A New Time by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1858

A New Time.

By Editor

We have received a sheet purporting to be “An Address from the Advent Church in New York and Newark, to the Church scattered abroad.” It is another effort to fix the definite time of the Lord’s second advent. The time set is the present spring, 1858. Its only redeeming feature is that the period is short to which its influence (if it should have any, which we hope it will not) is limited. Of the groundless positions therein assumed, it will be sufficient to notice the one on the 2300 days, as they must necessarily be the main pillar of any argument on the prophetic periods.

The position assumed is that 69 of the 70 weeks reach to the crucifixion, whereas the prophecy locates the commencement of Christ’s ministry at that time, and places the crucifixion in the midst of the 70th week. The writer then endeavors to show that the crucifixion took place in 41, ten years this side of the authorized date; and there being 1817 years remaining they would end in the spring of the present year, 1858.

A simple statement of this view is its own refutation. It is necessary that a period should have a commencement as well as a termination; but no effort is made to show that anything like a command to restore Jerusalem went forth B. C. 442, or that the days should be reckoned from the spring. No effort is made to prove that the cleansing of the Sanctuary at the end of the days, means the coming of the Lord, and none to set aside the mass of testimony which places the crucifixion in the year 31. We have only to add that if any are deceived by such an argument as this they deserve to be.