IT WILL NOT MIX

THAT system of belief which we denominate “the present truth,” possesses this peculiar feature, that it will not mix with anything else. It is a sharp, clean-cut, decisive doctrine. It admits of no halving, copartnership, or compromise. No system of heretical belief or non-belief can be found which has grown up out of its tenets, having them for a foundation. If a person holding these doctrines wishes to be anything else, he has first to turn square about and renounce these views.RCASDA 112.1

To illustrate: If we believed in the immortality of the soul, and should then be taken in the snare of Spiritualism, we might plead that our second position was the logical result of the first; for the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is the very foundation of Spiritualism; if we were keeping Sunday, and then should turn Roman Catholic, we might plead that, having followed tradition in the Sunday festival as of equal authority with the word of God, we are logically bound to follow it on all other questions, which would compel us to accept the whole quagmire of popish superstitions and festivals. But the “present truth” presents no such sequence. It cannot be charged with having a tendency to carry its adherents forward into any form of error; for any change from this comes by renunciation, not by evolution.RCASDA 112.2

With quite a flourish of trumpets it is being represented at the present time that Adventism is ruining a great many people. But how are they being ruined by it?—Oh! by their giving it up!-just as it is said that pins save a great many people’s lives by their not swallowing them. The trouble is, they don’t stick to it; if they did, they would not be ruined. The names of thirty-six ministers, we are told, can be produced, who have once preached the Seventh-day Adventist faith, and either been ruined by it, or else gave it up for Spiritualism, Universalism, atheism, infidelity, etc. That is it exactly. “They gave it up.” They did not build themselves up on this foundation into infidelity, Spiritualism. atheism, etc., and they were not ruined by it while they adhered to it. It cannot then be consistently charged that Adventism has a tendency to lead men into these errors. But why have so many given it up? On this point we do not wish to pass judgment on any one, or to impugn any one’s motives. It will be sufficient to say that the subsequent lives of a majority of these have testified that it was because the way was too strait, and they were unwilling to live up to the standard which this work presents. But the standard here is certainly no higher than that erected for us in the word of God itself.RCASDA 112.3

And how long a time has it taken to develop this imposing array of thirty-six ministers who have turned away from this faith?—Forty-two years, or since 1845, when the first minister embrace it. And how does our ministry stand at the present time?—Including licentiates, most of whom are in the field as active laborers, they now number 379. Thus where one has given it up, ten have stepped in to take his place. At this rate the ranks bid quite fair to be kept full. U.S.RCASDA 113.1