.

Several years since a Methodist minister in Wisconsin made a discourse against baptism. After saying that the Baptists objected to infant baptism on the ground that it is not commanded in the Bible, he added: "The same may be said in regard to the Sabbath. There is not, from Genesis to Revelation, any command to observe the first day of the week, and yet we do it."

He did not attempt to prove that his own position was scriptural, but justified himself on the ground that the Baptist position on another point, is unscriptural!

Another case is found in a tract of the Presbyterian Board, in favor of Sunday keeping. It says: "Doubts on this subject are of very recent origin. They date no further back than the ages subsequent to the Reformation; and then they arose chiefly among the same people who denied, because there is no command in the New Testament enjoining it, the propriety of infant baptism."

So that case is settled! It is quite sufficient to destroy the force of an argument, to show that it was raised by some body who insisted on Scripture warrant. Sunday is the Sabbath. Why? Because it is opposed by some who oppose infant baptism. There is church logic.

We have a more recent case before us. The Christian at Work has had some passes with the Examiner and Chronicle on infant baptism, and the former thus settles the question against the position of the latter, and against accepting the Scriptures according to their literal reading:—

"On one occasion Christ took water and washed his disciples' feet, and then came his command: 'If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.' But the Examiner does not hold to Scriptural feet-washing, although the command is every way as explicit as that touching baptism;—Christ gives both the command and assigns the reason. If we are undeviatingly to follow the gospel of literalness there is but one thing to do,—the clergy should wash the feet of believers—there is no escape from the conclusion—and in fact this gospel of literalness 'accepts a principle that has no logical stopping place short of Rome,' evidenced by the fact that the Pope resorts to this pedal ablution every year in the Vatican."

It is a little at fault in this statement. The requirement of the Saviour is to "wash one another's feet," which is not complied with by the clergy washing the feet of believers. The duty is mutual. The pope only pretends to wash the feet of his cardinals, and in his dainty application of a little water to the feet of his dignitaries, comes about as near to the divine requirement as a Protestant minister, who dips the tips of his fingers in water and touches them to the head of an infant, comes to the administration of gospel baptism. There is no washing, neither is there any action of "one another."

Now if "Christ gives both the command, and assigns the reason," is it enough to set these aside to show that somebody else does not follow the command nor respect the reason? Or, is the fact that somebody sets aside this command and reason, a warrant for somebody else to set aside another command and reason? The Pedo-Baptists need not observe baptism just as it is required in the New Testament. Why? Because the Baptists do not obey the Saviour's command to wash one another's feet!

We grant that in these cases a dilemma is forced upon the opponents; but does it not show that their consciences are rather loose on the hinges, when they justify their own neglects by the dilemmas of their opponents? Better to take the Saviour's words and follow them whether others will hear or forbear.

J. W.