p. 190 | A Fair Statement

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 14, 1865

A Fair Statement.

THE "Prophetic Times," a Second Advent serial which advocates the '66 theory, in an article, "For What Shall We Pray?" has the following paragraphs which are lamentably true. G.

"In spite of all we can do, the state of things, both at home and abroad, becomes every day still more alarming.

"For what, then, should we pray? We see Philanthropists, Philosophers, men of "progress," running to and fro with furious haste, worrying mankind with every invention of every addled brain, to force happiness upon them; and we see all their efforts come to nothing! We see the world growing more wicked and wretched every day—ripening for its Last Apostasy! We see the ministers of the Gospel departing from the Primitive doctrines of Christianity—spiritualizing the Scriptures into empty dreams, and denying the future Reign of the Son of God upon earth! We see "Spiritualism" (a sign of the "Last Times," 1 Tim. iv. 1,) with its twenty millions of votaries, spreading far and wide the "doctrines of Devils," (didaskaliais daimonion, "teachings of Demons,") denying the inspiration of the Bible, and bidding defiance to all law. "For they are the Spirits of Demons, doing signs to go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole habitable globe, to gather them to the BATTLE OF THAT GREAT DAY of God Almighty." (Lit. trans., Rev. xvi, 14.) We see Christendom diseased, and, to effect its cure, trying every imaginable thing but the sole remedy—the Personal Presence and reign of the King of Glory—the world's first, and last, and only remedy, and yet the only remedy that is thrown aside. You hear a great lament about the sad state of affairs, but you never hear of the sovereign remedy. You may pray against the vices of the day, but you must not breathe a word as to the universal remedy. The personal reign of the Son of God is a proscribed subject, and is banished from our prayers as if it were equivalent to the "Reign of Terror." Yet, so long as the personal reign is omitted in our prayers, just so long is God dishonored. We resemble a sick man praying for health, yet refusing the only remedy for his disease. Every invention of man is joyfully adopted, but the grand scheme of Divine Wisdom is contemptuously passed by."