p. 189 | Revival of Religion by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 16, 1865

“Revival of Religion.”

By R. F. Cottrell

SIGNS OF THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD.

IN the Sabbath Recorder of Apr. 13, under the caption of The Good Time Coming, is an extract of a discourse, from which is taken the following language: “We are witnessing the grandest revival of religion since Luther hurled his thunderbolts against the Vatican. The demon of treason, through red-handed war, has evoked forces for good, and organized charities, which otherwise might have slumbered for centuries. It has aroused a nation, well nigh dead with indifference to the claims of humanity. Thousands who had connived at the wrongs done the black man, now shout, ‘Down with the oppressor! The negro is a man, and he shall have all the rights of a man.’”

That thousands of such conversions have taken place is evident. The means by which these remarkable conversions have been accomplished is also fairly set forth. It is the “demon of treason” that has evoked these forces for good. Had not this demon turned revivalist, the world “might have slumbered for centuries” without seeing this, “the grandest revival of religion” since the days of Luther.

It has been formerly taught that the “glorious fullness of the gospel dispensation,” of which my friend speaks, was to be the result of the preaching of the “gospel of peace,” which would cause the nations to learn war no more. But there being no signs of the world's conversion by this means, and seeing that war converts men much faster, it is natural for those who will have this fable to be the truth, to look to other means to accomplish so desired and desirable an end.

But it is well to inquire whether men are made better by being converted, or whether they become tenfold more the child of hell than those who converted them. If the latter should be the case when the “demon of treason” is the preacher by whose means they are converted, the case is bad enough truly. In all candor I ask, Is true religion, living piety and godliness, increasing in our land? Is it not rather a fact, that political excitement, the spirit of war, and an increasing, sordid avariciousness, have taken possession of the minds of the people, to the almost utter exclusion of all religious sentiment? Are not the people sinking lower and lower in the scale of morality?

The church ought to take the lead in reformatory movements, taking a stand upon high and holy principles. But how has it been? Is it not a fact, that the American churches have been “the bulwark of American slavery,” as some in high standing have declared! Now I wish to ask, Is the conversion of these churches genuine? Let us see how it has been produced. Have they seen their sins, and had genuine, heart-felt penitence? We shall see.

In the first place, treason and rebellion reared its brazen head and front in behalf of that diabolical institution

which politicians and religionists, were agreed not to meddle with. Especially were the leading churches, self-styled evangelical, so wrapped up in pro-slavery principles, that, in the great revival prayer meetings of a few years past, a prayer for the poor bondman, despoiled of all his inalienable rights, could not be tolerated. The rebellion comes. The civil power of the nation is awakened and on the anxious-seat. Politicians soon begin to be converted soundly, it would seem, and resolve to serve the country by the death of the monster so long petted, but which was now aiming a death-blow at our free institutions and our government. Last of all the churches, moved by patriotism more than by religion, begin at once to declare their conversion. They come out shouting happy in anti-slavery principles, before it was ever known that they were laboring under conviction. They take the same anti-slavery position now, on account of which, twenty years ago, they would exclude a minister from preaching in their churches, even on occasion of a funeral. I question the genuineness of their conversion, on the ground that the work is too superficial, not being preceded by a deep and thorough conviction of sin. Patriotic excitement seems to claim a larger share in their conversion, than a just sense of the appalling heinousness of their sin.

It is easily seen that, instead of the church moving forward in the conversion of the world, the political world has taken the lead, and the church has been induced to profess conversion, leaving it extremely doubtful whether she has truly experienced a change of heart.

No greater and more palpable deception could possess the minds of the religious world than the anti-scriptural idea of the world's conversion. Yet men seem bound to believe, in the face of scripture and of facts, that the world is growing better and better, and the hope is cherished, in the midst of the most flagitious crimes that ever disgraced humanity, that righteousness will soon run down our streets like rivers, and in the midst of wars, that gentle peace is about to spread her golden wings over the world, and that the nations will soon learn war no more. Stupendous and transparent delusion! contradicted by the most express declarations of the word of God, and by every transpiring fact or sign of the times.

But the most astonishing thing of all, is that Seventh-day Baptists—a people enlightened in the obligation and perpetuity of the moral law, and consequently acquainted (or ought to be) with the corrupted state of nominal Christianity—should chime in with the rest, in this siren song of peace and safety! A people who have tried in vain, and about given over trying to convert those who profess loyalty to the King of kings, to the most simple and obvious requirements of the moral law, the ten commandments—that they should fondly imagine that a church, that will not be converted to the plainest teaching of the explicit law which they profess to keep, is about to convert the whole world to the holy principles of God's word, is so preposterously absurd that language would fail me to express my astonishment. My dear friends! before you talk more of the conversion of the world, I beseech you to convert a few professed Christians to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. A stream cannot rise higher than its fountain. How then can the world be truly converted, while the church that is to convert them remains unconverted and unconvertible!

How is the church to be converted to that which you know to be the truth of God? Must we have another rebellion to evoke the forces which are to accomplish the Sabbath reform which is so much needed? From present appearances the “evangelical churches” will still “slumber for centuries” over this subject, unless aroused by some imminent, national peril. Alas! If these are the forces which are to convert the world, the temporal millennium, which men are promising us, must be a vast distance in the future.

R. F. COTTRELL.