Extract of a Sermon by Bro. C. Fitch,
By Charles Fitch
Preached in College Hall, Cincinnati, 1845.
Now, what is the method by which men in these last days have contrived to blind their own eyes, and shut out every ray of light from their understanding touching the momentous events which are about to break upon them? It is what is called the spiritual fulfillment of prophecy, which claims that what God has said is one thing, and what he means is another. To support their theory, the whole mass of spiritualizers, from Daniel Whitby downward, have never been able to produce any proof but their own unauthorized assertions. They talk loudly and learnedly, to be sure, about principles of interpretation, but the whole of them have never been able to produce any such thing. Why dont they talk about principles of interpretation for Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, or Rollin's Ancient History, or Gille's Greece, or Milner's History of the Church? Why, simply because they know that if they were to talk thus about such works as these, they would talk nonsense. Then why will they be forever prating their stupid nonsense about principles of interpretation for the Bible? If the Bible is not a book that expresses its own meaning in the language which it uses, it is not a revelation, and never will be, till the God who gave it shall give us another, to explain this. I would like to know where the man is, who is wise enough to tell us what God means when he himself has not told us: but has used language which expresses not his true meaning, but something else. The men who dare to talk thus, as all those do who talk about rules for a spiritual interpretation of the Bible, ought to stand aghast at their own monstrous impiety. It is only a method which the Devil has helped men to invent, of making the word of God of none effect by their traditions. There was a time when both the first and second advent of our Lord were yet future. There was then as much reason for saying that his first Advent would be spiritual, as that this would be the manner of the Second Advent.—Just as much reason for saying that he would be born spiritually of a spiritual virgin, in spiritual Bethlehem; and be carried away spiritually into spiritual Egypt; and return spiritually, to have a spiritual abode in spiritual Nazareth; and become thus a spiritual Nazarene; and at length ride spiritually into spiritual Jerusalem, on a spiritual ass; and be spiritually betrayed by a spiritual Judas, for thirty pieces of spiritual silver, into the hand of spiritual enemies; to be spiritually spit upon with spiritual spittle; crowned with spiritual thorns, smitten with spiritual stripes, nailed to a spiritual cross, to die a spiritual death, after having been spiritually athirst and presented with spiritual gall and spiritual vinegar in a spiritual sponge; his spiritual garment being spiritually divided among spiritual soldiers; dying at last a spiritual death, and coming forth in a spiritual resurrection. Just as much reason, I say, for saying that all these things would be spiritually fulfilled in his first Advent, as that he would come spiritually the second time, in spiritual clouds, attended by spiritual lightning, burning up his enemies with spiritual fire and brimstone, and taking his seat on the spiritual throne of David, and establishing a spiritual kingdom for a spiritual reign. Now, since everything that had reference to the first Advent has had a literal fulfillment according to the plain import of language, and God has thus proved to us that he has spoken to us just what he meant; where is the least shadow of a reason for saying that Christ is to come in a spiritual way? O what stupid nonsense have the wise ones of this world been accustomed to receive for truth, touching the glorious coming and kingdom of our Lord! O, that God would tear away the covering from their eyes, and let them see their own immeasurable folly, that they might be ever-more ashamed of themselves, and learn that when a God who cannot lie, speaks, he utters what he means in language which he intends those who hear him to understand. This spiritualizing stuff is but the miserable drivelings of unbelief, a way which the devil has helped men who are wise in their own conceit to invent, for keeping up the hypocritical pretense of faith in God, while they make him a liar. 1 John v, 10. "He that believeth not on God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record which God gave of his Son."108 Nothing is more manifest than that multitudes who profess to believe the Bible, who read it every Sabbath in their public assemblies, and perhaps daily in their families, do not after all credit the plain testimony of the Lord. It is not long since I was conversing with a professed minister of the gospel, to whom I remarked, that as we are told by Paul, the man of sin would be found in the temple of God until destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming, when he should be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, and hence that there would be no temporal millennium previous to the Saviour's Advent. O, he replied, "that will be a spiritual coming." Now, that man did not believe the Bible on this subject, and is just as truly a hypocrite with regard to the Second Advent of Christ, as the Jews were with regard to the First Advent. The same thing is true of the vast multitude who pretend to believe God, and then take this spiritualizing way of making him a liar. They profess to believe the Bible, but will not take what God has said for truth. This whole system of spiritualizing rests on the monstrous assumption that when God says one thing, he means another. The whole mass of spiritualizers are challenged to furnish the faintest shadow of proof, that when the Saviour's Second Advent is spoken of, something else is meant.