p. 164 | REPUDIATION by W. C. G.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 1, 1868

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Review and Herald, Vol. 32, No. 11.

REPUDIATION

By W. C. G.

It is sometimes almost painful to witness the attempts of those who were themselves among the foremost in the great Advent movement of 1840–44, to entirely repudiate that movement as being of God. The following from the Voice of the West, whose editor was one of the great leaders in that work, illustrates this point:

“Some are puzzled by a specious plea that because God blessed the early Advent movement, therefore the prophetic periods must then have been correctly understood. This fallacious reasoning has deceived some. The same argument, however, would prove the immortality of the soul, because God blessed the great Wesleyan revival in England under men who believed it; transubstantiation, because God blessed the labors of Luther, who held to, and contended for, that error, in the great Reformation that shook the very throne of the ‘Man of Sin.’”

Whatever there may be of “fallacious reasoning” in connection with the above, is certainly on the part of the Voice. The cases cited are not parallel with the Advent movement, and the comparisons, therefore, are not good. There is a great difference between being blessed for an item of religious belief and being blessed in that belief, or while entertaining it; and that difference must be apparent between the cases cited above, and that of the Advent proclamation.

What was the great burden of the Wesleyan revival in England? Was it to teach the immortality of the soul? And was the preaching of this doctrine the means of bringing about that revival? By no means. While this error was among the incidentals of Wesley’s belief, the preaching of Christ and his gospel was the means of saving souls; and the blessing from God experienced by those engaged in the work was not because they believed in the immortality of the soul, but because, even while holding that belief, they labored for the salvation of their fellow-men.

And so of the great Reformation. The cry that “shook the very throne of the ‘Man of Sin,’” was not “transubstantiation,” but “justification by faith.” And this was the message that God blessed, and was

the commencement of the great work, not even yet accomplished, of stripping from the church all the errors of the “mother of harlots,” including transubstantiation, the immortality of the soul, and other unscriptural dogmas, not the least of which is Sunday-keeping, yet to be renounced by the church who are to prepare for translation by keeping all “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. xiv, 12. And the blessing received by Martin Luther, and his fellow-laborers, was not in any sense connected with their belief in those errors, but because of their zeal in defense of the great truths of God’s word which brought about the Reformation.

But, unlike these cases, the great Advent movement was based on what is called, by those who now repudiate it, “the error in time.” The prophetic periods were not an incidental item of faith, indulged in and preached about by those who were engaged in some other and greater work, but they were themselves the burden of the message, and that which gave it such power. What made the message go with such mighty power? Definite time. What brought such consolation, such rejoicing, and such blessings, to the hearts of those engaged in that work? The belief in definite time; and everywhere, as the prophetic periods were explained, and the certainty of their immediate termination clearly demonstrated, joy and rejoicing were sure to follow. The Lord set the broad seal of his approbation to the work of preaching definite time, by the outpouring of his Spirit, the conversion of sinners, the reclaiming of backsliders, and the comforting of the saints; and to repudiate that work, and prove that God did not bless the preaching of time, for its own sake, will require a greater amount of “fallacious reasoning” than the comparison of that work with the errors of the Reformers, and good men of any age, who have not made their errors the burden of their work in saving souls.

W. C. G.