FIRST-DAY ADVENTISM IN MAINE.
By John Harvey Waggoner
ELD. WALKER, of Richmond, Me., in a sermon on the covenants, taking for his text, Gal. v, 1, said the bondage from which we were freed by Christ, was the law of ten commandments! On this, the following thoughts naturally suggest themselves: 1. If that law was first given at Mount Sinai, as he asserted, then, according to his view, there was no bondage over the children of men before that time. 2. If Christ abolished that law at the cross, then the bondage has been abolished for all men indiscriminately, and all mankind are now enjoying liberty in Christ! 3. If God had never given the ten commandments, there would have never been any bondage to oppress man, and Christ would also have been spared the toil and pain of its abolition. 4. As God gave that law by his own authority, and it did not come by the will of man, it would follow that man did not bring himself into bondage, but God put it upon him! So that the action of God and not the action of man, made it necessary. I have been accustomed to regard the gospel as a system of salvation to man from the consequences of his own wrong doing; and also as vindicating the justice of God in granting pardon of sin, and so resulting in the glory of God as well as the good of man. Rom. iii, 22–31; Luke ii, 10–14. But if the above-noticed view is correct, I fail to see how God is honored by it, or his justice vindicated; and the benefit to man is his being saved from the unfortunate action of God in giving an unworthy law! Such is the gospel of first-day Adventism in Maine. And for opposing and exposing such vagaries and errors, we are charged with stirring up strife, making divisions, &c. Will the reader please examine 1 Kings xviii. 17, 18? Eld. I. Damman recently wrote in the Crisis: “I visited the town of Rome, in Maine, and found the cause prostrated by a blighting influence, such as we have seen in many other places, condemning others because they don’t believe the seventh day Sabbath, nor the non-resurrection of the wicked dead. Such an influence is to be shunned as a deadly poison. Death follows them everywhere they go. The coming of the Lord is forgotten, and sinners also.” The above is a very erroneous and uncharitable view of the position of those who keep the Sabbath. Our message is present truth—the last message before the Lord’s coming. See Rev. xiv, 9–14. How, then, can we with justice be charged with losing sight of the Lord’s coming? This charge rather falls upon those who leave the plain track of Advent prophecy, and reject the warning given to prepare us for his coming. With some, Adventism consists in mere talk about the coming of the Lord, without any regard to the order of events, or to the work of preparation necessary to meet our coming Lord in peace. Such Adventism will lead to a bitter disappointment in that day. Matt. vii, 21–23. But this message also points us to the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus—the law of God, and the gospel of his Son. How can we be said to lose sight of sinners when we constantly urge upon them the claims of the only rule ever given to prove that they are sinners? See Rom. iii, 20; 1 John iii, 4, &c. And how are we unmindful of their interests when we as constantly point them to their only refuge and remedy for sin—the faith of Jesus? Eld. Damman was54once a professed Sabbath-keeper; but if he had no more consistent and intelligent view of the third angel’s message than he evinces in this letter we cannot blame him for renouncing his faith. Eld. Damman has also a strong habit of coupling together the faith of the seventh-day Sabbath and the non-resurrection of the wicked. This is also both uncharitable and wrong. The following are facts to which I would call his attention: 1. A great many first-day Adventists are embracing the non-resurrection theory. We find them more or less everywhere we go. In some places they are very numerous, almost entire churches falling into that view. 2. I have never yet seen a Seventh-day Adventist who believed in the non-resurrection of the wicked. There may be such, but I have never seen one, and my acquaintance with them reaches from Maine to Iowa. 3. Some who formerly kept the Sabbath have been turned away from it by the no-Sabbath and no-law teachers, and they have embraced the non-resurrection theory. It is safe to say that, had they not been perverted by no-lawism, the non-resurrection theory would not have been received by them. I think it will be difficult to find a single professed Sabbath-keeper, who stands in harmony with the body, who is a non-resurrectionist. Might we not, with far greater reason, couple first-day Adventism and non-resurrectionism together? Justice is an essential attribute of law; is it because our opponents are so opposed to the law of God that they are unwilling to do us justice? If they will carefully examine Rom. iii, 23–26, they will find that the gospel of Christ is but the handmaid of justice, and does not make void the law. Verse 31. Richmond, Me., Jan. 28, 1869.