Essentials and Non-Essentials.
By R. F. Cottrell
THE leading argument, put forth in an effort against the light on the Sabbath, at Bronte, C. W., recently referred to in the Review, was that it was not essential to salvation whether we keep the Sabbath "according to the commandment" or not. Of course, the speaker did not express it in precisely this language; but the argument had no force nor meaning, if this was not the conclusion to which he designed to lead his hearers. My reply was, "Preach the word;" that word which was all given by inspiration, and is all "profitable," and consequently has no non-essentials in it, and which thoroughly furnishes the man of God unto "all good works," hence, those are not good works that are not in accordance with this word. All that is revealed is essential, the non-essentials are all left out. But supposing a portion of what God has commanded, is not essential, or, in other words, men may be saved without obedience, (which is absurd,) and supposing the author of the word had given us notice what those parts were which might be disobeyed with impunity, what man would be mean enough to want to enter the city of God, doing just as little as he could in the service of the Lord and be saved, and committing every transgression possible and escape damnation? What honest, whole-souled man would want to enter the kingdom knowing that it would be stocked with a race of such ungrateful niggardly cravens? For my part, I hope for better company, if ever I join the host of the redeemed. Only think of an ambassador of Christ—a minister whose imperious duty it is to preach the word—standing up before a congregation and talking of some things not being essential to salvation, as his first, (if not his best) argument to evade the simple and plainly revealed truth of the fourth commandment. He did indeed adduce another argument, which perhaps he considered stronger still, namely, that it is utterly impossible to ascertain which the original seventh day of the week is, from the fact that the rulers of the Roman empire, in the dark ages of the Christian era, changed the reckoning of time; alluding to the introduction of the New Style. But before he got through, he asserted that the Christians had really kept the first day of85the week, from the time of Christ's resurrection to the present! But the reason why so many non-essentials in religion exist, is because we cannot understand the requirements of God alike. If we cannot understand them alike, of course we shall not practice alike, and who is to blame? Not the man that cannot understand, of course. How inconsistent then the exhortation of Paul! "Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment." To speak without irony, the stubborn will of man creates these impossibilities, and causes the demand for all these non-essentials. Next comes the demand for a liberal extension of Christian fellowship, just wide enough to cover all those in like case—not able to ascertain the will of God concerning their duty, and consequently practicing some, and neglecting others of these necessarily resulting non-essentials. One is as deep in the mud as the other, and there must be a spirit of toleration and charity toward all that have the form of godliness, at least to all those we are pleased to call evangelical and orthodox. But woe to those that would disturb this tranquil state of things by preaching the word and insisting that men should, to use the words of our friend in Canada, "come to the very letter."