Life Incidents, in Connection with the Great Advent Movement, as Illustrated by the Three Angels of Revelation XIV (Volu — Part 98

“7. It has shown professedly orthodox ministers to be so degenerate in their sentiments as to make common cause with infidels and Universalists against the coming of the Lord. And has also shown the church to be so degenerate as to cast out her children for looking for and speaking of the return of her Lord.

“8. It has given to the church and world a simple, plain, common-sense system of interpretation of the sacred canon, so that every man, who will take the trouble of reading the Bible and collating the different portions of it, may understand the word of God without the aid of learned commentaries.”

“No provision has been made for the establishment of permanent institutions among Adventists. Indeed, we have no means of ascertaining the number of ministers, and others, who have embraced the Advent faith. We only know that there are several hundred congregations, and a still larger number of ministers, who have publicly professed the faith, besides many who still remain in the churches of the land. Those who have espoused this cause have honestly believed in the coming of the Lord ‘about A. D. 1843;’ and as honest men they have kept to their work of sounding the alarm. All peculiarities of creed or policy have been lost sight of, in the absorbing inquiry concerning the coming of the heavenly Bridegroom. Those who have engaged in this enterprise are from all the various sects in the land--Protestant Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Protestant, Primitive Methodist, Wesleyan Methodist, Close Communion Baptist, Calvinistic and Armenian Baptists, Presbyterians, Old and New School Congregationalists, Old and New School Lutheran, Dutch Reformed, &c., &c. All these have agreed to work together for the accomplishment of a certain object; and the organization to which this has given rise, so far as there is anything which may be called an organization, is of the most simple, voluntary and primitive form. While the engrossing and scriptural character of the grand object has kept those who have been brought under its influence above the considerations which so generally divide the household of faith, it has also made them frank and kind in expressing their minor differences, and forbearing toward each other on subordinate questions upon which they may not see alike. And in this is their strength.