A Strange Conclusion by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 24, 1874

A Strange Conclusion.

By Uriah Smith

A WRITER in the Herald of Life, of Feb. 18, 1874, says:—

“The passing of 1873 without the appearing of Jesus has proved that the papacy did not attain its supremacy in 538.”

The statement of history is very explicit that the supremacy of the papacy did there commence; and the fulfillment of the 1260 years of its continuance ending in 1798, is still more explicit. How, then, does the fact that 1873 has passed, disprove these facts? Dating the 1335 days (years) from 538 they end in 1873. Supposing them to extend to the coming of Christ, the fact that he has not come shows that they have not ended, and consequently that

they did not commence in the year named, and that papal supremacy did not there begin.

This is the argument. It has two fatal defects: 1. The 1335 days do not mark the setting up of the papacy. They date from the taking away of the daily abomination (paganism) to set up the abomination that maketh desolate (papacy). Dan. 12:11, margin. But paganism was taken away preparatory to the setting up of the papacy, in 508, thirty years before the papacy was established. 2. The 1335 days do not extend to the coming of Christ. No prophetic period extends to that point. This is the great fallacy on which all time-setters founder. It is impossible to set a time for Christ to appear. We have no data on which to base a calculation. The prophetic periods, all of which can be located without difficulty, bring us to great events to transpire in close connection with the coming of Christ, so that we know that it is near. Daniel stands in his lot (the decisions of the investigative Judgment, not the lot of his inheritance—that is another word in the Hebrew) before Christ comes.

Feeling himself driven from 538, the writer looks for another date, and finds none till he comes to 553. The 1335 days, if commenced in that year, extend to 1888. But the 1260 dating from that point reach to 1813 with nothing whatever to mark their termination. This throws him into perplexity; and there we leave him racking his inventive powers to find a new adjustment for his periods. So long as men will ignore this fundamental fact that no prophetic period reaches to the coming of Christ, so long we suppose they will go on with the work of setting new times for that event—a work futile in itself and a reproach and disgrace to the Advent name. U. S.