Continuing our exegesis of Matt. 24, we pass to notice the import of verse 29, and following. “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.” Verse 30: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Verse 31: “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Verse 32: “Now learn a parable of the fig-tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. Verse 33: “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.” Verse 34: “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.”
Here we have the Saviour’s solemn declaration that the events above named were near at hand; they were immediately to take place in the terrible calamities then about to fall on that nation. This fulfilment was limited to that generation. And as if to leave no doubt concerning the time, in verses 40 and 41 he speaks of two incidents that would have no pertinency according to the second advent view. “Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.”
Thus, unless Christ intended to deceive his disciples, must we not conclude that the coming of the Son of man in the clouds of heaven with power and139great glory and all the attending events mentioned, was an event near, and that it had its fulfilment in those remarkable manifestations of divine Providence which stood connected with the overthrow of Judaism and the establishing of Christianity? For the coming of the Son of man stands connected with events that could only have reference to the end of that dispensation and the introduction of another.
This view is still further confirmed by verse 42 and onward. “Watch, therefore; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. . . . Therefore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh.” Now what could be the meaning of such solemn warnings to the disciples, if Christ did not intend to impress them with the fact that his coming was near at hand, and that they were to be looking and watching for it, as the good man of the house, verse 43, would watch, expecting the thief might come at any moment?
The coming of the Son of man, then, as taught in this chapter, was an event that was immediately to take place; an event even then at their doors; one that would transpire before many that were standing there should taste of death, before the apostles had finished the circuit through the cities of Israel; and we believe that no other interpretation of this chapter respecting the coming of the Son of man can exonerate its teachings from deception. Nor am I aware that any commentator differs from the above view, although some of them suppose that that may underlie a remote reference to the day of Judgment. Yet all agree that the coming of the Son of man was an event immediately about to transpire, and the end of the world was the end of the Jewish dispensation.
Nor was the subject of the end of the world, that is, of this earth, referred to either in the questions asked by the disciples in verse 3, nor in the explanatory answers given by Christ; and to make the 24th chapter of Matthew teach the personal return of Christ to this world as an event now in the future, near or remote, is an exegetical torture which only a pet theory would inflict. For it is neither in the letter nor in the spirit of anything there recorded.
I wish to remark here that the course I have marked out in these series of articles, will not allow me to any lengthy notice of my reviewer’s remarks appended to my articles; therefore I trust no one will infer that I do not appreciate and ponder them. To review my reviewer would be to occupy more of the columns of this paper than I am entitled to. Yet perhaps I may occasionally refer to some few things. In No. 4, July 30, my reviewer asks, “And when did the apostles shine forth in the kingdom of their Father?” and says, “All but one of them are said to have suffered a violent death.” “What! shining forth in the kingdom of their Father, and sitting on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, and yet all of them most miserable?”
I apprehend that my reviewer misapprehends the true import of “shining forth” in the kingdom of God. To shine forth in the kingdoms of this world may require one to be rich, to be held in high repute among men, to occupy positions of worldly ambition, to be called of men, Rabbi, to inherit large earthly possessions, to enjoy worldly prosperity, to be well spoken of by all men.
That is the way the men of the world shine forth. But Christ’s kingdom is not so. In the kingdom of their Father, the apostles were to shine forth, and thus outshine the world in meekness, patience, humility, suffering, rejoicing in tribulation, in death. Thus did the apostles “shine forth in the kingdom of their Father,” and their light has encircled the earth, and has come down to us, and they are now elevated to thrones in the estimation and in the hearts of the true Israel of God.
In the same paragraph, my reviewer thinks me mistaken respecting the parable of the wheat and tares, “by my making the aion, age, refer to the Jewish age instead of the Christian, because” he says, “at the end of the Jewish age, we find no gathering of the tares, the wicked, into bundles to burn, no furnace of fire into which they were cast, and no weeping and wailing, except by the disciples of Christ, who were subjects of persecution and cruelty on every hand. The destruction of Jerusalem cannot be taken as a fulfilment; for that did not take place till some forty years after that age had ended.” (The italics are mine—the quotation from my reviewer).
I remark, my reviewer says, the destruction of Jerusalem did not take place till some forty years after that age—the Jewish, had ended. My reviewer says he is happy to agree with me as respects the meaning of the words, kosmos and aion, and that aion means age instead of world; but he thinks the age referred to is the end of the Christian rather than the Jewish age or dispensation.
The end of the world, then, is the end of an age or dispensation. This my reviewer admits. The end of the world then, as mentioned in Matt. 13:40, and 24:3, is not the end of this mundane system as the Advents have mentioned. This is just as I have all along maintained. Having thus by agreement settled the meaning of the word aion to be age, and not this physical earth, let us see if we can ascertain to which of the ages, the Jewish or Christian, the word refers to in the parable of the wheat and tares. See Matt. 13:40, 49.
The main thought running through the whole of the 13th chapter of Matthew to verse 53, relates to the kingdom of God which Christ was then founding. This is evident from expressions like the following. Verse 11: “Because it is given unto you [the disciples] to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven.” Verse 24: “The kingdom of Heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field.” Verse 31: “The kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed.” Verse 33: “The kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven.” Verse 45: “The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a treasure hid in the field.” Verse 45: “The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchantman.” Verse 47: “The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net.”
In a former article, I have shown that this kingdom was founded by Christ during his earth life. The various parables in this chapter all refer to those principles by which this kingdom was to be governed.
In Matt. 21:33-45, is given the parable of the householder who planted a vineyard and let it out, and came to receive his rents; but was maltreated and finally slain. In applying this parable, Jesus asks what should be done with those husbandmen. They, the chief priests, said in reply, that those wicked men should be destroyed, and the vineyard given to those who would render unto the owner the fruits in their season. Jesus asked them if they had read concerning the stone which the builders rejected, but which had become the head of the corner; and then added: “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you [the Jewish nation] and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”
Here we are explicitly told that the kingdom of God, once given to the Jews, was now to be transferred to the Gentiles. It was from this kingdom thus transferred that the angels, the apostles, and others, were to gather out the tares, the hypocrites, and other wicked ones, and to cast them into furnaces of fire, not literal, smelting furnaces of literal fire, but into such a condition of shame, disgrace, and painful sensibility of the displeasure of God, as might be aptly represented by such a figure. And it was during this ejection of the Jewish nation, that the righteous were to shine forth in the kingdom of their Father.
Fire is frequently used by Christ and his apostles as a symbol of truth, of love, of the Holy Spirit, of a moral purifying element, of suffering, of error, of the divine presence of God himself. But I think it is never used by Christ in a literal sense, as referring to the punishment of the wicked, or the burning of this earth. The end of the world, or age referred to in the 13th of Matthew, was the end of the Jewish dispensation, when the kingdom of God was taken from the nation and given to the Gentiles, at which time, or during the succeeding age, or Christian dispensation, the tares were to be gathered out of the church, the true church composed only of righteous ones, who, by their holy lives and patient sufferings, were to shine forth in this kingdom of their Father.
In another paragraph, my reviewer says, “In one instance, Heb. 9:20, the expression, ‘End of the world’ [aion, age], undoubtedly refers to the end of the Jewish age; and in another, 1 Cor. 10:11, ages are spoken of in the plural, referring to ages which preceded the gospel dispensation.”
Such, I apprehend, is the import of aion, age, when used by Christ in perhaps every instance where the word occurs. It never refers to the end of this earth, but always to an age, generation, or dispensation.
In the last paragraph of the article referred to, my reviewer calls my attention to the verb that denotes a progressive coming of Christ. I shall notice that verb when I come to the consideration of the coming of the Lord in the epistles, and in my next, shall continue the examination of chapter 24 and 25 and other chapters of Matthew, and also the other gospels, before entering on the epistles.
Remarks on the End of the Gospel Age
Remarks.
If any one really supposes that by the end of the world, Adventists understand the end of this mundane system, or the annihilation of this globe, we are happy, with the issue plainly stated, to have the privilege of correcting that misapprehension. The material of which this earth is composed, is never to be destroyed, if we read the record aright; but, purified and renewed, it is to be re-adorned with more than its Eden beauty, and made the everlasting inheritance of the redeemed. But before this end is reached, the plan of redemption goes through several stages of development; successive dispensations, ages (αἰῶνες) are employed in carrying it forward. And what is called the gospel or Christian age, is no less clearly defined than the Mosaic or Jewish; and the canon of inspiration, to be complete, must inform us respecting the commencement, course, and termination, of the former, as well as the latter.
In view of Bro. G.'s position, we raise the question, Is the gospel dispensation or age ever to end? If so, where is the record of it, and under what circumstances is it to take place? The argument of Bro. G. leaves us to infer that we, in this dispensation, are upon a shoreless ocean, to pass on henceforth, forever, without change, the kingdom of God established, the righteous shining forth therein, the bad gathered out, and burned, and all the promises fulfilled; and that the prophetic declarations uttered by Christ and his apostles, pertained exclusively to the generation in which they lived, and were all accomplished in their history.
We are decidedly averse to the idea that our times are thus left out of consideration. We want to know what pertains to our age, what prophetic fulfillments concern us personally, what is the present truth for our day, and our corresponding duty. And if we thought that the Scripture record all pertained to the past, we would, with the spiritualists, entomb it with the long-buried nations of antiquity to which it pertained, as an obsolete and useless book.
“Lo, I am with you always,” said Christ to his disciples, “even unto the end of the world.” Must this grand promise, which has comforted and sustained so many laborers for their Lord, from that day to this, be whittled down to the insignificant fraction of time that remained to the close of the Jewish age? “Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the Jewish age!” And the same violence that is rendered to this text by the view in question is rendered to hundreds of others which we have not time, and it is not necessary, here to mention.
If the principle we have stated in previous articles respecting the use of the present tense for the future in prophetic writing, is correct (and it cannot be overthrown), then all those passages which speak of the end of all things, the coming of the Lord, &c., as near at hand, when the apostles wrote, are fully explained, and we need say no more respecting them here.
And for equally obvious reasons we pass by such an exposition as makes the shining forth of the righteous as the sun in the kingdom of their father, their shining forth among men in the Christian graces, and the tribulations of the Christian life; for a person who has brought his mind into such a condition that it can deliberately adopt and be satisfied with such a view, and believe that the gathering out of God's kingdom, of all things that offend and them which do iniquity, and casting them into a furnace, or lake, of fire, where they are consumed with wailing and gnashing of teeth, is the gathering out, or rather not admitting into, the invisible church, unworthy members, and the overthrow of a nation by the common calamities of war—any person, we say, who has become grounded in such views as these, would not probably be materially influenced by anything that might be written on the subject. What is this more than has been experienced in almost every age by almost every nation under heaven? And if such terrific denunciations of wrath can be thus explained away, what other threatenings cannot be disposed of in the same way? Why cannot the damnation of hell, and the fire of the great day, which shall constitute the perdition of ungodly men, 2 Pet. 3:7, be made to mean something in the natural order of events, and not anything so terrible after all? Is it any wonder that in the hands of such a theology the denunciations of the Scriptures fall dead upon unregenerate ears, and the invitations of the gospel are met with ridicule and scorn?
The Lord was to come in the same manner that the disciples had seen him go into heaven, Acts 1:11; he was to come to take his disciples to himself, that they might be where he was; John 14:3; John, in A. D. 96, twenty-six years after the destruction of Jerusalem, saw the event as one still future; and Paul to the Thessalonians (2 Thess. 2:1-4) stated that the great papal apostasy would run its long career, before the coming of the Lord, and the gathering of the saints unto him. Perhaps these sacred writers in referring to the same event, and placing it far in the future beyond the destruction of Jerusalem, tortured the teaching of their Lord, but on present evidence, we must decline to believe it.
Singing Down Anger.
By Beecher
I REMEMBER a remarkable instance which occurred in my father’s lecture-room during one of those sweet scenes which preceded the separation of the Presbyterian church into the Old and New Schools. At that time controversy ran high, and there were fire and zeal and wrath mingled with discussion; and whoever sat in the chair, the devil presided. On the occasion to which I refer, an old Scotchman, six feet high, much bent with age, with blue eyes, large features, very pale and white all over his face, and bald-headed, walked up and down the back part of the room; and as the dispute grew furious, he (and only he could have done it) would stop and call out, “Mr. Maudera-a-tor, let us sing ‘Salva-a-tion;’” and some would strike up and sing the tune, and the men who were in angry debate were cut short; but one by one they joined in, and before they had sung the hymn through they were all calm and quiet. When they resumed the controversy, it was on a much lower key. So this good old man walked up and down, and threw a hymn into the quarrel every few moments, and kept the religious antagonists from absolute explosion and fighting. It is the nature of hymns to quell irascible feeling. I do not think that a man who was mad could sing six verses through without regaining his temper before he got to the end.—Beecher.
Luther on the Resurrection and the New Earth
By Luther
I SHALL rise and converse with you again. All must be restored. God will create new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. There all will be pure rapture and joy. Those heavens and that earth will be no dry, barren sand. When a man is happy, a tree, a flower can give him gladness. Heaven and earth will be renewed, and we who believe shall be everywhere at home. Here it is not so; we are driven hither and thither, that we may have to sigh for that heavenly fatherland.
When Christ causes the trumpet to peal at the last day, all will come forth like the insects which in winter lie as dead, but when the sun comes, awake to life again; or as the birds who lie all the winter, hidden in the clefts of the rocks, or in hollow banks by the riverside, yet live again in the spring.—Luther.
Home Reading.
ONE of the noblest and most pleasant duties of the head of the family is to furnish its members with good reading. In times which are past, it was considered enough to clothe and feed and shelter a family. This was the sum of parental duty. But lately it has been discovered that wives and children have minds, so that it becomes necessary to educate the children and furnish reading for the whole household. It has been found out that the mind wants food as well as the body, and that it wants to be sheltered from the pitiless storms of error and vice by the guarding and friendly roof of intelligence and virtue.
An ignorant family in our day is an antiquated institution. It smells of the musty past. It is a dark spot which the light of the modern sun of intelligence has not reached.
Let good reading go into a home, and the very atmosphere of that home gradually, but surely, changes. The boys begin to grow ambitious, to talk about men, places, books, the past and the future. The girls begin to feel a new life opening before them in knowledge, duty, and love. They see new fields of usefulness and pleasure. And so the family changes, and out from its number will grow intelligent men and women, to fill honorable places, and be useful members of society. Let the torch of intelligence be lit in every household. Let the old and young vie with each other in introducing new and useful topics of investigation, and in cherishing a love of reading, study, and improvement.
CHRIST'S INVITATION.
Come unto me, ye who are tired and sad;
Come unto me, that I may give you rest;
Come unto me, and I will make you glad;
Come and be blest.
Come, ye who struggle in a life of shame;
Come, ye whose sin God only will forgive;
Come! for I have for you a new, white name;
Arise and live.
Come, ye who see not, through the misty night,
The stars that out of God's own windows shine
Come unto me, and I will give you light,
Human, divine.
My heart is yearning with a strong desire
To fold the world in tender, close embrace;
Come to me through the sanctifying fire,
That hides my face.
—Sunday Magazine.
How the World Judges Christians.
By H. W. Beecher
THERE are persons who judge of Christians as a man would judge of apples who should enter an orchard and go stooping along upon the ground in search of them. He picks up one, a hard, green thing, no bigger than a walnut. He bites it; it is sour and bitter; it puckers up his mouth, and sets his teeth on edge.—“Ha?” he says, throwing the untimely fruit away, “I hear them speak of apples as being so delicious—I’m sure I don’t think much of this one.” He picks up another, which looks yellow. There’s a hole in it, but he don’t know what that means; so he bites into it, and finds a worm. “Bah! apples delicious, indeed!” he cries in disgust; and then he picks up a third, which is crushed by his touch, for it is rotten. So he condemns apples, because he has looked for them upon the ground instead of on the trees above his head, where they hang ripe and juicy. Just so, men judge of Christians by the rotten ones on the ground.—H. W. Beecher.
Advice to Students.
THE following letter from a father to his son in college contains good instruction for all:—
MY DEAR SON: Your letters breathe a true spirit of frankness; they have given myself and your mother great pleasure. You must study to be frank with the world. Frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean to do on every occasion, and take it for granted you mean to do right. If a friend asks a favor, you should grant it if it is reasonable; if not, tell him plainly why you cannot; you will wrong him and wrong yourself by equivocation of any kind. Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one; the man who requires you to do so is dearly purchased at a sacrifice. Deal kindly, but firmly, with all your classmates, you will find it the policy which wears best. Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.
If you have any fault to find with any one, tell him, not others, of what you complain; there is no more dangerous experiment than that of undertaking to be one thing before a man's face and another behind his back. We should live, act, and say nothing to the injury of any one. It is not only best as a matter of principle, but it is the path to peace and honor. In regard to duty, let me, in conclusion of this hasty letter, inform you that nearly a hundred years ago there was a day of remarkable gloom and darkness—still known as the dark day—a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished, as if by an eclipse. The Legislature of Connecticut was in session, and as its members saw the unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the last day—the day of Judgment—had come. Some one, in the consternation of the hour, moved an adjournment. Then there arose an old Puritan legislator, Davenport, of Stamford, and said, that if the last day had come, he desired to be found at his place, doing his duty; and, therefore, moved that candles be brought in so that the house could proceed with its duty. There was quietness in that man's mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to obey present duty.
Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things like the old Puritan. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. Never let me and your mother wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part.
Your affectionate father.
In the Body and Out.
It is confidently asserted that Paul believed a man could exist independently of the body from certain expressions which he uses in 2 Cor. 12:2–4: “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth;) how that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”
By the man whom he knew, it is generally supposed that the apostle means himself, and the language he uses is a record of his own experience. Paul was taken to the third heaven, to paradise, and heard words which it is not possible for a man to utter; but whether it was in his body or out, he did not know.
This instance, then, furnishes no example of a spirit actually existing in a conscious condition outside of the body, even if this is what is meant by the expression, “out of the body;” for Paul assures us that he did not know that he was in that condition. Yet it is claimed that it has all the force of an actual example; for such a condition is recognized as possible. It is very readily admitted that such a condition is recognized, as is expressed by the terms “out of the body;” but that this means an immaterial spirit, an immortal soul, the real intelligent man, speeding away through the universe even to the third heaven, there to hear unspeakable words, and gather up heavenly information, and return at will to resume its abode in the, for a time, deserted body, should not be too hastily inferred from this passage.
Of what is the apostle speaking? He says in verse 1: “It is not expedient for me, doubtless, to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ, above fourteen years ago,” &c., as previously quoted. His subject then is the visions and revelations he had received from the Lord; and the language from verse 2 to verse 4 is the record of one such remarkable revelation, perhaps the most remarkable one he had ever experienced. He was given a view of paradise and heard unspeakable words. And so real and clear and vivid was the view, that he did not know but that he was transported bodily into that place. If not in this manner, the view was given in the ordinary course of vision, that is, by having the scene presented before the mind by the power of the Holy Ghost.
All must concede that only these two conditions are brought to view, either his transportation bodily to paradise, or the ordinary condition of being in vision. If he went bodily to paradise, the instance has no bearing of course on the question of consciousness in death. And if it was an ordinary vision, how does this prove consciousness in death? The question is reduced to this one point; and the answer turns on the definition given to the expression, “out of the body.” Did Paul mean by it, what modern expositors wish us to understand by it? Paul meant by it, simply being in vision; the expositors aforesaid mean by it the going out of the immortal spirit from the body, and its existence for a time in a separate conscious intelligent condition independent of the body. But let us look a little further, and see what this condition is. According to the common view, the separation of the soul from the body is death. This is what death is defined to mean. There can be no such thing as the separation of soul and body, and death not result. And the return of the soul to again inhabit the body, is a resurrection from the dead. This is what is claimed in the case of Rachel whose soul departed, and she died, Gen. 35:18, and the widow’s son whom Elijah raised, whose soul came into him again, and he revived. 1 Kings 17:22.
But does any one suppose that Paul meant to say that he did not know but that he died and had a resurrection? That is what he did say, if the words, “out of the body,” mean what some would have us understand by them. His soul went off to paradise, and his body lay here, we know not how long, a corpse upon the earth. And when his soul returned he had a resurrection from the dead. A necessary conclusion so preposterous, must be sufficient to convince any one that Paul, by the expression “out of the body,” does not mean a state of death. He simply means that he was in vision, a state in which the mind, controlled for the time by the Holy Ghost, is made to take cognizance of distant or future scenes, and the person seems to himself to be really and bodily present, viewing the scenes, and listening to the words that are spoken, before him. Dreams, which all have experienced, are doubtless good illustrations of how this can be, and the case of John, in the Revelation, furnishes a notable example; for he was carried forward far into the future, and seemed to be present and taking part in scenes that did not then exist, and at which he could not really have been present, even in his immaterial immortal soul.
Paul, then, had no reference whatever to a state of death in 2 Cor. 12:2–4. To suppose him to refer to that, according to the immaterialist view, runs us into the greatest absurdity. Hence his language affords no proof that there is a soul in man which can live on in a conscious intelligent state, while the mortal body crumbles back to dust.
Ellen White Reports from the California Camp Meeting
By James White
California.
We are safe in California, and are happily disappointed in the country, and what we have seen of the strength of the cause in the State. With the exception of colds taken on the journey, we are enjoying an improved condition of health. Colorado was the best place on the globe for us during the excessively hot weather east, and here in California. During the months of July and August we were enjoying in that Territory a cool atmosphere, such as Michigan gives from the middle of September to the middle of October, with this difference, the atmosphere in Colorado is much more pure and invigorating. We have come to California at the right time, and we feel very much at home.
We are now writing in a tent upon the California camp-ground, near Windsor, Sonoma Co., fifth-day, Oct. 3, at the close of the afternoon service. The location is good, and the weather is fine. It is as warm as August in Michigan, very much warmer than at any point since we crossed the plains the first of July.
Notwithstanding the brief notice of this meeting, there are, at this early stage of the meeting, thirty-three tents upon the ground, besides the large congregation tent, and the provision stand.
Three tents are marked, San Francisco; two, Green Valley; one, Sebastopol; four, Bloomfield; one, Mendocino County; three, Windsor; six, Healdsburg; nine, Santa Rosa; two, Petaluma; two, Woodland.
We are very happy to meet on this ground Bro. Diggins of San Francisco, who has been an intelligent believer in the first and second angels’ messages, and now rejoices in the clear light of the third angel’s message. His father’s sister was wife of Governor Butler of Vermont, mother of Bro. E. P. Butler, and grandmother of Elder George I. Butler, President of our General Conference.
We spoke in the morning upon the subject of the waiting, watching time, in answer to the question, Where are we? We think we have light upon the watches, important at this time. Positions taken were these:—
1. The exhortations to watch, recorded in Matt. 24 and 25, Mark 13, and in Luke 12 and 21, are all given in connection with the signs of the second advent, and apply to a certain period just prior to that event.
2. The symbols and prophetic measurements of Daniel and John, in connection with the signs of the times, were designed to constitute the basis of the first angel’s message, which brought the believers to the close of the prophetic periods in the autumn of 1844.
3. Since the disappointment in 1844 has been the waiting, watching time. In the direct providence of God, believers are to wait for the coming of the Lord, and in an especial sense, watch and pray, without definite time. To this period the words of our text forcibly apply. “Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is.” Mark 13:33. In the providence of God, time was the strength of the great movement of 1843 and 1844. And in the direct providence of God, the believers are brought into the watching time, to wait for the second advent without definite time. With this view of the subject, we can see a period, just prior to the advent, to which all such expressions as our text naturally and forcibly apply.
4. The figure employed to enforce the duty of watching in a special sense just before the second advent is the night, divided into four parts called watches, whether it be on shipboard, in the city, in the army, or for the safety of individual rich householders.
5. The night in the figure is a time of darkness, and represents the period of moral and spiritual darkness since the disappointment in 1844. We would say to those who are disposed to apply the first watch to 1843, and the second to 1844, that those were periods of great light. Clearer, brighter, and more hopeful daylight, believers never saw. When running to a point of definite time, in faith and hope, rejoicing in the clear light of that time, we hardly know what to do with these words, “Take ye heed, watch and pray, for ye know not when the time is.” But since the time passed, and spiritual darkness, like the pall of death, has spread its shadows everywhere, and the waiting ones are brought into a position which demands especial watchfulness, we see the natural and forcible application of the text, and other parallel expressions.
6. In the figure, the literal night is a period when danger may come at any time, and the watchmen watch all night in uncertainty as to the hour of danger. So believers are to wait and watch without the definiteness which time gives, until this time of moral darkness shall close by the coming of the Son of man.
7. There is no such thing as a first, second, third, or fourth watch in this waiting time. Those divisions were in the figure; but there is nothing to mark such divisions in the waiting time. The watchman in the figure knew not when danger might come, in the first, second, third, or fourth watch of the night, so was required to watch all night. This fact simply illustrates the duty to watch ever, to keep awake, looking and waiting in a state of readiness to meet the Lord, until he shall come. It is absurd to talk of the Lord’s coming in the first, second, or third watch, as though there might be one, or two watches after his coming. The watching period will reach to the coming of the Lord, and there it will end.
Mrs. White spoke in the afternoon, and Elder Cornell spoke in the evening. More next week.