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Review and Herald, Vol. 43, No. 15.

THE RELIGIOUS AMENDMENT
Earlier text: THE RELIGIOUS AMENDMENT

R. F. COTTRELL

By R. F. Cottrell

The Truth.—No. 3.

Had the truth always been obeyed, earth had still remained an Eden. But the truth has been transgressed and opposed; hence the great controversy between truth and falsehood. The first to leave the truth was Satan; angels and men have followed his example. Jesus said to the unbelieving Pharisees, “Ye are of your father, the devil; and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth.” John 8: 44. To say that he abode not, or remained not, in the truth, is an acknowledgment that he was once in the truth. Pride and exaltation caused him to leave the truth by the transgression of the law of God, and in the beginning of our world he became the murderer of our race by leading man into sin, the wages of which is death. He was the first to leave the truth—to break God’s law—and for this reason the everlasting fire, into which the wicked will be driven, is “prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Since sin entered, opposition to the truth has raged. The ancient pagans turned the truth of God into a lie by worshiping the creature instead of the Creator. Rom. 1: 25. But the great apostasy of the present dispensation, “the man of sin,” or “the lawless one,” has outdone all in exalting himself above God, and casting down his truth and trampling it in the dust. 2 Thess. 2. Daniel was forewarned of the arrogant and blasphemous work of this great abomination of desolation in the following words: “And an host was given him against the daily by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practiced and prospered.” Dan. 8: 12. “And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws.” Dan. 7: 25. The law of God is the truth. Hence to think to change his times and laws is precisely equivalent to casting the truth to the ground.
And this opposition to the truth is not all in the past, but will continue to the end. Amid the perils of the last days, the apostate church, those who still have a form of godliness, will be, as the apostle says, “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth;” but, on the contrary, they will “resist the truth,” as did Jannes and Jambres. See 2 Tim. 3: 1–8. Hence Paul most solemnly charges the gospel minister “before God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” and in view of the approach of the Judgment of the living and the dead, to “preach the word,” the word of God, which is truth, and assigns the following reason: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” 2 Tim. 4: 3, 4. And any one who will carefully read Isa. 59 will see that when the day of vengeance comes upon the last generation of earth, it will come because “truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.” “Yea,” says the prophet, “truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.” To depart from evil is to leave off sin, which is the transgression of the law. Hence we learn that the evil doer, that “hateth the light,” will be arrayed against, and strive to devour like a beast of prey, him that shall venture to do the truth. The Lord seeing it will be displeased, and will “put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,” and “repay fury to his adversaries.”
But the “Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.” Here is described the final conflict between truth and error. It is described in Rev. 12: 17: “And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.” But the doers of the truth shall be the victors; they shall stand on the Mount Zion with the Lamb, and shall sing the song of deliverance on the sea of glass, when the judgments of God shall have been made manifest against their persecutors, as the host of the Egyptians were swallowed up in the Red Sea. Rev. 14: 1; 15: 2–4.

R. F. COTTRELL

The Two Laws.

By R. M. Kilgore

“BUT ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law.” Mal. 2: 8.
The prophet here gives a fitting reproof to those who make no distinction between the law which God spoke with his own voice from the summit of Sinai in the hearing of Israel, and that law which was given in addition, consisting of types and ceremonies, because of the transgression of the former.
To take the ground that there is but one law spoken of in the Bible is to furnish the skeptic with a mighty weapon to wield in his warfare against the divine authority of that sacred volume. If but one system of law has existed, and is referred to where the phrase, “the law,” occurs, then, certainly, the cavils of the objector cannot be disproved, and in the contest he comes off victorious. But to maintain that there are two laws, one, the transgression of which, brought death into the world, Rom. 5: 12, the other, which owes its origin to sin, and which could have had no existence if man had not become a transgressor, is to wrest from the hands of the caviler his objection, and to make a beautiful harmony in the word of God respecting this question, over which so many stumble.
But why is this position taken? Simply to avoid the claims of the fourth commandment of that moral code, which requires the observance of the seventh day for the Sabbath. This is termed “Jewish,” therefore, its obligation ceased with all the types and ordinances peculiar to that dispensation and that people. But this cannot be true, for God rested upon it, blessed and sanctified it (set apart to a holy use), at the close of creation week, twenty-three hundred years before there was a Jew, a descendant of Judah. Gen. 2: 23; 29: 35. It was set apart in the garden of Eden, not as a type, or shadow, pointing forward to things to come, for no sin then existed, hence no need of a type; but as a memorial, or keepsake, for man, to keep in mind God’s creative work, therefore, it always points backward and never forward, Ps. 111: 4; 135: 13; Ex. 20: 11, and is called “the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” “My holy day,” and the “Lord’s day.” Ex. 20: 10; Isa. 58: 13; Rev. 1: 10; Mark 2: 28.
That there were Sabbaths peculiar to that people and dispensation, which were typical, and shadows of things to come, is readily admitted. These were connected and associated with “new moons,” “meats and drinks,” “feasts” and “holy days,” and were called “sabbaths,” “her sabbaths,” and “your sabbaths,” which were to expire by limitation, and to cease with all the typical service. Lev. 23: 24, 32, 39; 1 Chron. 23: 31; 2 Chron. 2: 4; Neh. 10: 33; Isa. 1: 13, 14; Lam. 2: 6; Hosea 2: 11; Rom. 14: 1–6; Col. 2: 16, 17. These “sabbaths,” feasts, and holy convocations were proclaimed “beside the Sabbaths of the Lord.” Lev. 23: 38. Here is made a clear distinction between these Sabbaths.
In the bosom of that code, which grew out of the immutable relations which man sustains toward God and toward his fellow-man, was incorporated a commandment respecting the sacred observance of his holy rest-day. By the transgression of this law, death came upon all men, and a necessity at once existed that another system of laws, consisting of types and shadows, should be added, pointing forward to the great sacrifice which should take away the sin of the world; by whose obedience shall many be made righteous. Rom. 5: 19.
Between these two codes there is the clearest distinction, and the following comparison is subjoined, that it may be seen at a glance:—
The Moral Law The Ceremonial Law
1. Was spoken by God. Deut. 14: 12. Was spoken by Moses. Deut. 1: 6.
2. Was written by God on tables of stone. Ex. 24: 12. Was written by Moses in a book. Deut. 31: 24.
3. Was “right,” “true,” and “good.” Neh. 9: 13. Was “not good.” Eze. 20: 25.
4. Was a law, “which if a man do, he shall even live in” it. Eze. 20: 11, 13, 21. Was a law “whereby they should not live.” Eze. 20: 25.
5. Was a “perfect law.” Ps. 19: 7. “Made nothing perfect.” Heb. 7: 19.
6. God declares that it should stand forever and ever. Ps. 111: 7, 8. The apostle declares, “there is made of necessity a change.” Heb. 7: 12.
7. Christ did not “come to destroy.” Matt. 5: 17. He “abolished it.” Eph. 2: 15.
8. He came to magnify and make honorable. Isa. 42: 21. He took it out of the way at his death. Col. 2: 14.
9. Every “jot” and “tittle” of this shall stand “till heaven and earth pass” away. Matt. 5: 18. Was only “added till,” and passed away when the seed came. Gal. 3: 19.
10. Of this Christ said: “Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments shall be called the least in the kingdom of Heaven.” Matt. 5: 19. Of the other the apostle said: “We gave no such commandment” that ye should “keep the law.” Acts 15: 24.
11. Was a “law of liberty.” Jas. 2: 12. Was a “yoke of bondage.” Gal. 5: 1.
12. Paul delighted in. Rom. 7: 22. Neither he nor the fathers could bear. Acts 15: 10.
13. Is established through faith in Christ. Rom. 3: 31. “Was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.” Gal. 3: 24, 25.
14. “Is spiritual.” Rom. 7: 14. Is “the law of a carnal commandment.” Heb. 7: 16.
15. Is “holy,” “just,” and “good.” Rom. 7: 12. Is “enmity against us” and “contrary to us.” Eph. 2: 15; Col. 2: 14.
16. Was written with the finger of God, and is called the “royal law.” Ex. 31: 18; Jas. 2: 8. Was the “handwriting of ordinances.” Col. 2: 14.
17. Is written on the hearts of the Gentiles; and to it all mankind are amenable. Rom. 2: 12–15; 3: 19. Served as a “middle wall of partition between” the Jews and the Gentiles. Eph. 2: 14.
18. Was proclaimed by Jehovah himself, “and he added no more.” Deut. 5: 22. “Was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” Gal. 3: 19.
19. All the commandments of one law, David says, “are righteousness, and are founded forever.” Ps. 119: 152, 172. But the other law, Paul says, “stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.” Heb. 9: 10.
20. Contains the commandments of God which it is the whole duty of man to keep, Eccl. 12: 13, which are brought to view in the third message, Rev. 14: 12, which the remnant of the seed of the woman were keeping when the dragon made war upon them, Rev. 12: 17, and which will insure to those who observe them access to the tree of life. Rev. 22: 14. Is “the law of commandments contained in ordinances,” Eph. 2: 15; “a shadow of good things to come,” Heb. 10: 1, and was disannulled “for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.” Heb. 7: 18.
“Surely these two codes should not be confounded. The one was magnified, made honorable, established, and is holy, just, spiritual, good, royal; the other was carnal, shadowy, burdensome, and was abolished, broken down, taken out of the way, nailed to the cross, changed, and disannulled, on account of the weakness and unprofitableness thereof.”
“Those who rightly divide the word of truth will never confound these essentially different codes, nor will they apply to God’s royal law the language employed respecting the handwriting of ordinances.”
R. M. KILGORE.

AN UNSPOILED CHARACTER.

Money is a good thing, especially in these hard times, but there is something a thousand-fold more valuable. It is character—the consciousness of a pure and honorable life. This it should be a man's first aim to preserve at any cost. In times of commercial distress, while some are proved and found wanting, others come forth tried as by fire. Here and there one comes out of that furnace far more of a man than before. Amid the wreck of his fortune he stands erect—a noble specimen of true manhood. We have occasionally witnessed an example of courage in such a crisis, of moral intrepidity that deserves all honor. Let it be the aim of every business man above all things else to keep his purity unstained. This is his best possession—this is a capital which can never be taken from him—this is the richest inheritance which he can leave his children.

The Third Angel’s Message.

By Uriah Smith

This message is found in Rev. 14: 9–12. The numerical order is given in the prophecy itself: “And the third angel followed them.” Commencing with verse 6, two messages are brought to view before this; and as this is called the third, the two preceding must be the first and second. This is our authority for speaking so often as we do of the first angel’s message, the second angel’s message, and the third angel’s message, of Rev. 14.
This message, like the first, is proclaimed with a loud voice. “Saying with a loud voice,” says the prophecy. The first message went to nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples. Being proclaimed with a voice equally loud, this third message must be equally extensive.
The matter of the proclamation is then introduced in these words: “If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand.” Here is a work clearly defined and distinctly specified. It constitutes the burden of the proclamation; and when it is given, these things will be kept before the people, the terms will be clearly explained, and the nature of the sin be distinctly pointed out. It is a sin that is exceedingly offensive in the sight of God; for of those who are guilty of it, the message continues:—
“The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation.” It may well be questioned whether any judgment has yet been inflicted upon any portion of the human race in which there was no mixture of mercy, or whether any such judgments can be inflicted while Christ continues to act as mediator between the Father and the human family. As this message is the last message of mercy, and ceases only with the close of human probation, so the judgments it threatens may well be said to be without mixture of mercy, as they are poured out after all have made their final choice. The message defines what their punishment is to be in the following language:—
“And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” A denunciation of wrath more terrible is not to be found in the word of God; and it is certainly not unbecoming any one to inquire carefully what this judgment is, when it is to be inflicted, and how he may escape it.
The result of the message is then declared. A company is brought out of whom it is said, “Here is the patience of the saints; here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” And the scene that immediately follows is the appearing of one like the Son of man on the great white cloud, which can represent nothing else but the second advent of Christ in the clouds of heaven.
We have shown in previous articles (See REVIEW, Nos. 4, 6, and 9, of present volume) that the first and second messages of this series have already been heard, and that, too, in our own day. As the third message follows them in numerical and chronological order, the time has now come for this message to be given. And as this message has its place just before the second coming of Christ, reaching to that event, if that coming is now at hand, as all evidence combines to show, this is another proof that this message is now due, and must in some form be in progress in the land.
Is such a movement anywhere seen at the present time? There is a movement now in progress which claims emphatically to be doing this work. For many years already it has been before the people, small at first, as from the nature of its work it must be, but destined soon to go with a power commensurate with the magnitude of the issue it has in hand. It has secured its foothold, and counts its adherents in every northern State from Maine to California. The ADVENT REVIEW and five other periodicals are published in its interest; and the reader whose eye may fall upon these lines is reading that which is written in its defense with the most absolute and unbounded conviction that what it claims is truth. The movement is here and doing its work.
We now call the attention of the reader to an important consideration. Since the great Advent movement of 1844, various classes of Adventists have been developed. Their positions are contradictory, and hence cannot all be true. But the truth must be found with some of them, if the coming of Christ is at hand, and if that is the great truth for this time. Some class of Adventists must be following on in the order of the fulfillment of God’s word, and so in the order of his providence. Which class is it? Answer: It is that class which is giving the third angel’s message; because, as we have seen, that is the last true Advent movement previous to the appearing of Christ. Those who are giving the genuine proclamation, and doing the true work on this question, will inscribe this message on their banners. The burden of their work will be to warn against the worship of the beast, his image, and the reception of his mark. They will make these themes prominent in their sermons, books, and papers, and reason, urge, exhort, and entreat, in reference to them. What shall we think of those who claim to be Adventists, who are preaching that the coming of Christ is near at hand, and yet ignore this message? who never speak of those things which the prophecy under examination shows will be the important themes for the people just preceding the Lord’s appearing? Such certainly have mistaken the truth. They are off the track. They are not doing the true work for this time, and it is useless for them to claim it.
What class, then, we ask, claim to be giving this message, and explain the symbols therein brought to view in a way to show the people a present duty in relation to them? None but Seventh-day Adventists. And we pledge ourselves to do this, supporting our claims by an array of evidence which we think must be conclusive to every reasonable and unprejudiced mind. U. S.

More Trouble with Moses.

By Uriah Smith

The Restitution, of March 5, 1874, says:—
“We learn that there are certain Seventh-day Adventists who are muddling the brains of a number of honest-hearted persons in different parts. Their specious arguments are presented in such a way as to deceive those who are but young in the cause of truth, and the result is, that not being able to answer them they are almost persuaded to yield obedience to the law of Moses.”
Inasmuch as Seventh-day Adventists never try to turn people to the law of Moses, it is utterly unaccountable how inability to answer their arguments should lead people to such observance. This is one of the false issues that are continually held up by those who assert that God’s law has been abolished. And if the arguments which prove the perpetuity of the moral law could be answered, there would be no need of resorting to such an artifice.
They claim that every argument used by the advocates of the law has been met and answered. What they have answered is just such false issues as is here noticed. They have simply attacked men of straw of their own creation.
“There is nothing clearer,” says the writer, “to our mind than this, that there is no such thing as mixing the two dispensations—that of Moses and Christ.” Any mind to which such a point as this is not clear must be marvelously obtuse. Who claims that the two dispensations are mixed? It is evident that the conductors of the Restitution are the ones who are “muddled” in this matter. The dispensations are just as distinct as type and antitype, shadow and substance. But who does not see that the dispensation of Moses related in figure to the same thing that the dispensation of Christ relates to in fact? That was the type, this the antitype; that the shadow, this the substance; that the figure, this the reality.
And what was the object of that dispensation? and what is the object of this? To take away sin. The object is the same under both dispensations. Sin is the transgression of the law. There was real sin in the former dispensation, a real law transgressed. Men did not sin figuratively back there by transgressing a figurative law, which was in time to give place to something real. Sin was real, and the moral law, written upon the tables of stone, and deposited in the ark, the center of the sanctuary worship, was a real law. Sin, under that dispensation, at least, consisted in the transgression of that law; but the forgiveness of sin, or the atonement for these transgressions, was a work then done in figure; for the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin. The blood of Christ alone can do this. Those offerings prefigured the sacrifice of Christ as the true offering for sin. Now does his offering relate to a different law from that to which those offerings related which were types of his? We can scarcely conceive of a greater absurdity than to suppose such a thing. In such case, how could those offerings be typical of Christ’s offering? How could an offering made back there for one purpose be a figure, type, or representation of the offering of Christ, if his offering was made for another purpose?
The typical work of the former dispensation related to the ten commandments written on the tables of stone, and deposited in the ark, and the very fact that a figurative or typical service was performed to that law showed that a real or antitypical work was to be performed to it, else the figures were figures of nothing, and the types had no antitype. But all antitypical work is connected with Christ; hence his offering and ministration relate to the same law.
And Paul assures us that this is the case; for he says that the death of Christ not only provides eternal redemption for us (Christians), but was also “for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament.” Heb. 9:15. Now does Christ’s one offering atone for acts in the case of one individual, which are permitted in the case of another? Does God’s standard of moral rectitude vary in different ages? Are some things sin at one time and all right at another? Will God curse the men of one age, for doing the very things which in the men of another age are acceptable to him?
To such questions, arising of necessity from that view, the no-law system absurdly answers, Yes. And this is what we want the people to see, that nothing but absurdity pertains to the no-law system throughout. How much better to accept that which the Bible so clearly teaches: that God is unchangeable; that his great rule of right is the same from beginning to end; that the transgression of this is sin in every age, 1 John 3:4; that this is the only instrument to show what sin is, Rom. 3:20; that previous to Christ, the people of God received forgiveness for their transgressions of that law in figure through the blood of the typical offerings; and that we now receive forgiveness for our transgressions of the same law, in fact, through the offering of Christ.
Says the Restitution, “We are either under the law or under Christ.” Well, who does not believe that? But will our opponents show us a passage which says that any one is under grace who has not a personal interest in Christ? The fact is, all except converted persons are under the law, not under obligation to practice the Mosaic or typical law, which came to an end with that dispensation, but under the condemnation of the moral law; and so they will remain till their guilt is taken away by their acceptance of the offering of Christ. Rom. 3:19, shows that this is the sense in which Paul uses the expression, “under the law,” in this epistle.
Again the writer says: “From Paul’s reasoning in Rom. 7, it is clear that all who are married to Christ are released from their obligation to the law. They cannot be married to both at the same time, any more than a woman can be married to two men at the same time.” Who are married to Christ? Only those who have made a profession of Christ. Then, on his own showing, sinners are not released from their obligation to the law. On Rom. 7, our opponents betray the most astonishing confusion of ideas. Paul there illustrates the condition of a person before and after conversion by the figure of marriage as regulated by the law of the land.
In the illustration, there are four parties: the woman, the law regulating the marriage relation, the first husband, and the second husband.
In the thing illustrated there are also four parties: the penitent, the law of God, the condition before conversion, and the condition after conversion.
Let us see how these answer to each other. The woman represents the penitent. The law of marriage represents the law of God. The first husband represents that to which we are united before conversion. The second husband represents that to which we are united after conversion.
When we are married to another, to the second husband, Paul says we are united to Christ. Christ, then, in the illustration is the second husband. Now what is the first husband? Is it the law? The Restitution speaks about our being married to the law! Look at Paul’s illustration. Was the woman married to the law of marriage? Such an idea is worse than nonsense; but it is no more palpably absurd than to speak of the sinner before conversion as being married to the law of God. No, the first husband is that to which we are united before conversion. And what is that? It is the carnal mind, Rom. 8:7, “the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,” Eph. 4:22, “our old man,” which must be “crucified with” Christ, Rom. 6:6, the “old man” which must be put off with his deeds. Col. 3:9. And when this old man, the first husband, is crucified, put off, and dead, then we are at liberty to “put on the new man,” or be married to Christ.
And as the law of marriage shows the standing of the woman, so the law of God shows our standing. The law says that the woman can have but one husband. If, therefore, she takes two, the law pronounces her an adulteress. But if her first husband be dead, Paul says she is loosed or released from the law of her husband. Is the law dead because she is loosed from it? Does the law of marriage come to an end when her first husband dies? No, but she is loosed from the law because the law does not bind a living woman to a dead man. The law which bound her to that one man so long as he lived, ceases to bind her to him when the man is dead. Then, she can be married to another man, and still not violate the law. But the law exists all the while, and regulates her relation to both husbands.
How is this as applied to the sinner? The law shows what sin is. So long as we live in sin, or maintain a union with the old man, the carnal heart, the law of God reveals that fact, it shows that union; and it prohibits any other so long as the old man is nourished and kept alive by us; for it is sin which gives the law its claims upon us. So then, if, while keeping up our union with this first husband, we attempt to unite with Christ, if we seek a union with him and with sin at the same time, we commit spiritual adultery. James 4:4: “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God”? We cannot have God and the world, Christ and sin, the old man and the new man, at the same time. That is adultery in the sight of God.
What must be done? The first husband, the old man of sin, must die. And this is done in the body of Christ. In the 6th verse of the preceding chapter, Rom. 6, Paul has explained this. He says, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” And when this is accomplished, the law, which before showed us to be sinners, and while we continued in sin would allow of no other union, now sanctions our union with Christ, because it has no claims upon us as sinners; just as the law of marriage sanctions the union of the woman with the second husband after the first is dead, which it would not have sanctioned had that husband continued alive.
The crucifixion of our old man, Paul calls our death. Sin dying in us, or our dying to sin, are with him synonymous expressions. Read Rom. 6:6, 7, and 8. In verse 6 he says, “Knowing that our old man is crucified with him.” Then in verse 8 he says, “Now if we be dead with Christ.” By these expressions he means the same thing. And when this occurs, we are dead to the law, because a death has been accomplished in us which meets the demands of the law. And in all his illustration in Rom. 7:1–6, Paul never once says or intimates that the law dies or ceases to exist, but every time it is the individual in which the death occurs. Yet men will deal so superficially with Paul’s reasoning and so distort and destroy his illustration as to talk about being married to the law! May Heaven look with compassion and pity upon such blindness and confusion. U. S.

A Strange Conclusion.

By Uriah Smith

A WRITER in the Herald of Life, of Feb. 18, 1874, says:—
“The passing of 1873 without the appearing of Jesus has proved that the papacy did not attain its supremacy in 538.”
The statement of history is very explicit that the supremacy of the papacy did there commence; and the fulfillment of the 1260 years of its continuance ending in 1798, is still more explicit. How, then, does the fact that 1873 has passed, disprove these facts? Dating the 1335 days (years) from 538 they end in 1873. Supposing them to extend to the coming of Christ, the fact that he has not come shows that they have not ended, and consequently that they did not commence in the year named, and that papal supremacy did not there begin.
This is the argument. It has two fatal defects: 1. The 1335 days do not mark the setting up of the papacy. They date from the taking away of the daily abomination (paganism) to set up the abomination that maketh desolate (papacy). Dan. 12:11, margin. But paganism was taken away preparatory to the setting up of the papacy, in 508, thirty years before the papacy was established. 2. The 1335 days do not extend to the coming of Christ. No prophetic period extends to that point. This is the great fallacy on which all time-setters founder. It is impossible to set a time for Christ to appear. We have no data on which to base a calculation. The prophetic periods, all of which can be located without difficulty, bring us to great events to transpire in close connection with the coming of Christ, so that we know that it is near. Daniel stands in his lot (the decisions of the investigative Judgment, not the lot of his inheritance—that is another word in the Hebrew) before Christ comes.
Feeling himself driven from 538, the writer looks for another date, and finds none till he comes to 553. The 1335 days, if commenced in that year, extend to 1888. But the 1260 dating from that point reach to 1813 with nothing whatever to mark their termination. This throws him into perplexity; and there we leave him racking his inventive powers to find a new adjustment for his periods. So long as men will ignore this fundamental fact that no prophetic period reaches to the coming of Christ, so long we suppose they will go on with the work of setting new times for that event—a work futile in itself and a reproach and disgrace to the Advent name.  U. S.

How a Roman Catholic Feels about Us.

By Uriah Smith

The Western Home Journal, a Roman Catholic paper published in Detroit, Mich., in its issue of March 7, 1874, thus speaks of us:—
“Incomparable! If you want to read the most nonsensical, bigoted, sanguinary, and ridiculously ignorant paper, not only of the United States, but of the round globe, just read the ‘Advent Review’ of Battle Creek, Mich. In fact, it exhibits the most delicious mental food for lunatics, fanatics, and all kinds of visionary ignoramuses. Here are a few specimens of this ‘highly enlightened’ gospel-paper doctrines, truly and really printed in the edition of Feb. 17: ‘The Catholic Church, the great beast of the prophecies, has butchered fifty millions of saints for the faith. The Roman mother has ordered the adoration of images. The priests of the papacy forgive sins even before they are committed.’ People indulging in such sublime stuff, even if they are so styled ‘Reverend Pastors of the true Gospel,’ surpass in ignorance the cannibals and in wild frenzy the worshipers of the fetich. We would not have believed such nonsense possible in the nineteenth century. There are evidently people whose want of shame is more to be wondered at than their want of knowledge. To this description belong the managers of the incomparable Battle Creek Advent Review.”
The reader will perceive the point more clearly when we remind him that the number of the REVIEW referred to above is the one which contains the illustrations of the four beasts of Dan. 7, the last one, in two forms, representing pagan and papal Rome. In preparing that illustration we endeavored to throw into it the spirit of Daniel’s description. He calls it a beast diverse from all others, strong exceedingly, terrible and exceeding dreadful, with teeth of iron and nails of brass. This it seems was too much for the amiability of our Catholic friend, and in attempting to disprove the application of that symbol to his church he unwittingly strengthens it by manifesting the same spirit which that beast, judging from an inspection of his countenance, seems to possess.
But the Journal does not regard the REVIEW as such a nonsensical, ridiculous sheet as it pretends. If it does it would pass us by unnoticed. What sensible person would care for the ignorance of a cannibal, or the ravings of a fetich worshiper? And it must have cost no little effort to get up such an amount of venom, unless it deals in that commodity so largely that it has a stock always on hand.
We wonder if the statements above quoted are a specimen of Roman Catholic veracity. Although it puts them in quotation marks, and says they were “truly and really printed in the edition of Feb. 17,” not one of the expressions quoted occurs in that paper! It is said, to be sure, that the Catholic church has been a persecuting power; and history abundantly proves it. Happily it is now restrained by the better spirit of its neighbors. It is said also that they worshiped images and granted indulgences; and they must admit these facts or repudiate their own writers and historians. But we suppose we must excuse their false statements on the ground that their beautiful religion allows them to lie without restraint when dealing with a heretic.
The application of the fourth beast of Dan. 7 to Rome, and the second phase of it, to the papacy, is so apparent that it cannot be reasonably disputed. It can be answered only in the way the Journal has attempted in the foregoing quotation. It has done as well, perhaps, as could be expected under the circumstances.
U. S.
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