Astounding Logic by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1875

Astounding Logic.

By Uriah Smith

The Restitution has just struck its heaviest blow against the visions of sister White. It falls upon them with the crushing weight of eider-down. It runs thus:—

Christ said, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man;” but in Experience and Views, Mrs. W. says, “Soon we heard the voice of God like many waters which gave us the day and hour of Jesus’ coming.” So, says the Restitution, the word of the Lord is plainly contradicted, and the visions should be instantly rejected by all who believe the Bible.

Strange that no one of the many thousands who regard the views of sister White as the result of the work of the Spirit of God, according to the teaching of the New Testament on that point, could see so glaring a contradiction, but the world had to wait till the Restitution adjusted its antiquated spectacles, before it could be put on its guard by so weighty an objection against receiving them. But let us search for the point that is made if any can be found.

No man knoweth the day or the hour. Does the vision say that any one knows the day or the hour? No. Then there is no contradiction.

Does the Scripture say that no man ever will know? No. Then there is nothing in it to show that what the vision says may not at some time be true, and we know the day and hour, though we do not know it now.

Mark includes with men, both angels and the Son of God himself. Is the Son of God never to know the day and hour of his coming? Such a thought would be most absurd. This has led critics to investigate the true signification of the word knoweth in this connection. They find it to mean, “maketh known.” Simply then, no man is to make known the day and hour of Christ’s coming; angels are not to make it known, neither the Son, but the Father only. This implies that at some time the Father will make it known. With this the vision accords by saying that at the voice of God, the Father, this was made known. When is the voice of God uttered? Under the seventh and last plague, Rev. 16:17, just before the coming of Christ. Does the Restitution know why God utters his voice then? and what it is that that voice proclaims? The view of Sr. W. is that then is made known to the saints the hour of their deliverance, as Noah was informed seven days before the flood, of the day and hour when God would fulfill his word by opening the windows of heaven upon the earth. Is there anything to contradict it?

The Restitution further betrays its lack of critical thought, in applying the words, “one shall be taken and the other left,” to the coming of Christ. Luke 17:34-36. The word, taken, there means to seize as beasts seize their prey. It don’t mean, “taken” up to meet the Lord, while the wicked are “left” on the earth to perish. The word, left, means to escape. At the time of which Luke speaks, some are seized and others escape. Can any one tell who is seized while others escape at Christ’s coming? The seizing is done by the plagues before Christ comes, and those who escape are the righteous.

In this connection an allusion may be in place, to the long and labored efforts of another paper to show that the visions contradict themselves. It is accomplished (?) in the following manner: 1. A quotation is made from some of the earlier visions; then 2. Somebody’s statement of what he thought the vision meant; then 3. Views now held differing from that individual’s opinion. Therefore the visions contradict themselves!

Thus they treat the matter about as intelligently as the little boy in a certain town in Connecticut, who couldn’t tell who made the hills about there, as his father only moved into the place the week before! U. S.