Dr. Cumming of London by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 22, 1874

Dr. Cumming of London.

By John Nevins Andrews

WHEN in London a few weeks since I took especial pains to hear Dr. Cumming. He is a man of fine personal appearance, perhaps something more than sixty years of age, and is a very interesting speaker. He has a voice of remarkable sweetness, though it did not seem capable of being heard by a multitude. One cannot listen to him, even for a few moments, without being impressed with the fact that he is a man of remarkable ability. My interest to hear him, however, was due to the fact that he is of world-wide reputation as a preacher of the near advent of Christ. We as a people have found this an extremely unwelcome theme to the most of those whom we address. They speak of it in harsh and opprobrious terms, and they do not confine these terms to the doctrine, but apply them also to those who teach it. Nor can it be said that this is occasioned by our fixing the time of the advent of Christ, for it is well known that we do not believe the time of that event is revealed in the Bible.

I have often wondered at the great popularity of Dr. Cumming, as he is well known to have preached much concerning the definite time of the advent of Christ, and to still hold that that event is emphatically near at hand. His congregation is large, and it embraces not only many of the upper class of Londoners, but even a considerable number of the nobility. They hear from his lips very much concerning the speedy advent of Christ. And by the advent of Christ Dr. C. means no spiritual or mystical coming but the actual personal appearing of the Son of man. How is it that such a congregation does not take offense at such preaching?

While listening to him I thought I discovered the explanation. He spoke familiarly of the near advent of Christ, as though it were a well known and indisputable fact. But he told them that the coming of Christ would introduce a new era in the preaching of the gospel, and that it would then be preached with a power which has never hitherto attended it, and that the nations would then receive it. And so the warning voice of the advent at the door gave no alarm; for the revelation of the Son of God in flaming fire to take vengeance on them that know not God, becomes in the estimation of his hearers only the harbinger of a more merciful dispensation to sinful men. The sharp sword of this divine truth respecting the advent at hand had no power to wound the conscience; for it was encased in a scabbard of error. Would to God he might see that Christ comes the second time as a King to destroy sinful men, and not as a priest to save them.

J. N. ANDREWS.