Address to Advent Believers.
By William Miller
[The following excellent “Address” from the pen of Wm. Miller was presented to the conference of Advent believers, held at Low Hampton, N. Y., Dec. 28th and 29th, and was published in the “Advent Herald” of January 15th, 1848. “During the conference,” says the Herald, “the following address prepared by Bro. Miller at the request of the brethren, was presented by a committee, and unanimously adopted by the conference.”—Ed.] To the dear Second Advent brethren, scattered abroad, despised, but not forsaken; poor, yet making many rich; discarded by the proud Pharisees of our day, yet not discouraged; cruelly treated for the doctrine you love, and yet holding firmly to your hope of salvation at the door. We the undersigned, partakers of the same hope, children of the same faith, looking for the same deliverance, loving the same Lord, feeding on the same word, enjoying the same Spirit, suffering the same trials, subjected to like disappointments, and having the same care and fellowship for your welfare and furtherance in the truth—as ye have one for another and for us,—address you by this our epistle, in the way of consolation and advice: knowing that while we may comfort and console your hearts, we are establishing and strengthening our own. For if through many disappointments, temptations and trials, you stand fast in the faith once delivered to the saints, we rejoice in your steadfastness, are comforted together with you and are strengthened even in the inner and the outer man. We thank God always on your behalf, when we hear, as we already have heard, that your and our late disappointment has produced in you, and we hope in us also, a deep humiliation and close inspection of our hearts; and although we are humbled, and in some measure pained in our hearts to see and hear the scoffs and jeers of a wicked and perverse generation, yet we are in no wise terrified or cast down by the adversaries of our faith. We pray you, then, brethren, to “let patience have its perfect work,” knowing “that patience worketh experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed.” No, we are not ashamed, for we all know why we hope. You can and will, all of you, from the least of you to the greatest, old or young, when inquired of for the reason of your hope, open your Bibles, and with meekness and fear show the inquirer why you hope in the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. You need not in a single instance refer the inquirer to your minister to give the reason of your faith and hope. We bless God for you, my brethren, that you are all taught of the Lord. Your creed is the Scriptures; your spelling-book is the Bible; your grammar is the Word indited by the Spirit; your geography respects the promised inheritance of the holy land; your astronomy respects the bright starry crown of righteousness; your philosophy is the wisdom which cometh down from God; your bond of union is the love and fellowship of the saints; your teacher is the Holy Ghost; and your professor the Lord Jesus Christ; your recitation room is your closet; your recitations are heard in your prayers, and your songs fill up your vacations. We speak not of rewards, diplomas and degrees, for these are reserved in heaven for us, when these dusty walls of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, and we are called home into the new heavens and the new earth, to a full fruition of that hope of which we are not ashamed. Ashamed of this hope? No. Ashamed of looking for this hope? No. Ashamed of expecting Jesus? Why, what a question is that! When we look do we not expect? The ministers of our formal churches, some of them, say “they look, but do not expect.” Yet, brethren, we have expected, time and again, and have been disappointed, but are not ashamed. We would not yield a hair's breadth of our expectations for all the honors of Caesar's household, with all the popular applause of a worldly church. We exhort you, then, by all the love and fellowship of the saints, to hold fast to this hope. It is warranted by every promise of the word of God. It is secured to you by the two immutable things, the counsel and oath of God, in which it is impossible for God to lie. It is ratified and sealed by the death, blood, resurrection and life of Jesus Christ. You have already had a foretaste of the bliss of this hope, in the seventh month, when every moment you looked for the heavens to open, and reveal unto your anxious gaze the King of glory. Yes, then your whole soul was ravished with a holy joy, when you expected every moment to hear the shout of the heavenly host descending from the Father's glory, to welcome you, a weary pilgrim, to your blessed abode of eternal rest. In that eventful period, where was the world with all its vain allurements and empty show? It was gone. If our Saviour then had come as we expected, no tears would have fallen for a receding world, nor sighs have heaved our breasts for a dissolving earth, with all its pomp, its pleasures, or its praises. All this was then no more to us than is a bubble in Niagara's cataract. God's goodness gave us then a slight repast, like Elijah's meat, that lasted forty days. And how can you, or we, give up a hope so full of joy, of holy love, and heavenly anticipation, as is this? The world may frown and scoff; the unbelieving church may laugh and sneer, and try to call us back. They may and will report their slanderous tales to complete our trials, vainly supposing they can wound our pride, and by this means take away our hope, and make us, like themselves, a whitened sepulchre. In all our trials, those who have obtained this blessed hope by the study of the Scriptures, have remained steadfast and immovable among the scoffs and jeers with which we have been assailed. This, to us, is a source of great joy; and it shows conclusively where our faith is founded and our hope predicated. It is upon the sure word of prophecy, and no other evidence, that we rely. This is our main support, as even our opposers will, and do admit; or why do they in their attacks upon us, first try to show that prophecy is not to be understood, or if it is, that it is couched in such mystical and ambiguous language, that the ignorant and unlearned (as they are pleased to call us poor Bible students, in their mighty clemency), cannot comprehend its true import? Or why do they ridicule us, as a set of fanatical, unlearned heretics in trying to understand the sure word of prophecy, without first coming to our Bishops, or themselves to learn what the original text may mean? Why do they use these and similar arguments in order to overthrow us, if they are not sensible of the fact, that the prophecies of God's word are our main pillar? Why do they, without any discrimination, try to make our sure word of prophecy so dark, mysterious and incomprehensible, and in many instances acknowledge their own ignorance, and then call us heretics, because we search and believe what to us looks clear, consistent, and harmonious, with every part of God's holy word? But, say they, “time has proved you in an error: unerring time has favored us, and proved what you say we failed to do.” True, gentlemen, time has failed us in one or two instances, yet you cannot show why. And as you do not show any reason for the failure, permit us to give ours before we take your ground, and deny that prophecy can be understood. Every man of common intellect and information knows that we are dependent in some things on what we call human chronology, for the conclusion of our premises as it respects time. Again, they well know that our most learned and studious writers and historians disagree in the chronology of the events from which we date, some four or five years. It is true that we who have been most efficient in presenting this subject before the public, have chosen, and we think wisely too, the earliest possible time at which these momentous things might be expected to transpire, believing that it would be infinitely better for the souls of our fellow beings to come short of the time rather than to pass over. And indeed, we do not see any goods202reason now, why we should not have done in this matter as we have; for if we had looked only to the very last point of disputed time, and the accomplishment had come before that, or even at that time, how could there have been a tarrying time as the Bible predicts? How could there have been a time for the trial of our faith and patience, and the purifying and sanctifying of the whole house of the true Israel? If we had not anticipated the time a little, with what propriety could the wicked scoffer, and those who professedly belong to the house of Israel say, “The days are prolonged and every vision faileth?” and what has God said we shall answer this rebellious house of Israel with? With another specified time? No. How then shall we ever silence their cavilling and scoffing, if we can fix no future time? We answer, that is not our work to do. God has promised to do that work. Hark! and hear what the Lord saith. “I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel.” God will perform his engagements in his own time and manner. We have only to believe, and be patient. But we are taunted with “Oh you have prolonged your vision again and again; and you have failed every time; now wont you give it up, and come back to us? you are not honest if you will not.” When they thus call us dishonest, have we nothing we can say? If we altogether hold our peace, they will be wise in their own conceits, and go and report that they have shut our mouths, so that we could not say a word for ourselves; and thus the cause would be injured. But never fear brethren; God has told you what to say; do as he bids you, and he will take care of the consequences. God says, “But say unto them, the days are at hand, and the effect of every vision.” Eze. xii, 21–25. So we see, God has been in this thing. He well knew into what a straitened place we should be brought. He knew what the rebellious house of Israel would say, and he has given us the best weapon of defense. The word of God has a sufficiency of all armor, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work. We therefore hope that none of us will try to change the chronology of the visions; for they must fail in all our eyes; and if any vision should be so construed as to fix on another definite time in the future, we cannot conceive how the scripture would be fulfilled, that “every vision faileth.” Let us then be satisfied in patiently waiting for God’s time. But let us be careful that we do not lay off our armor, cease our watching, go to sleep at our post, or be caught in a snare, when the Son of man shall come. It is better to be ready before the time, and wait awhile, than not to be ready when the time shall come, and be lost. We exhort you then with the Lord’s advice, “be like men waiting for their Lord, that when he cometh they may open to him immediately.” Again, we exhort you, brethren, that every one may edify and be edified, that ye forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as often as your situation and circumstances shall permit; that we may comfort and console each other in our trials, be established ourselves in the present truth, and our minds be stirred up to remember that our Judge is now standing at the door. How can we who have taken so great delight in the study of the blessed Bible, again return to the beggarly elements of vain philosophy, and tradition of the fathers? We cannot sit under preaching where the Bible is discarded from the pulpit, except as a text book, and the plainest passages of scripture are mysticised and explained away, our hope in the resurrection of the body taken from us, and the kingdom of heaven preached as in this state of division, persecution and death, and the promise of being caught up in the air ridiculed by the oft repeated slang of ascension robes. These things we cannot fellowship, we will not hear them repeated. We therefore advise you, dear brethren, to hold meetings for prayer, reading of the Scriptures, exhortation and singing, if you may not be able to obtain a lecturer or preacher. And may the Spirit of God bless you with his presence, and preserve you blameless unto his coming. Again we exhort you, brethren, to be faithful in business. Let every one labor with his hands, in the several callings in which God has placed us, that none of us may be a burden to any, and that we may all of us have wherewith to communicate and do good, for it is more blessed to give than to receive; and that we may none of us give any occasion to our enemies to reproach us with being busy bodies in other men’s matters, or as not providing for our own house. In thus doing we may put to silence the reproaches of those who are seeking every occasion to destroy the doctrine that we rejoice to believe. We may, while we are engaged in our several occupations, be fervent in spirit serving the Lord. If we could not, it would be evidence that we were not engaged in a proper calling; or that our hearts were not right with God. Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles, labored with his hands that he might not be chargeable to the saints; and what was duty then, will be duty as long as the gospel remains to be preached. And we thank God we have never preached any other doctrine, you yourselves being our judges. We also beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye be not led about by every spirit; but try the spirits. For every spirit is not of God; and it is now evident that there are many spirits in the earth,—even the three unclean spirits which are working miracles, and deceiving not only the kings but the whole earth. It therefore becomes us to be very cautious by what spirit we are led. The spirit of error will lead us from the truth; and the Spirit of God will lead us into truth. But say you, a man may be in an error, and think he has the truth. What then? We answer, the Spirit and word agree. If a man judges himself by the word of God, and finds a perfect harmony through the whole word, then we must believe we have the truth; but if he finds the spirit by which he is lead does not harmonize with the whole tenor of God’s law, or book, then let us walk carefully, lest we be caught in the snare of the Devil, and fall from our own steadfastness; and so be deceived, and lose the crown for which we are running. Let us follow the teachings of the apostle Paul to Titus, ii, 12, “That denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;” or as Peter tells us in his second epistle, iii, 11, “Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness.” In both cases the context teaches us to look for the coming of the day of God; or which is the same thing, “the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ.” There are a few individuals among us who are teaching that Christ has come, and that we were not mistaken in the time, but only in the manner of his coming. Let us be careful, lest we cease from our watchfulness, and so that day come upon us unawares. Remember that the same Jesus will come in like manner as they saw him ascend; and every eye shall see him, and we shall see him as he is, and be like him, when that day shall come for which we look; and then “the heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements melt with fervent heat.” If the one can be spiritualized away, all the rest must of course be spiritualized in like manner; and it would make the whole description of the judgment but a jumble of nonsense. We hope but few will be carried away by such vain trifling with the Bible. If God does not mean what he says, to whom shall we go for instruction? Who has been his counselor, and who has sat in the council chamber of the Almighty? Man is but grass, and the flower thereof fadeth. He is but of yesterday, and his life but a breath. “Cursed is the man who trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” Hold on then, brethren, to the sure word of prophecy, for you will reap soon the fruits of your faith, if you faint not. We would advise and recommend that none be impatient; “Let patience have her perfect work.” “For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye may receive the promise; for yet (after ye have done the will of God), a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry.” Then have we done the will of God in proclaiming the year 1843? We could have done no better with the light we then had. The seventh month also was for the purpose of filling up these prophecies, which could not be accomplished while we had a future time in view. For instance, how could our faith and patience be fairly tested, while we had definite time to hold on to? A man might believe in the time of 1843 and the seventh month, and pin his faith on the arguments of men, and yet have no real faith in God. As long as we can lean on man for any support, we are always prone to do it. In all the history of the past, when God has wrought deliverance for his people, he has brought them where no human wisdom, strength, or foresight, could help; and where nothing but faith and patience could sustain. Then God has wrought deliverance, and “his own arm has brought down salvation” for us. And in this last trial, and the greatest deliverance of all, will he not deliver in his own way? It therefore becomes us to stand fast in faith. We know that when 1843 passed, many went back and walked no more with us. Their faith was tested. So likewise it was in the seventh month: the faith of many then failed. And so will it be, and so must it be. For [Mal. iii, 18], “In the day when the Lord of Hosts makes up his jewels, then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked,” &c. Why? “For the day cometh that shall burn as an oven.” It had not come when the test was made. No. Rev. xxii, 11: “He that is unjust let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” And what shall follow? “And behold I come quickly.” Quickly, after what? Any one may see it is quickly after the test is made, which tries the real characters of men. O foolishness, says the Greek, the Infidel, and Pharisee. Yet it is truth; God tried Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, and the three worthies with such a test, and they were not ashamed to own their faith to, or before a scoffing multitude, and persecuting kings. So we must be tested, and if the two trials we have passed are not sufficient, the next will be blood. Preserve us Lord from falling from our faith and from our blessed hope. And come Lord Jesus, Oh! come quickly.