Aid and Comfort for Infidelity.
By J. F. HAMMOND
I ATTENDED in this place, recently, a meeting of that class of Adventists who believe in the '67 time. I think they will have a tendency to make more infidels than any class of people I ever met. Never before did I hear such errors preached. One preacher from the West, ridiculed the idea of the city of God being literal. He said it was the church; and that it had been trampled down for 1260 years. What folly! if we may credit the testimony of Rev. xxi and xxii. At a tent-meeting here, this summer, the '67 time people held forth the doctrine of the non-resurrection of the wicked. One preacher from New Hampshire indulged in the following, and called it argument: “If the Lord should raise the Sodomites, at the resurrection, they would say, Lord, what have you got us up here for? To kill us? You killed us once; are you going to kill us again? What folly to say the Lord will get up the wicked to kill them the second time, when he says the soul that sinneth it shall die. When they are dead they have received the penalty of their wickedness.” He then endeavored to answer some objections to his doctrine by perverting scripture in the following manner: “Some say the wicked will have a resurrection because the Word said, that they that pierced him shall behold him. So they will; for they fell asleep Christians, and will come up in the resurrection all right; because Jesus prayed for them, ‘Father forgive them; for they know not what they do.’” He continued: “Says one, The Bible says there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. I answer, so there will be; but the unjust will be of that class like the ones that crucified him; they did unjust acts; but Jesus prayed for them, and they were forgiven.” This is a sample. Such perversions of scripture as are put forth by the '67 people, I never heard, nor have I ever read anything equal to it, except from the Roman Catholic church. They were particularly severe on the Seventh-day Adventists, who, they claimed, held such erroneous doctrines as the resurrection of the wicked, the literal city of God coming down from Heaven, the thousand years' reign in the future, keeping the Old Jewish Sabbath. Said another speaker, “The Lord will come in '67, for the Bible says so.” How calculated are such declarations to destroy the confidence of the people, and bring reproach upon the Advent cause. A passage in Amos, v. 18, came forcibly to my mind while hearing them profess to be rejoicing in the doctrine that the Lord is coming in '67, and yet fighting against the Sabbath of the Lord. Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. I am truly thankful that the clear light of truth is shining upon the pathway of the willing and obedient.