p. 44 | Doubtings by E. GOODRICH

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 3, 1865

Doubtings.

By E. GOODRICH

WHILE there are some who seem as naturally constituted to doubt and despair as plants to absorb every other color and reflect only the green; and while there are those who are ready to swallow down every thing presented to them until their confidence is bitterly betrayed when they will run quite as far in the opposite extreme; there are others more happily disposed, whose eyes separate the light from the darkness and whose feet are almost always planted in a sure place. Nevertheless there are times when the most courageous heart is filled with terror and the stoutest faith and fall under the cross that is laid upon them.

While the light of divine truth is shining full and clear upon us and the powers of darkness are held in check, there is little danger either of stumbling, of losing our way, or of being taken captive by our enemy. But when the light becomes immediately obscured and our pathway, which up to this point was straight and plain, is lost in apparent windings, and added to all the rest, we are beset with a host of clamorous passions, 'tis then that doubts will force themselves upon us in a manner and with a power not easily resisted by the most experienced Christian.

While the evidences bearing upon any given question array themselves all on one side, speaking the same things, there is little or no fear that we shall decide wrong; but when the witnesses do not agree and the case seems equally balanced between positive assertion on the one hand, and direct testimony on the other, no one will say that it is easy to conclude concerning either doctrine or duty. At all such points as these, the probability is that we will either refuse to act at all, or else we will follow our own blind prejudices. But there never was a night so dark as to be utterly devoid of light to the healthy well-trained eye; and there never was a question so doubtful (morally speaking) as not to have a safe side to it. And whenever we have any doubts, there can be no doubt that it is our duty to always give the benefit of our doubts on the right side of the question. On the side of innocency, on the side of liberty, on the side of piety and virtue, on the side of love and humanity, and on the side of faith and hope.

Then let the rains descend upon us, let the floods come, let the winds blow and beat upon us, we are safe. And if in the end we find we were wrong in judgment, we were right in our action and no upbraidings of conscience or wailings of despair can reach us.

Would the man who is moderately sick have any doubts as to his proper course of action, if there were standing ten bottles upon one shelf all apparently alike, yet nine containing infallible remedies, and one a deadly poison? Would he hazard the one chance of being poisoned for the sake of securing the nine of being cured? Certainly not. And we may regard it as a safe rule, that it is always criminal to act on the wrong side of any question, where there is a single doubt standing against us.

And what a crowd of instances illustrative of this truth occur to our minds, as we refer to the gaming table, the grog shop, and house of ill fame, all of which places are filled with their thousands of reckless and abandoned victims, whose history of vice and crime dates back to the first misstep impeded only by a single doubt. Had they heeded this one reasonable doubt on the side of honesty, temperance and chastity, all would have been well.

But we sometimes labor under a mistake in applying this rule to the wrong side of the question. And when a truth or duty is presented we wait and wait to see all its bearings and results; and as perhaps that time never comes, we never embrace the truth or discharge the duty. But would the man lost in the woods on a dark, rainy night, if he knew, from the point at which he entered the woods and the general appearance of the land, that home was somewhere at the right of him, sit down and perish with the cold, waiting for the noonday sun to shine upon him? Would he not rather exert every nerve to find his way out, although he had nothing but some winding stream and an occasional flash of lightning to guide his weary footsteps?

And as it is with the light, so it is with the truth. Whenever it shines upon our minds we should follow it, though a thousand doubts should weigh against it. And although at times the most devout Christian has his doubts, and though even the objections urged against Christianity should be admitted, yet there is no doubt that the morals and faith of the Scriptures are sublimely superior to any thing elsewhere to be found, and that the religion of the Bible has done infinitely more to elevate and bless mankind than all the other systems of religion (both positive and negative) put together.

Hence at the very lowest point of our faith we may reasonably exclaim, "Lord I believe help thou my unbelief."