THE PRESENT PROPHETIC DISCUSSION.
By B. D. H.
Having read Dr. Litch's article entitled “Antichrist, and the Prophetic numbers,” and as an old subscriber, and one who has been identified with the cause of our coming King from the very first, I wish to express, through the Herald, my regret at the position Bro. Litch now takes with reference to the fulfillment of prophecy, and my greater regret that he should publish his speculations through the Herald. In my view, it can only work evil to the weary souls who for twenty-five years have waited for the “salvation of God.” If I understand his present position, he denies: 1. That the given “signs” have been seen. 2. That the prophetic numbers have even commenced. 3. That the ten-fold form of the last kingdom has been developed. 4. That the papacy is the man of sin, or Antichrist, &c., &c. Now I should like to know how much there is left us that will not be denied by the same process of hyper-criticism adopted in the article in question. All our denominational neighbors have each some central truth, or truths, which they deem of such importance as to warrant a separate organism; we have had ours, and have suffered something, to say the least, in its defense; but now it would appear our position is, and always has been untenable, and as honest men we ought to take down our sign, shut up our shop, and creep back to the churches from which we seceded, make our best salaam and own our mistakes and ignorance. While on this matter I cannot help making the following inquiries: 1. The Herald is “devoted to the advocacy of the speedy, personal advent of our Lord Jesus Christ,” but how can it be advocated if the chairman of the Committee on Publication denies the data from which alone evidence to that point is deductible? 2. Why did not the same acumen which enabled him thirty years ago to “plant himself firmly on the Bible” in the denial of one erroneous doctrine, enable him to discover and deny at the same time those other errors which he now denies, as it would have spared the Advent people much folly, mortification and disappointment? 3. If any of the brethren have for twenty-five years leaned on Bro. Litch as an expositor and been deceived, how can he expect them to accept him as a prophet of the future? 4. Are we, as a people, to be ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of our own special truth? As the same elements for a solution of the difficulties on the points now so peremptorily denied, were available twenty-five years ago, we may inquire, Why was not the truth on each of these points presented at that time? But the positions taken by Dr. Litch are essentially Roman Catholic,—were used against the Reformers, were in part adopted by the English Baptists in the last century at the commencement of their East India mission, and—if I am not quite mistaken—were used against the Adventists in 1841-2 and controverted in the columns of the “Signs of the Times.” The Dr. has only galvanized an old mummy. In our efforts and researches after truth, two principles are necessary to its elucidation not always found in the same individual, these are analysis and generalization; by the one, the exact import of every word of the text is searched out, and by the other, the subject in the length and breadth to which the text refers, is comprehended in the inquiry. Bro. Litch excels in the former, surely, for he has shown how effectually he can pick to pieces, but his position with reference to the prophetic times, shows him lacking in the latter. A just consideration of the entire subject, viz., the great desolation which these periods measure,—will convince the honest inquirer that these periods are not literal days, and are now mainly in the past; indeed the Doctor's process is like looking through the wrong end of the telescope—distorting and inverting all the great outline of God's purpose as delineated in prophecy.—B. D. H.