THE PROPHETIC CONFERENCE AND THE ADVENT MESSAGE.
By J. H. Rogers
As we have been engaged in heralding to the world for more than a quarter of a century the doctrine of the coming of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, it is with the greatest interest that we have watched the waking up of the public mind on this subject. A correspondent of the Louisville Presbyterian, writing concerning the late Prophetic Conference, says:— “It has given voice to a wide-spread, deep, and growing conviction in the minds of many Christians of all denominations that the true doctrine of God’s word concerning the second coming of the Lord has been sadly obscured, where it has not almost entirely lapsed from the minds and hearts of professing Christians.” “The Conference was called by some one hundred and fourteen ministers and others, composed, as one of the speakers stated, of one Lutheran, one Dutch Reformed, one Reformed, six Methodists, ten Congregationalists, fifteen Episcopalians, ten Undenominational, twenty-seven Baptists, and forty-three Presbyterians; and the purpose of the Conference was announced to be, to restore the ‘precious doctrine of Christ’s second personal appearing, which has long lain under such neglect and misapprehension,’ to its proper place in the system of revealed truth. “Earnest work was meant, as is seen by the fact that the names of Bishops Vail and Nicholson, Drs. Tyng and Newton of the Episcopal Church, Gordon and Clarke of the Dutch Reformed, Gordon of the Baptist, and Brooks, Kellogg, Cooper, Imbrie, Craven, and West of the Presbyterian Church, were appended to the call. “The programme of papers read before the Conference was followed, with some slight modifications. “The addresses were generally able, scholarly, and effective. Dr. Tyng, one of the leading representatives of Evangelical Episcopacy in this country, showed the doctrine of the personal and visible return of our Lord to be a part of the primitive faith of the church, and boldly appealed to the Scriptures, received as of divine authority and interpreted in accordance with the laws of language, as the final source of appeal in the discussion of this and all the other topics before the Conference. “Dr. Kellogg, a rising theologian of the Northern Presbyterian Church, and of twelve years’ experience, as a missionary in India, demonstrated the Lord’s coming to be pre-millennial, in a patient, painstaking, and exhaustive examination of all the leading passages of Scripture on the subject. “Dr. Mackay of the English Presbyterian Church, a short, thickset, burly Scotchman, with wit enough to have been an Irishman, whose subject was, ‘The teaching of Scripture as to the manner in which the Church shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, at his coming,’ by his bold, earnest, and glowing presentation of the truth which was evidently dear to his very heart, awakened the profoundest enthusiasm. “Dr. Cooper, Professor of Theology in the United Presbyterian Seminary of Allegheny, Penn., and a most prominent man in that body of Presbyterians so noted for their rigid adherence to the standards of the Westminster Assembly, presented the doctrine of the judgment or judgments, showing that there are five distinct judgments, extending over the entire period of ‘the day of God.’ “Dr. Brooks, of St. Louis, so well known to your readers for his earnest and glowing piety and his most effective preaching of the gospel, read an elaborate paper on ‘The Coming of the Lord in its relation to Christian Doctrine,’ which aimed to be absolutely overwhelming in its accumulation of evidence to show that the doctrine of the Lord’s coming, as personal and imminent, extends like a golden web through the whole texture of the New Testament, intensifying every other truth. “He actually quoted from the New Testament one hundred passages in which the Holy Spirit himself has connected, in the most intimate way, this doctrine with every other doctrine, and with all duty and service. “But in the judgment of many, the most notable paper presented to the Conference was by Dr. Nathaniel West, of Cincinnati, on the ‘History of the doctrine of the Pre-millennial coming of Christ.’ “All lovers of true Presbyterianism know Dr. West for his intrepid and successful defense of orthodoxy in conjunction with Dr. Skinner in the famous McCune case. Dr. West showed in a series of careful historic statements that each of the apostles held the doctrine of the imminent personal return of the Lord, and that a long line of the most devout, God-fearing, and faithful believers of every age, including the ancient Chiliasts, the Reformers of the sixteenth century, the Prolocutor Dr. Twisse, and most of the leading divines of the Westminster Assembly, and many of the most active and useful ministers and missionaries of every age down to our own day, have found one of their chief motives to labor and service, and their strong support in suffering and persecution, in this inspiring truth. “He showed that post-millennialism is a recent heresy in the Church of God, originated by the Arminian Whitby, who afterwards, it is said, became a Universalist, and that these facts ought to be known, at least by all intelligent Presbyterians. A still more significant fact was, as he asserted, that all forms of corrupt and apostate Christianity unite in bitterest hatred and opposition to premillennialism. The scoffing infidel science of the age is already asking as Peter foretold, ‘Where is the promise of his coming?’ and when this infidelity shall have culminated in the development and revelation of the Antichrist, he will without question be found the leader of the hosts who oppose this truth. “It may serve to remove the misapprehensions of some to learn that the following resolution, offered by Dr. Brooks, was unanimously adopted:—
“‘Resolved, That the doctrine of our Lord’s premillennial advent,’ instead of paralyzing evangelistic and missionary efforts, is one of the mightiest incentives to earnestness in preaching the gospel to every creature till He come.” “All the discussions of the Conference find their crystallized expression in the following paper, unanimously adopted, as its testimony to the truth:— “‘1. We affirm our belief in the supreme and absolute authority of the written word of God on all questions of doctrine and duty. “‘2. The prophetic words of the Old Testament concerning the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, were literally fulfilled in his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension; and so the prophetic words of both the Old and the New Testament concerning his second coming will be literally fulfilled in his visible, bodily return to this earth in like manner as he went up into Heaven; and this glorious epiphany of the great God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, is the blessed hope of the believer and of the church during this entire dispensation. “‘3. This second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is everywhere represented in the Scriptures as imminent, and may occur at any moment, yet the precise day and hour thereof is unknown to man and known only to God. “‘4. The Scriptures nowhere teach that the whole world will be converted to God, or that there will be a reign of universal righteousness and peace before the return of our blessed Lord; but that only at and by his coming in power and glory will the prophecies concerning the progress of evil and the development of Antichrist, the times of the Gentiles and the ingathering of Israel, the resurrection of the dead in Christ and the transformation of his living saints, receive their fulfillment, and the period of millennial blessedness its inauguration. “‘5. The duty of the church during the absence of the Bridegroom is to watch and pray, to work and wait, to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and thus hasten the coming day of God, and to his latest promise, “Surely I come quickly,” to respond in joyous hope, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”’” The resolution concerning our Lord’s pre-millennial advent looks quite different from a resolution found in the Evangelical Messenger a few years since, asserting “that we believe the millennium to mean that state of happiness, prosperity, and holiness which the people of God will enjoy upon the earth for one thousand years before the resurrection of the dead, and not after.” We are glad to see our friends “wheeling into line” on these important truths. Surely the minds of the people are being called out to the “precious” doctrine which has lain so long under neglect and misapprehension. We are nearing an important time in this work. The Lord is preparing the way before us for the message to go with power.