The Great Movement by Editor

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 19, 1863

The Great Movement.

By Editor

THE great Advent movement will come out right in the end. The purpose of God in it will be realized. The movement is symbolized by a series of messages in Rev. xiv, the grand result of which seems to be to gather out of the rubbish of this treacherous world a loyal people who shall with joy welcome the coming of their King.

God's word will stand when heaven and earth shall pass away. The messages which symbolize the Advent movement are infallible. Mortals may err in relation to truth and duty, and Satan may inspire men to try to disarrange the order of Providence; but while these may suffer for the lack of true knowledge, God will see that his purposes are accomplished wisely and well. The prophetic pencil marks out the track, which will be kept open in spite of earth and hell, for the car of Providence to move along. God's revealed purposes will be fulfilled, and his work in preparing a people to joyfully receive his Son at his second Advent will terminate gloriously.

But notwithstanding the faithfulness of God in fulfilling his word, and the infallibility of revealed messages of truth, the people of God, who act a part in the great Advent movement, are not free from responsibilities. Every person professing the Advent faith assumes a great responsibility. God holds them responsible for conduct worthy of their high profession.

And those who teach the Advent faith and hope take still higher responsibilities. They should be proper ensamples to the flock, and lead in the path of holiness. If the flock recognize the Shepherd's voice in theirs, they can safely follow. Such are also represented as watchmen. The church is committed to their care. Says Paul, "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account." Heb. xiii, 17. God will hold them responsible for his flock, so far as a faithful performance of their duties is concerned. How many ministers, yes, even Advent ministers, will come up to the judgment with their garments all stained with the blood of souls!

With Adventists of every type there has been a fault in the relations of ministers and people. Paul, in the text above quoted, requires obedience on the part of the people, but not without in the same text impressing ministers with the weight of responsibility resting upon them. The lack of devotion on the part of many ministers who teach the Advent faith, the clownish style of some of them in preaching and writing; their opposition to organization, and their leaving things at loose ends; their want of love for souls, and their excessive love for sentiments of no practical importance; their love of riding hobbies, embracing the varied forms of the future age, &c., which can result only in dividing the flock, have destroyed that confidence in them which the people should be able to repose in the ministers of Jesus Christ. If ministers have an abiding sense of the dignity, the holiness, and awfully solemn, responsible position they occupy, they will act in a manner to gain the confidence of the people. In this way only, they may secure the obedience of the people.

Obedience to the minister secured by creed force is spiritual slavery. On the other hand, a reckless liberty which does not recognize the responsible duties of ministers, and proper obedience on the part of the people, is anarchy worse in its results than the other extreme.

The great fault is in the ministers. Let them sit at Jesus' feet and learn of him; let them be imbued with the Spirit of their Master; let them feel the woe; let them weep between the porch and the altar; and let them feel that keen agony, and love for perishing souls that Paul felt, and none but those who retain the spirit of their calling can feel; let them as loyal subjects of the government of heaven, teach the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and their hobbies will go to the moles and the bats. Let them carry with them wherever they may go, in their words, their acts, their general deportment, and their tears, the evidence of their high calling, then will the people in a scriptural manner confide in them.

Seventh-day Adventists are sometimes charged with being exclusive. If to keep the Sabbath and teach the perpetuity of the moral law, and worship on the seventh day with all those we can persuade to worship with us on that day, is to be exclusive, then we are exclusive. And if obedience to the law of God makes us exclusive, we should be praised, and not censured, for this exclusiveness. We should not be charged with bigoted sectarianism for praiseworthy loyalty to the government of God. In this sense the church ever should have been exclusive. It is a matter of the highest practical importance that separates us from other Adventists. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We would rejoice to have them come with us, and would heartily welcome them to all the blessings of loyalty to the constitution and laws of the government of Heaven. While they remain in doubt as to the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, we cannot go back to them. For us to do so would be treason. Then while other Adventists do not join us in keeping the commandments of God, we shall have to go on without them. Paul says, "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but the keeping of the commandments of God is something." Whiting's translation. So we might contrast the various novelties and hobbies which have needlessly divided the Advent body, with the keeping of the commandments of God. They are nothing in point of practical importance when compared with the keeping of the commandments.

The Advent Herald, the organ of one class who wear the Advent name, has been ably conducted for more than twenty years, and should claim a good degree of respect from us; but its circulation is limited, and it struggles hard for an existence in consequence of its rigid adherence to Sunday-keeping, natural immortality, consciousness in death, and endless suffering of the wicked.

The World's Crisis had its origin in the 1854 time movement. After the passing of the time it became an able advocate of immortality alone through Christ. It has taught the Sabbath abolished; but has not been characterized with that bitterness against Sabbath-keepers that some other papers have. Our future-age people at the present time seem to feel very ugly toward the Crisis because it opposes the non-resurrection of the wicked. Unfortunate for the Crisis, we think, that some of its ablest writers indulge in a style which if observed in secular papers would be called clownish. Clowns in the pulpit, or a clownish spirit in an Advent paper, seem out of taste. They are poor substitutes for the spirit and power of holiness.

The Millennial Harbinger is the organ of the future-age faction. This paper teaches the Sabbath abolished. Its principal theme, however, is the future age. It has but very little present truth; sees but little of the position and duty of God's people in this age; but thinks it sees all things clearly in the next age. Its supporters differ in their fancies and novelties, yet all are very positive that they are right. To each of them their speculations of the future are all-important, and they claim great liberty in making them prominent, to the neglect of practical truth, and the sacrifice of friendship among brethren.

The spirit that drives the fancies of the future age, is a contentious irreligious spirit. We have traveled east and west, and know whereof we affirm. Contention is its life. Many of its leaders are in their element, when crowding into the meetings of others. Probably in a very pious style to appearance, they wish to ask a few questions for information. If you object, then the storm begins, and you are called sectarian, bigoted, popish. If you give liberty, the question soon turns to a painful discussion in which, if you have any fine feelings they are certain to be hurt, or you and your congregation, have to listen till you and they are wearied with a dish of just how it will be in the next age, done up with a seasoning of egotism. Our Advent friends who are not organized, and have held themselves ready to discuss almost any question, are dreadfully exposed to the ravages of those who are pressing their views of the future age.

We have received two numbers of a new paper, headed, The Restitution, published at Boston, Mass. by F. H. Berick, and edited by C. F. Hudson. Its four large pages of coarse type, give it rather an attractive appearance, and it must have some definite object, to be started in the midst of other famishing Advent papers, at this time of high prices of stock and labor. The editor, publisher and contributors seem to be old hands of the Crisis, and why they should start out just now with this new sheet is not so clear. Is it to add influence to the speculations in regard to the future age, and cause still greater divisions among those who may be exposed to its influence? Time will tell. So many papers cannot be well sustained, and the existence of the last named must hurt the others.

The view we take of those various classes of anti-Sabbatarian Adventists is a gloomy one. Judging from the past, their future, as it regards unity and a saving influence in the world, looks dark. A spirited writer in an article in the World's Crisis, breaks forth as follows:

"Unhappy Adventists!—I pity you. Disappointed in your expectations, hated by the world, persecuted by the Devil, opposed by the church, every man's hand against you, and your hand compelled to be against every man, overrun with new messages, bestridden with theorizers and schismatics—some of whom are as hard to get rid of, as it is to get away from a March wind;—how my heart aches for you! I am anxious to know what whim or notion is next to be thrust upon you! What strange error is next to be hung upon our generally beautiful system, till, in the eyes of the good, the whole fabric, daubed with untempered mortar, becomes a stench in the nostrils. I am watching for the birth of the next new schism and sect."

We turn from this sad picture to our own comparatively happy people, with a degree of pleasure. The faith of our people in the perpetuity of spiritual gifts has saved them from those schisms which have rent others. This has been a heavy cross for our people to bear, but they now reap the blessing. Satan has wished to crush us with those mistaken notions which have ever cursed American Adventists; but thank God, we are going free from these false ideas of things. Organization has been a hard struggle, but it proves a success. The way is preparing before us. And our only hope for the final success of the great Advent movement, is in the faithful adherence to the message that proclaims the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.