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The True Issue

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Publishing Committee · Saratoga Springs, N. Y. · Mar 2, 1852

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 2, No. 13.

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The True Issue

By J. B. Cook

From the Advent Testimony of 1846.

The True Issue.

BY J. B. COOK.
It is not whether there has been many things wrong among Adventists, nor whether they are accountable for all that has been wrong. This is granted. It was so among the primitive disciples. My object is to maintain the truth of God's word relative to Divine Providence and Divine promise. By showing that these fundamental doctrines have been verified in our history—that they apply truly and naturally to the Advent movement, according to the strict import of the letter of scripture, I attempt to show conclusively that it is of Heaven.
In the time of Moses, David, and the honored attendants on Messiah, Divine guidance did not make them divine. It only secured the performance of Jehovah's revealed will. They would in each case have arranged things and brought out the events, in which they were severally, the actors, altogether differently; but they could neither divert the Divine counsels into the channel of their conceptions, nor derange the order he had revealed. It was beyond their power to hasten or impede prophetic fulfillment. They were in some respects, as much disappointed in the development of Jehovah's revealed purpose, by his Providence, as were their opponents. All were at times well nigh confounded, till the smoke of the explosion passed off. The believer, seeing the precise fulfillment of "the word," stood corrected, instructed and strengthened; but those who wanted an excuse for unbelief, turned away; and as in the history of Jesus, "they walked no more with him." This it has been in Advent history. God does not do our will, nor endorse our errors. He does his own holy will, and leaves those who are half-hearted, to turn aside to their tents, as did Gideon. "Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return." The truth is,God does not depend on us. We all depend upon God. We impose no obligation on him. He imposes the greatest obligations on us by condescending to employ us, in achieving his triumphs. Thus it was with Phineas, Elijah, Paul, Luther, and others who are his. All glory to God! I want every muscle and bone of my body, to praise him! Let all that is in me, or of me, glorify his great Name, for allowing me to believe and obey the Gospel!—the whole Gospel, including its crowning, its elevating, and also its humbling truths.
God's great plan is, in its higher range, above us. It is above Satan's reach. In this we should rejoice. Of Him, and through him, and to him, are all things—to whom be glory forever. Amen! The Advent movement is "of Him." It will be for his glory, and the salvation of all, who "hold fast the beginning of their confidence stedfast unto the end." Everlasting thanks be to his dear, sweet Name, that he gave his poor worm, the privilege of acting an humble part, in the scene preparatory to this crowning event of all Divine dispensations. Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Those pitied souls, who became ashamed of "the vision," and of the midnight cry, will be overwhelmed with shame, for having been ashamed of the manner in which God fulfilled his word; except they speedily repent and "confess" the truth of Christ's most gracious promises to those who "look for" and "love his appearing." Jesus holds us to a "confession" of his veracity, in all he said.
"The love of Christ constrained me," and I have been borne away, perhaps, somewhat from the point before the reader's mind; but not from the true issue. Let those who are ashamed of the part they took in the proclamation of the judgment, and the coming of Jesus in bible language, and of the midnight cry, tell us why. Were you not sincere, prayerful and persevering, in searching the scriptures, and did you not honestly believe that prophetic time would end in '43, or in '44? If you were not honest, you ought to be ashamed before all earth and Heaven. Your character must have been rotten to the core. The issue is not whether you are ashamed of the part others have acted. Peter, Judas, and all the apostles, were erring. It is human to err, still; but I have as little to regret in the part I have acted in the Advent cause, as in that which I previously acted relative to religion. I have been as honest and more blest, in believing the Second Advent, time and all, than in my previous belief in the First Advent. My knowledge, as Bro. Galusha says, was imperfect; but I have a perfect consciousness of integrity. Have you? then tell me can you be ashamed of this primary element of all virtue! My Advent knowledge and experience was obtained by more study and more prayer, than any that preceded it. It has, with me, been a vast advance on all my prior knowledge of christian truth and experience. My whole being praises God for it. Amen.
As this was once your position, (as it still is mine,) is it not clear as day, that you have backslidden, or "drawn back" towards perdition? Instead of closing your hearts and your pulpits, ought you not to be alarmed, at your willingness to exclude the evidence that God has been fulfilling his revealed will in the Second Advent movement, so far? You thus cast contempt on that which was your own largest knowledge, and holier, divinest experience. Your outcast brother has, by "holding fast," a still larger knowledge, and an experience still more Divine. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord' for it. "My spirit doth rejoice in God my Saviour, for he that is Mighty hath done unto me great things." Amen!
In order to bring out the true issue, let me enquire:—
1. Whether this is not the time to expect the introductory scenes of the Saviour's glorious appearing? The overwhelming testimony on this point will not be denied.
2. Has the series of events in Advent history, occurred in a different order from that which you find in the Advent prophecy? Hab. ii, 2, 3; Matt. xxv, 1—19; 1 Thess. v, 1—3; 2 Pet. iii, 3—4.
3. Can you deny that Divine Providence has extended to this series of events, bringing them out in the predicted order. Isa. xliv; Matt. x, 29.
4. Can you prove that Divine promise was not fulfilled in the Advent people? If you can not, please tell us what influenced them. The promise certainly belongs to those who are willing to do the Divine will—to those who "look for and love" the Lord's appearing. Now I prove that the promises of Divine guidance were fulfilled in them. 1st. Because they are addressed to such a people, the cross bearing and believing. 2d. Because those who had enjoyed much of the Holy Spirit before, were conscious that it was the same spirit of grace, in a greater degree. 3d. It was confessed to be the Holy Spirit by the most spiritually minded, who remained in the church. If Divine promise was fulfilled in us as we all once claimed, and the most prayerful in the church confessed, then to deny it now is to deny so far, the Holy Ghost. It is to deny the truth of Christ's promise. Is it not?
5. Is your conception of the manner of prophetic fulfillment, more likely to be correct than that of the Divinely commissioned Moses, or the Saviour's apostles? If so why?
6. Has God usually, in the great crises of the world, left those named in his promises to the guidance of Satan? If so I'll admit that he may have done so now.
7. Will not the Advent of Christ find the world as did the Deluge, almost faithless—disregarding all the signs of his coming? Will it not come on them 'as a snare'? And is not the Advent movement adapted to form such a snare.
8. Will all those even, who go forth to meet the Saviour, maintain their faith (their light) and enter the kingdom? If not must you not prove it by that very scripture which you refuse to apply in other particulars, which are quite as plain as this one?
9. Will you tell where you got the idea of a midnight cry? Is it only from the parable of the virgins? Then you must to be consistent have, 1st. A going forth, 2d. A tarrying, and 3d, this cry. Then a breaking up of the band, and afterwards, a shut door. How in the name of reason or religion, can you make the cry mean something important, just preceding the coming of Christ, and the other parts of the representation nothing, and the series of events nothing!
10. Is it not impossible that the Archangel should give the cry at the Lord's coming, and then the remaining parts of the parable be fulfilled subsequently? Does the lightning to which our Lord's coming is likened, give time for the foolish to go and get oil, come on and knock, and not know that they are 'too late'? (If the answer comes 'I know you not'?) Does it take lightning as long as that to cut and burn its way through heaven?
11. How on the other hand can the cry extend through centuries, when the only scripture, which gives you any idea of the cry confines it to the period of the night watches? Does not the entire action of the virgins, as well as the cry, take place in the night of the marriage? If so how dare you make it cover their whole lives, nights, days and all? If the cry in the parable means anything definite, or important, why not the time also? Beware! 'God is not mocked.'
12. If you bend it thus to suit your conceptions, and deny the promise and Providence of God, so apparent in fulfilling the parable, are you not in principle, doing just what you condemn in those who treat the prophecy of Daniel in the same manner!—They to avoid our faith, mix up the 3d with the 4th beast, and in the end make a head of the 3d to absorb the whole of the fourth, so that with those the prophecy, Dan vii, does not reach even to the First Advent. How can you in this manner, make the cry, to absorb the time, and the series of events, the subsequent falling away of the foolish, and shut door as represented in the parable? I could as soon believe the learned professor sincere when he made the Syrian head of the 3d beast swallow down the whole 4th, before its symbolized existence with its decade of horns, brazen nails and all, not even leaving out the tip end of his tail!
13. If the cry be fulfilled of all, why not the other parts of the parable also, each in the "order" which Jesus "declared" from ancient time, when he told things "that are coming and shall come?"
14. Can you prove that a special trial resulting from our Lord's tarrying will not render patience and watchfulness, absolutely necessary? If we are in this trial why not admit frankly that scripture where the tarrying, the cry, and the need of watchfulness are together taught? *
16. Please prove that the path of the just instead of shining "more and more unto perfect day," leads into darkness, where they must re-write, "the vision," where those who doubt Divine supervision shall themselves take care to make it speak so as not to "lie" the second time! No one will fairly make issue with me on this point, I apprehend, that "the vision" written, judgment hour proclaimed, the tarrying, midnight cry, and dispersion of the virgin band, will ever have a recorded fulfillment again in our age—that it will be again confirmed by signs and wonders and gifts of the Holy Ghost. No. No. There was a naturalness, a Divinity in the past movement which can never be witnessed again, by those who will not believe. It was like machinery moving in oil. It was like the out-busting of a fountain from our earth, with original, spontaneous, native force. It evinces the pressure of the Divine hand on this age. It brought out in bold relief, before every eye, the more delicate touches of the prophetic pencil, converting prophecy into history in quick succession, and furnishing abundant confirmation to our faith in the prophetic word, which proves the glories of the everlasting kingdom to be just upon us.
17. It is not certain that the several points in the parable have been, successively, brought out distinctly. Did not the people named in Divine promise stand on them as on a platform, to do what then seemed the will of God, connected with the Advent. Did they not form as distinct an idea of the going forth, and of the tarrying, as of the midnight cry? Well if the last be all wrong, all a mistake, as a leading lecturer in this city says, "though he was compelled to come into it," why is not the whole wrong? Why keep up false appearances? I KNOW that each leading point in the parable, preceding and following the Cry, has become, MATTER OF RECORD. That which was prophecy is now history, down to near the closing scene. I could not as an honest man, much less as a christian, profess to believe a part of this wonderful series of events so like a fulfillment, 'all wrong, or all a mistake,' while in other parts we trace Divine agency. Our agency in this Judgment scene will be judged by Him who looks through all disguises. If you deny the hand of God in filling out this representation of those who watch and wait for the Son of Man; I'll engage if you'll be honest, to drive you off from revelation, beyond Infidelity into Atheism! It is all of a piece.
I call heaven and earth to witness, that I see no alternative but to confess Christ's truth which has been brought out in the Advent movement, or to deny it. God Almighty is my witness that I see no alternative but to recognize his Providence here, or deny it over the world. There is I solemnly believe, no alternative but to acknowledge the supreme guiding spirit of grace here, according to our Lord's prayer and promise, or to deny all religion so far as we have known and taught it. There is no integrity in avoiding the true issue. If we have known anything of religion 'as we ought to know,' we have enjoyed it during our belief of these crowning truths of revelation. With tearful gratitude I acknowledge that I never was so favored with the Holy Ghost as during the last few years. The Searcher of hearts knows that competent witnesses from all denominations have thus testified. Now admit it or deny it. If you deny, be honest and deny all spiritual religion, so far as you or your Advent brethren know. You have had it, if ever, in your Advent experience.
The full confidence of my soul amounts to knowledge, that I do know what religion is—that Adventists, so long as they held fast the "beginning of their confidence" enjoyed the Holy Ghost in unwonted measure—that God has guided them to bring out the opening scenes of the day of God—that those who maintain faith in God's word, Spirit and Providence, will still "stand" nay "walk" in the "path of the just," encircled with "more and more" light, as they advance into the glories of an eternal day. "Bless the Lord, O my soul," for such faith and hope.
None who admit that we have enjoyed the Holy Spirit of promise, will join issue with me and deny that he has guided us to do the Divine will—fulfill his word and thus render the coming of our Lord, so far, absolutely certain and very soon. Those who doubt Divine guidance are, and must be in the fog. Such will not, after all, see the true issue.