Theological Confusion by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 11, 1879

Theological Confusion.

By Editor

The Religious Herald, a Baptist paper, says:

“If you wish to see fur fly, you put a Presbyterian and a Methodist to discussing the ground on which they baptize infants. If a Methodist were to baptize a child, and give as a reason for doing so the grounds on which Episcopalians baptize their children, he would be put out by his own people.”

The Christian at Work, without denying or attempting to excuse the inconsistency, retorts as follows:—

“If you want to see more fur fly, put a close-communion and open-communion Baptist to discussing the ground on which they welcome or refuse Pedobaptists to the Lord’s table.”

The cases are not parallel. In the first, there is professed unity in the administration of what they all claim to be a Scripture ordinance; but they cannot agree on the reasons for their action, which leads legitimately to the conclusion that they lack Scripture to sustain their action. In the other case, there is an open and professed diversity of opinion, with a corresponding diversity of practice. The Christian at Work has made a lame defense, if this retort was intended as a defense.

These passes show that both papers consider that a want of unity is evidence of weakness or of error. And so it is; for the Scriptures command us to be “of one mind,” and “all speak the same thing.” If people, with the Bible in their hands, cannot agree upon the reasons of their practice, it is a virtual acknowledgement that there is no sufficient reason to be found. Now if you want to see “confusion worse confounded,” set a bevy of learned “Reverends” and “Doctors of Divinity” to telling why they keep Sunday! We read in Genesis: “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.” Considering the confusion among the Sunday advocates, is there not good and sufficient reason to label them “Babylon?” And considering the worldliness of their churches, their tendency to pride, and their questionable devices to raise money to support their costly systems of worship, we can not see any impropriety in claiming in them a fulfillment of Rev. 14:8. We expect soon to hear the call of Rev. 18:4, which will shake these worldly systems to their foundation. May the Lord guide his “little flock” in these days of peril.