SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS by Dudley Marvin Canright

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 12, 1860

SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

IT IS NOT desirable with me to mention any one sect of religionists as the subject of public remarks; but being well acquainted with this people, their customs and questions, having been a member with them, and having felt, since embracing the third message, a desire for their salvation, similar to what Paul expresses concerning his brethren, his "kinsmen according to the flesh," when he says, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved," I hope I shall not offend in speaking my mind freely. From my knowledge of their Christian character in past years, their zeal and love of truth, I have felt confident that a considerable portion of them, at least, would embrace the light of present truth. They have been much slower to believe than I ardently hoped at the first; still the leaven is at work. Some have come out decidedly, and others, many others, are inquiring and will soon have strength of faith sufficient to believe the work that God is now doing in behalf of his down-trodden truth.

It was no wonder that so very few of them were affected by the first and second messages. They stood upon a moral platform consisting of ten good, sound, reliable planks, while those the Lord had moved out by his word and Spirit to announce the Advent messages had but nine sound planks, and, to make it still worse, a rotten one in the midst of their platform. But the Lord in his wisdom chose his own instrumentality. He knew how to commence a work that will gather his jewels of all denominations.

But when the third message reached me—when I could see that the Lord was causing the testimony to be bound up and the law sealed among his disciples—when I could see the harmonious fulfillment of prophecy in the Advent movement and the fruit of the work—the rejection of the rotten plank and the breach in the platform repaired, now, thought I, the Seventh-day Baptists can see the hand of the Lord in this, and those who keep the truth for the love of it, will certainly embrace these messages. Of course I was aware that it was with them as with other denominations. That "they are not all Israel that are of Israel." Some were Sabbatarians only because they were born such, and others had left their first love and fallen into the spirit and love of this present evil world. Still I believed that this message would gather a harvest of souls from among them; and though, as I said, they have seemed slow to believe, still I am no less confident in the good result.

I regard it as truly providential that their organ, the Sabbath Recorder, has been opened for the investigation of some of the truths we believe, and they have been discussing them among themselves for a few months past. The hand of the Lord has been in it, notwithstanding there has been too much levity with those who stood in defense of the truth as well as others. The advocacy of religious truth is serious business, and no less so in these last days of peril, while the wheat and the tares are being ripened for the harvest, and the strong delusion of Satan is abroad, that will deceive, if it were possible, the very elect.

The Lord opened the Recorder to the truth. And though there has been recently a rally of denominational pride, and its columns have been closed against it, yet the Lord will overrule even this for the furtherance of the gospel of the kingdom. The work of the Lord cannot be stopped by human power. Efforts to retard will only accelerate it. Human wisdom does not foresee this. Consequently it advances the work it would impede. Love of the truth cannot long dwell with manifest hatred of it. It is said that young eagles will not fly till they are pushed out of their nests. There have been some believers in the Advent truth, weak in faith, that have thought perhaps that the Seventh-day Baptist church would be saved in unbelief, or, at least, that they might safely remain with them. This mistake will ere long be corrected. The late rally against the truth will aid the work. The separation is inevitable; and in one sense I rejoice in it, in another I do not. Would to God they might all receive the truth, but they will not; and I will therefore rejoice that some will, I hope a large number.

The jewels will all be gathered by this last message. The work cannot fail, for God is its author. The Lord Jesus promised to come again for the salvation of his people, and he will fulfill his promise. He gave us signs of his near approach, and they have been fulfilled. He predicted the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom as a witness or sign, and it is being preached. He revealed through the beloved disciple the three messages that should precede his advent, and the last of the three has already spread from Maine to Minnesota, to California on the shores of the Pacific, and the sound is not entirely unknown on the eastern shores of the Atlantic. But while this message has converted a few thousands, Spiritualism has seduced its millions. Now is the time to choose which we will have. Now is the time to venture out on Bible truth, and throw our whole energies into the work of the Lord, giving our influence, our talents and our all without reserve to the cause of the Lord.

R. F. C.