UNBELIEF by J. Clarke

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 11, 1858

UNBELIEF.

By J. Clarke

"O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" Luke xxiv, 25.

THERE have been periods in the history of the church and of the world, in which (on account of some great event affecting the condition of man) there is such an important bearing upon the vital interests of mankind, as to call the attention of God himself to the subject, to such a degree as to reveal the main facts to his people hundreds of years previously.

Such periods are called eras, and time is reckoned from some era, as we reckon time from the birth of Christ, or from the deluge, or as the Jews reckon from the departure from Egypt, or from the return from the Babylonish captivity. The creation of the world was a remarkable era, the deluge was another, and the first advent of Jesus Christ, his humiliation, his crucifixion and ascension, was the most remarkable and astonishing event, or era, recorded in history, because of its bearing upon man's future destiny.

But there is an era just before us; viz., the second advent of Jesus Christ, which promises to eclipse all previous eras, so that they will seem as small events compared with this; and though mankind mock at the idea, as they did at Noah who foretold of the deluge for 120 years; though impious scoffers rail as they did at Jeremiah who foretold the captivity of the Jews in Babylon; though the visible church reject the idea as the Jewish church did his first advent; yet come it will, for the word of the Lord is sure.

Ever since the fall of our first parents, there has been a disposition on the part of man to reject the word of the Lord: his warnings have been slighted, his invitations despised, and his offers disdainfully rejected by the vast majority of our race, even until now; and it would seem even necessary that a full stop should soon be made to the wickedness of man, for the cup is nearly full.

The deluge was foretold by Noah amid contempt and scorn, yet it came as pre-determined. The deliverance of the Hebrews from Egypt was effected by a series of miracles, extending through forty years, according to the word of God, in spite of the opposition and heartlessness of the rescued captives, and they were established in the pleasant land, freed from the oppressor's lash. Thus God fulfilled his promise to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; but the word and promise of God was rejected, and one generation perished in the wilderness. Even so was the word of the Lord rejected by them in the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the Babylonians came and carried them into captivity; and at the end of this seventy years of exile, when warned to flee from Babylon, very many of them rejected the call, and were engulfed in the destruction which afterwards befell that wicked city and nation.

But the first advent of the Messiah, the most remarkable event recorded in history since the creation to the present; this event so often spoken of, and so clearly described by the prophets; this event so well attested by his miracles, his teaching, his example of purity and patience, was ignored by the then only visible church. It is true a few acknowledged his divinity, but only a few. O wonderful, willful ignorance! O blind envy! adamantine obduracy! The first advent of Jesus was too humble, too lowly for the soaring Pharisee; the prophecies were too mysterious for the wise lawyer and the ambitious scribe, too deep for the rapacious, money-loving Jew; and so the meek and lowly Jesus was rejected, despised, spit upon and crucified.

On this occasion, having arisen from the dead, Christ addresses his mourning followers as above quoted, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe," &c. But why fools? because they did not implicitly believe what the prophets had spoken of him. O then, if Jesus laid such stress upon what the prophets had spoken, what must be the guilt of those who wholly omit to read or understand the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments? Why were these revelations of the plans of Jehovah made to the prophets of the old and new dispensation, if they were forever to remain sealed? No, they are to be unsealed, before the events transpire, to the wise who shall understand.

But there is a practical application of this subject to the present state of things, which is solemn and fearful; viz., the present generation are acting over again the same skeptical part as to his second coming that the Jews did to his first advent, 1800 years ago. Yes, the visible churches in their hatred to Adventism, and in their opposition to the law of God; in the contempt cast upon his holy Sabbath from week to week, in the face of the light now shining everywhere; in their efforts to put the Sabbath under foot, and to set up a pagan festival in its stead; in their efforts to darken the page of prophecy which sheds such a flood of light upon the second advent of the Messiah, are acting a part ten-fold more aggravated and fearful than that enacted by the Jewish church 1800 years ago. Why? Because we have ten-fold more evidence of his second coming, and of its time and manner, and of the accompanying circumstances, than the Jewish church had of his first advent.

In proof of this, let any candid person examine carefully the evidences of the advent of Christ and of his life, sufferings and death, which were in possession of the Jewish church at his first coming, and compare it with the light now shining upon the page of prophecy in both Old and New Testaments; and such a person after carefully and intelligently weighing the comparative evidence, must certainly admit that the light now beaming upon and from prophetic scriptures, is far, very far greater, than could have been realized either in the days of Noah or of Jesus Christ.

We have the same prophecies which they had, and besides we possess the awful history and final end of those who rejected them, and the general experience and history of those nations mentioned in the Bible, together with the accredited history of the fulfillment of many of the prophecies. Thus we have numerous data and stand-points from which to view the future, and a vast mine of cumulative evidence daily increasing; we possess the prophecies of Christ himself, and by his apostles, clear and well defined; we have the signs of the times, and all point with awful precision to the all-absorbing event, to that great day just looming up before us.

Now too, the human intellect is cultivated, the mind enlarged, the means of knowledge are greatly increased, and the facilities for the investigation of truth are greatly enlarged and spread abroad; and such is man's present power of investigation, that nothing material is seemingly too high or too deep for his study. Height and depth, length and breadth, are accurately measured, and by means of skillful and scientific combinations and arrangements, his eye penetrates the depths of space, into other spheres; he brings suns and systems into his range of thought; he pries into the earth, and dissects its materials; he analyzes the very air we breathe; he tames the lightnings; almost annihilates time and distance, and performs unnumbered wonders; but alas! when he turns to the page of prophecy, or the law of God, one is obscure, and the other is done away.

The word of God and the practice and precept of the church, are seen to be at such points of opposition, and at such variance that one or the other must be set aside; and there are so many magnets on the side of man's precept, that the silent and severe word of God, is lost sight of and forgotten or ignored, and the natural mind at once leans upon its kind. Truth is darkened and obscured; light is taken for darkness and darkness for light; and so is enacted over again, the blind part of the Jews of old, who were blind and deaf, but thought they saw and heard.

These are not random thoughts; they are well attested facts. And startling though they may be, we should know them, should bear them in mind. They remind us of the corruption of the age; they warn us of its perils and dangers. We must stand aloof from spiritual Babylon, must come out of her or be partaker of her sins, and receive of her plagues.

Rest assured, dear brother or sister, that it is not a light thing to serve the Lord, to keep his commands, and have the faith of Jesus. We must leave their assemblies, must protest firmly against their Sabbath desecration, their mock baptism and other errors, and must bear plain witness in regard to Christ's second coming, and the awful plagues impending over the wicked. All are wicked who trample upon God's law, be it done ever so solemnly.

One point here claims our attention in regard to the eras in the past; as in the days of Noah, God by Noah called loudly for a reform previous to sending the deluge upon the earth; so it was previous to the first advent of Christ that John the Baptist preached repentance. He called the leaders of the Jewish church a generation of vipers, and this gave great offense; he rebuked king Herod, and this faithful

dealing cost him his life. It was against the crimes of the professed church, and those in high places, that he hurled the thunders of truth, against hypocrites, who were sitting in Moses' seat, expounders of the law, scribes, Pharisees, priests and Levites, white-washed with apparent sanctity; against such he pointed his sharpest arrows of reproof. The ancient prophets of the Lord began with these elevated sinners when a reform was called for, and whenever in the past the church departed from the standard of purity and became corrupt, then God has raised up faithful reprovers; and whenever such reproofs have been rejected by those to whom they were sent, the judgments of God have immediately followed. This offensive word, repent, has often been the stone of stumbling over which corrupt churches and false prophets, and lying teachers, and thoughtless nations, with their reckless rulers, have stumbled, and fallen, and expired.

So now a reform is called for; reprovers are raised up who preach repentance. Repent, repent, they say; turn, turn, O house of Israel, from your idolatrous pagan rites. O ye corrupt churches, repair the breach, restore the ancient paths, prepare, prepare for the coming of the Lord; but all in vain. This offensive word, repent, has the same effect now upon these confused organizations, that it had when it fell from the lips of John the Baptist in the wilderness of Judea.

But a grand era is now quickly coming. The day of God's wrath is near, it hasteth greatly. It will be an era fraught with awful importance to the wicked; but to the righteous it will be a bright, a glorious day. To the wicked it will be a day of tempest, of hail, and of pestilence; but to the righteous, a day of deliverance, of joy and rejoicing, an era from which through eternity they will date immortality and eternal life.

How remarkable that any with the prophetic scriptures open before them, with their fulfillment recorded on almost every page of profane as well as sacred history, can still reject the testimony of the prophets. How strange that the second advent of the Messiah can be doubted in the face of such proof! Oh awful thought! that men are now ripening for the seven plagues spoken of in Rev. xvi. "Babylon is fallen. Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and receive not of her plagues." Rev. xviii. J. CLARKE.