R. F. COTTRELL by R. F. COTTRELL.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 24, 1869

R. F. COTTRELL

By R. F. COTTRELL.

THE CLOSING MESSAGES.—No. 2.

The second advent of Christ will be at hand when these messages are announced. Hence the great lines of prophecy that reach to the end must be fulfilled, except the concluding act; and the promised signs of the Saviour's coming must be in the past. When these things are so, the fulfillment that comes will be the fulfillment. God will not allow Satan to get in a false fulfillment of these messages in the very time the true one is due. But the great lack of mankind is faith—faith in God and in his word of promise. Faith in the Lord's coming to avenge his elect, is what is wanting. This is what Jesus alluded to when he asked the question, so strongly implying the negative: “When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Campbell gives us the following rendering of the passage: “And will not God avenge his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he linger in their cause? I assure you, he will suddenly avenge them. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find this belief in the land?”

If we trace the fulfillment of the prophecies of the four great kingdoms of earth, to be succeeded by the kingdom of God, as recorded in the book of Daniel, we find them all fulfilled, except that which relates to the fifth and everlasting kingdom. The golden kingdom of Babylon has been succeeded by the silver kingdom of the Medes and Persians; this by the brazen kingdom of Grecia, and this again by the iron kingdom of Rome. This last has been divided into the ten kingdoms, as symbolized by the feet and toes of the image; and all that is required to complete the fulfillment of the prophecy is, that the stone, representing the kingdom of God, should smite the image, destroy all earthly rule, and establish itself an everlasting kingdom, never to be destroyed. The same is true, and further unfolded, in the prophecy

of the four great beasts of Dan. vii. These beasts symbolize the same four kingdoms, the ten horns of the fourth representing the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided. And, as a further development, the Papacy is represented as rising among the ten, speaking great words against the Most High, wearing out the saints of the Most High, and holding dominion over them for a time, times and a half, or 1260 years. This we find all fulfilled. The Papacy has arisen, held dominion 1260 years, from A. D. 538, to 1798, and now is seen in the consuming state represented in the prophecy, awaiting the time of his utter destruction at the advent of Christ. “They shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” The same idea is expressed by Paul in the language following: “Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming.”

The next event in this line of prophecy is the destruction of the wasted Papacy, by the bright glory attending the second advent of Christ.