The Age to Come by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 10, 1875

The Age to Come.

By Uriah Smith

The Age to Come, a paper published monthly in Boston, Mass., by Mrs. A. E. Davis, has made its appearance upon our table. The object of the paper is sufficiently indicated by the heading. It is to advocate, we suppose, the doctrine which goes by that name. We think that earnest attention to the duties of the present, such as keeping “the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” is of more importance than to devote one's time wholly to speculating in regard to the future. But when we find it advocating probation, and opportunity for repentance after Christ comes, we can but regard it as teaching one of the most pernicious of errors, and one which is in the plainest terms discountenanced in the word of God.

Perhaps the reader would like to see a specimen of that reasoning by which an attempt is made to prove that even after the sentence has gone forth, just before the coming of Christ, “He which is filthy let him be filthy still, and he that is holy let him be holy still,” Rev. 22:11, 12, the holy may become filthy, and the filthy, holy. We have it in the last number. Speaking of the dens and rocks to which the wicked flee in the great day of the wrath of the Lamb, and their calling upon the mountains and rocks to fall upon and hide them from his presence, the Age to Come says:—

“We next inquire, What do the dens, and rocks, and mountains, symbolize? Mountains, in symbolic prophecy, represent governments. The dens and rocks are parts of and belonging to the mountains; hence, they would represent branches of the governments, eminent persons, families of note and influence, clans, tribes, sects, or parties belonging to the governments.

“Has the condition of things been such in this age of wrath, that all classes of men, from the king to the slave, have sought protection in foreign countries from the afflictions which have been brought upon them? All are familiar with such cases. It is but recently that the slaves of our own country sought refuge in Canada, as well as other places; and, soon after, their masters asked for protection from the same quarters. And thus has it been in all lands. It was so before this age, but not to that extent it has been in it. Other ages were ages of wrath, but this is the great day of His wrath.”

Much more might be quoted of the same kind of reasoning. This is from an article to prove probation after Christ comes; and this is the way the Scriptures are manipulated to sustain that idea. Now when the fleeing of our slaves to Canada, the reaching of which place they considered a boon worth risking their lives to obtain,—when this is made the fulfillment of the prophecy which represents the wicked as fleeing in terror to the rocks and mountains and calling upon them to bury them from the presence and wrath of the Lamb, we have a specimen of recklessness in Biblical interpretation which is simply appalling. When the Bible is handled with such freedom, to use no harsher term, there is no chimera the mind of man is capable of conjuring into existence, which may not be proved by its testimony.

Nine numbers of the paper herein referred to have been issued. Viewed from our standpoint, we must seriously say, we think that is a plenty. Let the expense be appropriated to some more useful purpose. U. S.