Shocking Blasphemy by G. W. A.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 2, 1864

Shocking Blasphemy.

By G. W. A.

LAST Sunday, Jan. 24, I listened to a discourse from an infidel Spiritualist, who used to be known among S. D. Adventists as "Elder" Moses Hull.

His subject was "the ministration of angels," a favorite theme of his when he was "on the Lord's side." As he began, he amused himself awhile by telling how badly he was persecuted, how certain "fifteen-cent books" were out against him, what his present position really was, &c., and then he passed on to his subject at a smart pace. Here we learned many new things;—how that "Adam was not the first man, nor Abel the first martyr;" that there were human beings dwelling on this mundane ball "fifty thousand years ago;" that "Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and so were all God's children;" that the prophet Elisha was a "clairvoyant medium," and could see the guardian spirits in the mountain, when his servant was so terribly frightened by the Syrian army who came to Dothan to take them; that Jesus of Nazareth was the "legitimate son of Joseph;" that the case of the three Hebrew worthies being cast into the fiery furnace might be true, for a certain spirit medium had held his finger in a kerosene lamp five minutes, and it did not even raise a blister, it having been enveloped in a tissue of electricity by the spirits; we learned how angels were made; that just as fast as men and women in the flesh die, they pass off from this stage of action into the spheres, and there they turn to angels, and then come back to rap, tip, communicate, and sometimes make matrimonial alliances; we learned that the walls of Jericho were pushed over by the spirits, and that the entire circumstance was simply a "physical manifestation;" we learned that the resurrection took place in the days of Abraham, that every time a man dies there is a resurrection; we learned that the Bible as a book was full of errors, partly true and partly false; that there is an inspiration in these days "far outstretching it," and that the gentleman who addressed us was then laboring under inspiration; but—but, dear reader, this is not all we learned. Before this apostate speaker ended, before he pronounced the benediction, and committed the audience to the fostering care of "the spirits," as he did, he told the congregation that the Jehovah of the Old Testament was the departed spirit of a dead man!

Here was progression of the most atheistic type; here was the demon of Spiritualism fairly unmasked. Never before had I been able to explain one passage in Jude's short epistle—"denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." Verse 4. I knew that all infidels, and Spiritualists, as a body, denied Christ; but not till then had I seen a person who had the audacity to deny the "only Lord God," and make him a common man. I had read of such in the mad frothings of Tom Paine, Trent, and others, but Moses Hull was the first man I ever heard affirm it. Fearing I might some way be mistaken, although a brother at my side had the statement in phonography, I accosted him a day or two after in the street, when he maintained the position with more spirit than he did in the hall, where it was spoken in the hearing of several hundred. He then told me that he could prove it from the Bible, from history, and from other sources, which last I could not deny, for what can't be proved by the spirits! Also he said that he did believe in a Supreme Being, one who governed the universe, but he was not fully revealed in the Bible!

But why should we particularize more about a man who has ignored every point of faith dear to the child of God, and who is doing his master's work as fast as the Devil can hurry him? Let us be glad that this disciple of Jannes and Jambres has been developed, and that he is now where he can "rail on the Lord God of Israel, and speak against him," 2 Chron. xxxii, 17, without being particularly dangerous to the cause.

G. W. A.