proclamation been made to the world in past ages, it would have been a
false proclamation. Four reasons sustain this statement. 1. There is no
part of the Bible on which such a message, centuries in the past, could
have been based. Hence had such a proclamation been made, it would have
been without scriptural foundation, and consequently not from Heaven.
2. It would have been in direct opposition to those scriptures which
locate the Judgment, and the warning respecting its approach, in the
period of the last generation. The scriptures which sustain these two
reasons we shall presently cite. 3. The history of the world amply
evinces that the hour of God’s Judgment had not come ages in the past.
4. Nor would it be true of past ages, if limited to Babylon. For Rev.
xviii, 8-10, clearly shows that the hour of Babylon’s Judgment is
yet in the future. It is certain, therefore, that the angel with the
proclamation respecting the hour of God’s Judgment, has not given it at
a time when it would be not only destitute of scriptural support, but
would absolutely contradict their plain testimony.
3. The prophecies which give us the time of the Judgment, and
which present the succession of events leading down to that great
crisis, were closed up and sealed till the time of the end. We refer
particularly to the prophecies of Daniel. See chap. viii, 17, 26;
xii, 4, 9. Hence it is evident that God reserves the warning to that
generation which alone needs it. Noah’s warning respecting the flood,
was alone applicable to those who should witness it; thus also the
warning respecting the Judgment is alone applicable to that generation
which lives in the last days.
4. The Bible locates these messages in the period which immediately
precedes the second advent, and plainly warns us against the
proclamation of the Judgment at hand prior to that time. Here we join
issue with our opponents. Instead of finding that the apostles gave
this proclamation, as some teach, we shall find indubitable evidence
that they located this warning far in the future, and that they
admonished the church to heed none that should precede a given time.
If we recur to the book of Acts, we shall find Paul preaching before
Felix, of the Judgment to come; and before the Athenians, that God
hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by Jesus Christ. Acts xxiv, 25; xvii, 31. But that book nowhere
intimates that Christ was immediately coming to Judgment. Peter points
his hearers to the future, saying, that the heavens which had then
received Christ, must retain him until the times of restitution. Acts
iii, 21.
The first epistle to the Thessalonians may seem to teach that the
apostles expected the coming of Christ to Judgment in their day.
Indeed, it is evident that such an idea was received from it by the
Thessalonian church. Hence it was, that in his second epistle to them,
Paul found it necessary to speak explicitly on the point. He tells them
that the coming of Christ to the Judgment could not take place until
the great apostasy; and as the result of that apostasy, that the Man of
Sin should be revealed, showing himself that he is God, and exalting
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped. That this
mystery of iniquity is the great Romish apostasy, none but a Papist
will deny.
Paul reminds the Thessalonians that he had told them of these things
when he was yet with them. And where could Paul have learned this
fact, which he had thus stated to them? He was accustomed to reason
from the Scriptures, and not to deal in assertion. Hence, it is very
evident that he refers to the prophecy of Daniel, which in its seventh
chapter has given the successive events which intervened between its
time and the Judgment. In this series of events it has with wonderful
precision described the power to which Paul has referred as the Man of
Sin. No Protestant will deny the identity of Daniel’s little horn and
Paul’s Man of Sin. And as Daniel has brought it into a series of events
which ends with the Judgment and the setting up of the everlasting
kingdom, it was an easy matter for Paul to tell where in this series
of events he stood, and whether the Judgment was its next event or
not. The apostle, therefore, plainly tells him that that day was not
at hand. For the Man of Sin, the little horn, must arise and perform
his predicted work, and when that should be accomplished, the coming of
Christ should transpire, to consume “that Wicked” with its brightness.
Now when was the little horn to arise? Daniel was told that it should
arise after the ten horns upon the fourth beast; or, in other words,
after the fourth empire should be divided into ten kingdoms, which
was accomplished about five hundred years after Christ. The Judgment
therefore could not come prior to that time. But how long was this
little horn to have power to wear out the saints? Daniel informs us
that it should be for “a time and times, and the dividing of time.” How
long is this period? Rev. xii shows that it is 1260 prophetic days, or
years. Verses 6, 14. It follows therefore that the apostle carries the
mind forward five hundred years to the development of the Man of Sin,
and thence 1260 years for his triumph, before the Judgment could be
preached as an event immediately impending. Whoever will carefully read
Dan. vii, will get the original of Paul’s argument in 2 Thess. ii, and
will not fail to see the force of his statement.
The papal supremacy began 538, and ended in 1798 with the overthrow
of the Pope’s temporal power. The warning of Paul against a false
proclamation respecting the Judgment at hand, therefore, expires at
that time, and not before. For we have then reached the point of time
where the last important event in Dan. vii, before the Judgment has
transpired. An angel from Heaven preaching the hour of God’s Judgment
come, many years in the past, would be giving a different gospel from
that preached by Paul. Those who locate the angel of Rev. xiv, 6, 7, in
past ages, virtually place upon his head the anathema of Paul in Gal.
i, 8.
And what is of very deep interest, the point of time at which Paul’s
warning expires is the commencement of the time of the end--the very
point to which the visions of Daniel were closed up and sealed.
Compare chapter xi, 33, 35; vii, 25, and the fact that the 1260 years’
persecution of the saints terminates with the commencement of the time
of the end, will appear obvious. How gloriously does this view of the
subject make the truth of God shine out! For the warning of the apostle
against a false proclamation of the Judgment at hand, expires at the
very point where the seal is taken from those prophecies which show
when the Judgment sits. And it is respecting this period, the time of
the end, that it is said, Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge [on
the very subject which was before concealed] shall be increased. Then
the time of the end is the period in which the Judgment-hour cry, and
the subsequent messages are to be given. Dan. viii, 17, 26; xii, 4, 9.
Another important argument on this point is found in what our Lord has
said relative to the signs of his second advent. The church were to
understand when his coming was at hand, by the fulfillment of certain
promised tokens. Until these should be seen, they were not authorized
to look for the immediate advent of the Lord. But when the signs
which our Lord promised began to appear, his church might then know
that his coming to judge the quick and the dead was at hand. It is an
interesting fact that Christ has marked the time in which these signs
were to begin to appear. Consequently the messages in question could
not be delivered prior to that time. “Immediately after the tribulation
of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give
her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken.” Matt. xxiv, 29. “But in those days, after
that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not
give her light, and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that
are in heaven shall be shaken.” Mark xiii, 24, 25. We think there can
be no mistake that in these scriptures our Lord refers to the papal
tribulation of Daniel the prophet. The signs of his second coming were
to commence “_in_ those days,” but “_after_ that tribulation.” In other
words, the 1260 prophetic days should not be quite over, but their
tribulation should be ended, when the sun should be darkened. The sun
was darkened in 1780, and the tribulation of those days was then past,
but the days did not expire till 1798. Thus we have the signs of our
Lord’s immediate advent just opening upon us, as we come down to the
time of the end, the period when the vision should be unsealed, and
many run to and fro with the word of warning to a perishing world.
The extent of this proclamation is worthy of notice. An English writer,
Mourant Brock, thus remarks: “It is not merely in Great Britain that
the expectation of the near return of the Redeemer is entertained, and
the voice of warning raised, but also in America, India, and on the
continent of Europe. In America about three hundred ministers of the
word are thus preaching ‘this gospel of the kingdom;’ whilst in this
country, about seven hundred of the church of England are raising the
same cry.”--_Advent Tracts_, Vol. ii, p. 135.
Dr. Joseph Wolfe traveled in Arabia Felix, through the region
inhabited by the descendants of Hobab, Moses’ father-in-law. In Yemen
he saw a book which he mentions thus:
“The Arabs of this place have a book called Seera, which treats of the
second coming of Christ, and his reign in glory.”
“In Yemen he spent six days with the Rechabites. ‘They drink no wine,
plant no vineyards, sow no seed, live in tents, and remember the words
of Jonadab, the son of Rechab. With them were children of Israel, of
the tribe of Dan, who reside near Terim in Hatramawt, who expect, in
common with the children of Rechab, the speedy arrival of the Messiah
in the clouds of heaven.’”--_Wolfe’s Mission to Bokhara_.
“In Wirtemberg there is a Christian colony numbering hundreds, who look
for the speedy advent of Christ; also another of like belief on the
shores of the Caspian; the Molokaners, a large body of Dissenters from
the Russian Greek church, residing on the shores of the Baltic--a very
pious people, of whom it is said, ‘taking the Bible alone for their
creed, the _norm_ of their faith is simply the Holy Scriptures’--are
characterized by the ‘expectation of Christ’s immediate and visible
reign upon earth.’ In Russia the doctrine of Christ’s coming and
reign is preached to some extent, and received by many of the lower
class. It has been extensively agitated in Germany, particularly in
the south part among the Moravians. In Norway, charts and books on the
Advent have been circulated extensively, and the doctrine received by
many. Among the Tartars in Tartary, there prevails an expectation of
Christ’s advent about this time. English and American publications
on this doctrine have been sent to Holland, Germany, India, Ireland,
Constantinople, Rome, and to nearly every missionary station on the
globe. At the Turks Islands, it has been received to some extent
among the Wesleyans. Mr. Fox, a Scottish missionary to the Teloogoo
people, was a believer in Christ’s soon coming. James McGregor
Bertram, a Scottish missionary of the Baptist order at St. Helena,
has sounded the cry extensively on that island, making many converts
and pre-millennialists; he has also preached it at South Africa, at
the missionary stations there. David N. Lord informs us that a large
proportion of the missionaries who have gone from Great Britain to make
known the gospel to the heathen, and who are now laboring in Asia and
Africa, are Millennarians; and Joseph Wolfe, D. D., according to his
journals, between the years 1821 and 1845, proclaimed the Lord’s speedy
advent in Palestine, Egypt, on the shores of the Red Sea, Mesopotamia,
the Crimea, Persia, Georgia, throughout the Ottoman Empire, in Greece,
Arabia, Turkistan, Bokhara, Affghanistan, Cashmere, Hindostan, Thibet,
in Holland, Scotland and Ireland, at Constantinople, Jerusalem, St.
Helena, also on shipboard in the Mediterranean, and at New York city,
to all denominations. He declares he has preached among Jews, Turks,
Mohammedans, Parsees, Hindoos, Chaldeans, Yesedes, Syrians, Sabeans, to
Pachas, Sheiks, Shahs, the kings of Organtsh and Bokhara, the queen of
Greece, etc. And of his extraordinary labors the _Investigator_ says:
‘No individual has, perhaps, given greater publicity to the doctrine of
the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, than has this well-known
missionary to the world. Wherever he goes, he proclaims the approaching
advent of the Messiah in glory.’”--_Voice of the Church_, pp. 342-344.
The following, from the pen of the editor of the _Voice of Truth_
for January, 1845, fairly represents the position of all American
Adventists at that time:
“We are doubtless near that auspicious hour when the harvest of the
earth will be reaped, as described in Rev. xiv, 14-16. The history
of God’s people in this mortal state, as given in that chapter,
before being glorified, is nearly complete. The everlasting gospel,
as described in verses 6 and 7, has been preached unto every nation,
kindred, tongue, and people; saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and
give glory to him; for the hour of his Judgment is come, and worship
him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of
waters. No case can be more clearly demonstrated with facts than that
this message has been borne to every nation and tongue under heaven,
within a few past years, in the preaching of the coming of Christ in
1843, or near at hand. Through the medium of lectures and publications
the sound has gone into all the earth, and the word unto the ends of
the world.”
But those were disappointed who expected the Lord would come in 1843
and in 1844. This fact, with many, is sufficient reason for rejecting
all the testimony in the case. To them the position that the Advent
movement was in fulfillment of prophecy, when at the same time
those who took part in the movement were sorely disappointed, is an
absurdity. We acknowledge the disappointment, but cannot acknowledge
that this furnishes a just reason for denying the hand of God in that
work. It is a fact that God’s people have fulfilled prophecy, and at
the same time been disappointed in their hopes. This was the case with
the disciples and the shouting multitude on the occasion of our Lord
meekly riding into Jerusalem, when they cried, “Hosannah to the Son of
David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosannah in
the highest.” The prophet of God had said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter
of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto
thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” Zech. ix, 9. And his words must
be fulfilled. That which inspired the shouts of the disciples was the
expectation that their Master would then ascend to the throne of David
and reign among them. But in this they were disappointed. In a few
days their hopes died, as he expired upon the cross. Did they fulfill
prophecy? No one will deny that they did? Were their expectations
which moved them to fulfill the prophecy realized? They were utterly
disappointed.
And while those were disappointed in every particular, Adventists, in
1844, were right in three of the four leading points of the Advent
faith. These points were, first, the manner and object of Christ’s
second advent; second, the application of the prophetic symbols of the
book of Daniel; third, prophetic time; and fourth, the event to take
place at the end of the prophetic periods. In respect to the first
three points, the Adventists of 1844 were right. As to the fourth, they
were mistaken. The angel did not tell Daniel that Christ would come
at the end of the 2300 days. His words to the prophet are: “Unto two
thousand and three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.”
The subject of the cleansing of the sanctuary of Dan. viii, 14, is now
understood, and seen to be quite another thing than the second coming
of Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven, to redeem his people and
destroy his enemies by the fires of the last day.
Disappointment by no means proves that God has no hand in the guidance
of his people. It should lead them to correct their errors, but it
should not lead them to cast away their confidence in God. It was
because the children of Israel were disappointed in the wilderness
that they so often denied divine guidance. They are set forth as an
admonition to us, that we should not fall after the same example of
unbelief.
But it must be apparent to every student of the Scriptures, that
the angel who proclaims the hour of God’s Judgment, does not give
the latest message of mercy. Rev. xiv, presents two other and later
proclamations, before the close of human probation. This fact alone is
sufficient to prove that the coming of the Lord does not take place at
the close of the first angel’s proclamation.
THE SECOND MESSAGE.
“And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is
fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine
of the wrath of her fornication.”
This angel is spoken of as the second, because the one following it is,
in the language of inspiration itself, called the third. In commenting
upon language so highly symbolic, the first point is to determine the
meaning of the symbol introduced.
1. What, then, is the Babylon of this message? It is here simply
called “that great city.” But it is elsewhere spoken of in the book
of Revelation in a manner which cannot fail to lead to a correct
solution of this question. In Rev. xvii, 18, this same city is called
a woman. “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which
reigneth over the kings of the earth.” Now a woman is always in
the Scriptures, when used as a symbol, taken to represent religious
organizations, the true church being represented by a virtuous woman,
as in chapter xii, and the false by a corrupt woman, as in the text
before us, and many other places. Babylon is something distinct from
the civil powers of the earth; for with her the kings of the earth form
unlawful connections. It is the place where the people of God as a body
are, for they are at a certain time called away from her communion.
These considerations show that we are not to look to any literal
city for the Babylon of the Apocalypse, nor to any civil powers, but
to ecclesiastical or church organizations. Is, then, any particular
church, to the exclusion of all others, designated by the term Babylon?
It would not be consistent to suppose this; for 1. The term Babylon,
from Babel, where God confounded the language of men, signifies
mixture, confusion. In the sense in which we have shown it to be used
in the book of Revelation, it must denote conflicting and discordant
religious creeds and systems. But this would not be applicable to any
one religious denomination, as each of these denominations is more
or less a unit. 2. The people of God who are called out of Babylon,
are not as a body connected with any single denomination. Hence we
must understand by the term all the false and corrupted systems of
Christianity. That the Romish and Greek churches are included in
these, few will be disposed to deny; while the Protestant churches,
alas! more or less identified with war, for a long time the bulwark of
American slavery, fatally conformed to the world, and guilty of the
long catalogue of sins charged by Paul upon professed Christians in the
last days, 2 Tim. iii, 1-5, must be reckoned as a member of the family.
In this branch of the family we find that mixture and confusion in the
multiplicity of sects and creeds which most fitly answers to the import
of the term.
2. What is the fall of Babylon? Evidently a moral fall. In Rev. xviii,
1-5, where a second and subsequent announcement of this event seems
to be given, we read, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is
become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and
a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” That is, as the result of
her fall she had sunk to this deplorable condition. Having fallen, her
iniquities rapidly increased, her sins reached unto Heaven, and God’s
people are called out. Verses 4, 5. Hence this fall is a moral one. The
absurdity of applying this to Rome or any other literal city, where but
few, if any, of the people of God are, and out of which they could not
be called after its fall or destruction, must be very apparent. The
harmony of applying it to a religious body which can apostatize and
become corrupt, and from which the people of God can be subsequently
called out, is equally clear, and the necessity for such an application
no less evident. No other is at all admissible.
The cause of the fall of Babylon is said to be because she “made
all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Her
fornication was her unlawful connection with the kings of the earth.
The wine of this is that with which the church has intoxicated the
nations of the earth. There is but one thing to which this can refer,
and that is, false doctrine. This harlot, in consequence of her
unlawful union with the powers of earth, has corrupted the pure truths
of the Bible, and with the wine of her false doctrine has intoxicated
the nations. As a few of the gross errors which she has caused the
masses to receive as Bible truth, we mention the following: 1. That
the soul is immortal. 2. That sprinkling and pouring are baptism. 3.
That Sunday is the Sabbath. 4. That there are to be a thousand years
of peace and prosperity before the coming of the Lord. 5. That the
saints’ inheritance is not the earth made new, but an immaterial,
intangible region beyond the bounds of time and space. 6. That the
second advent is to be understood spiritually, and that it took place
at the destruction of Jerusalem, or that it takes place at conversion
or at death. 7. That it is right and scriptural to hold human beings
in bondage; and 8. That it is of no consequence, if we may judge
from their practice, to come out and be separate from the world.
Most of these pernicious errors Protestant sects have drawn from the
Romish mother, and others they have themselves originated, showing
conclusively that they are but the daughters of the great apostasy.
We have seen that Babylon is composed of several divisions; and we
know that the name of the whole is frequently applied to any one of
its parts. Hence the name Babylon may be applied to any one of these
divisions. Consequently when it is announced that Babylon is fallen, it
is not necessary to understand that as a whole it experienced a moral
change for the worse. It would be true if such change took place in
any one of its great branches. The cry, Babylon is fallen, being given
subsequent to the first message, is evidence that the fall took place
at that time.