Avenging of the Elect by Beck

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 4, 1862

Avenging of the Elect.

By Beck

(Continued.)

DISTINGUISHING TRAITS AND TENDENCIES OF THE NOW GENERALLY PREVALENT DOCTRINE OF THE SECOND COMING.

The principal characteristic of the new doctrine is this: It separates the second advent one thousand years from the termination of the series of events which are now transpiring, and with which, in the prophecies, it is most manifestly connected. It virtually, and even necessarily makes all the warnings and admonitions to be looking for, and preparing for the coming of Christ utterly inapplicable to the generations now living, and applicable specifically and only to that last generation of men who will be found upon the earth at the close of the thousand years of universal righteousness and peace.

With the now prevalent view, the very wickedness of the world, which shows that its cup of iniquity is rapidly filling up, and warns of coming judgment, is misinterpreted so as to mean exactly the opposite, and to show that the one thousand years that must first intervene have not yet even begun. Can this be denied? The entire influence of this extensive class of Bible truths which relate to the second coming of Christ, and which the common reader cannot fail to perceive, was consequently used by the inspired writers as a principal means of admonition and edification; this large class of truths which the prophets and apostles, and which our Lord himself deemed so essential to the faith and salvation of the Church, is now almost utterly lost in the principal branches of the great Christian family.

True, we do make some use of these great and thrilling revelations, for they are so frequent and so prominent withal in the Scriptures, that it would be unwise to ignore them, and impolitic to deny them. But do we generally make use of them as the primitive Christians, and as the primitive Protestants did? Do we quote them and apply them heartily and without misgivings? Do not men of penetration easily discover our hesitancy and our inconsistency, even if we maintain the modern Whitbyan doctrine on this subject? Are we not in danger, in fact, of being suspected of gross insincerity in our use of these portions of the Scriptures, while we interpret them according to the present method? And must not this undeniable state of things, in respect—not to merely speculative and minor doctrines—but in respect to the most awful and important revelations in the whole Bible—must not this fearful indefiniteness and manifest inconsistency greatly cripple our endeavors to influence unconverted and unbelieving men, by the use of, not this class of revelations only, but also of all other portions of the Bible?

Probably ninety-nine in every hundred who first read or first hear the Scriptures which relate to the second advent, receive a distinct conviction that those portions were so framed and worded as intentionally to convey the impression, that the coming of the Lord might happen in their day, and ought to be prepared for. Perhaps no one will be sufficiently unreasonable and reckless to deny the indisputable fact, that in all ages the impression produced upon the common mind by those portions of the Divine word were exactly the opposite of the impressions conveyed by the present prevailing view of the relation of the second advent to the millennium: the modern doctrine making the second advent to be post-millennial, and, consequently, not to be expected while wickedness and wretchedness continues in the world, and not until at least a thousand years of righteousness and peace have succeeded to the present unhappy condition of the race. Is there any use or reason in denying the manifest truth in respect to what the general impression has been, or in denying that it was the opposite of what the present millennial theory legitimately produces? Or can any one feel justified in affirming that the common conviction has not been produced by the letter and spirit of the Scriptures that relate to this subject?

Who indeed indited the holy Scriptures, and gave to them their specific adaptations, knowing all the time how the common mind would in all ages, when left to its own exercise, be improved with the spirit and word of the holy book? Was it not the Wisdom that cannot err in its intentions, and cannot be delighted with error of any kind? Can it be that the Holy One has so framed his words to us, that the intelligent creatures that he has made and so wisely governed, almost universally receive a false impression of truths that were designed to be eminently instrumental in moving us and in keeping us safe? Is it the truth, or is it error, that makes us free? Did God intend to have the Scriptures understood, or did he purposely adapt them to mislead us on matters of vital interest? Or must we take the odious position of the apostate Romish Church, that the Scriptures were not designed and adapted to the people in general, but for the few indoctrinated and taught by the infallible man from whom all law and all authorized interpretations are to proceed? If it should be objected to this, that, according to the very statements herein made, the Scriptures have, whether from original intention or not, uniformly misimpressed the common mind in respect to the immediateness of the coming of the Lord, the explanation is very easy: The Scriptures nowhere intimate that the great event will be separated from the present by a long period of time, and another widely different state of things. The alarming fact, that Christ will come to a wicked and unprepared world, is so revealed that the common mind does not misinterpret the practical intention of revealing the fact, and at the same time withholding the knowledge of the time. When the Master of the house gives his charge to the servants and takes his departure, informing them that he will certainly return, but not choosing to inform them when, and bidding them to watch and prepare for his coming, "lest coming suddenly he find them sleeping," those servants do not receive a false or injurious impression, who employ themselves diligently, and stand on the watch constantly, not knowing when their Lord will return, whether at evening, or at midnight, or in the morning. If they should even receive a false alarm, and find themselves for the time mistaken, it would not, or at least, it ought not to destroy the original and intended effect of the uncertainty of the Master's return. But if the impression should obtain that the Lord did not design to return, and certainly would not, until they had all died, and a long interval had intervened, and a new set of servants had been raised up to take their place, we can easily perceive how this impression might be the means of all being overtaken by surprise, just in proportion as the impression was believed and cherished.

If the Master had given them a charge to watch and be ready for his coming, because they knew not the time, and he might come and find them unprepared; and if his words were intended to produce a conviction of the truth in the case—that is, if no such interval would elapse, as must in the nature of the case certainly make the danger of unwatchfulness to belong, not to them, but to a company of servants that should succeed them—then in that case, we see distinctly how their misimpression might be fatal to them.

Perhaps enough has been said about the impression which the language of the Scriptures is adapted to make upon the general mind; but we cannot dismiss this point without observing, that when we have succeeded by ingeniously theorizing and allegorizing these universal first convictions away, and thereby taught the world that the primary impressions uniformly produced by the spirit and letter of the Scriptures upon the common mind, are not only not reliable, but even uniformly deceptive, and therefore not worthy of being cherished and followed;—when we have succeeded in accomplishing this, what else have we done? Firstly, we have corrupted the virgin purity of conviction that divine truth never fails to produce in all, unprejudiced and unsophisticated minds, when that truth is presented direct and simple, as God has given it to us. And we have thereby set the example, and encouraged the practice of dalliance with seductive speculations with other portions of divine truth, until perhaps all that is calculated to move the unconverted soul has utterly lost its intended influence. When the mind has once been seduced to part with its virgin purity of conviction in religious things, and abandons itself to the lawless wantonness of unrestrained indulgence in religious theorizing and fond speculations, we know not what wide departures from spiritual virtue we may have initiated by that first successful incitement to do violence to its instinctive sense of logical propriety. After this first violation of original purity of conviction the mind henceforth is not as it was before, and, without a miracle, can never be again.

Secondly. In doing this we have encouraged a disposition to distrust all that the Scriptures appear to teach by its simple letter, so far as the simple letter teaches what may not be pleasing to carnal taste, or may not be conformable with the reasonings and ever-changing speculations of men, and have proportionally encouraged the fatally-dangerous habit of hunting up and inventing ingenious methods of explaining away, and otherwise negativing all portions of divine truth that men may not wish to understand just as God has been pleased to reveal it. And who can calculate the final results of such a state of things, in embarrassing and defeating the legitimate influence of the simple truth as God has revealed it? What is Universalism but a second step in the same direction? What is rationalistic neology but the finishing step in the same career?

Furthermore, when we have succeeded in establishing the new methods of exegesis, and in counteracting the universal primary impression made upon all unsophisticated minds, we shall have accomplished one thing more—we shall have triumphantly proved, to the gratification of every blind papist, that the Scriptures were not designed and adapted to the common mind—that is, to the nineteen-twentieths of the people—but were intended for the few, the men of vast research and extensive information; we shall have demonstrated that the common mind is not to be intrusted with the pure Word of God, but needs to have its first, unbiased, convictions corrected by the more skillful theories and riper judgments of acute philosophers and professional divines. In other words, we shall have virtually abandoned the old Protestant ground, in reference to the adaptation and utility of the Holy Scriptures for the people in general, and in reality assumed the true Romish position, that the Word of God is not to be trusted with the people, unless accompanied and guarded by the profound annotations and multitudinous traditions of councils, bishops, and popes.

When we have succeeded in accomplishing all of this, and for the express purpose, too, of evading and correcting what seems to the common mind to be the evident intention and force of multitudes of passages which represent the second advent as premillennial, and of such a nature and of such relations to other events, that it may soon happen, and that all might be living in expectation of it; when we have done all this, to the injury of the minds that we would benefit, to the injury and crippling of our own influence, as candid and consistent persons; when we have in this way succeeded in convincing ourselves, and the Church, and the world, too, that Christ will not and cannot come, and therefore ought not to be expected, until a thousand years, at least, of general holiness and peace have passed away—need we do any thing more—can we do any thing more, to bring about the fulfilment of the startling predictions that Christ will come unexpectedly to a slumbering and sleeping Church, and to a guilty, unbelieving world? Is not this the true solution of the tremendous problem, how, with the doctrine believed, with the admonitions admitted, and the duty of constant watchfulness professedly complied with, yet, nevertheless, the coming of the Lord will be as a thief in the night, and as a snare, upon all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth? Reader, reflect; for your soul's sake reflect on this momentous subject. —Beck.

(To be Continued.)