Replies to Elder Canright’s Attacks on Seventh-day Adventists

THE FALL OF BABYLON

ELD. CANRIGHT makes special efforts to excite prejudice against S.D. Adventists because of their view concerning the “fall of Babylon.” He does his best to make everybody believe that we are uncharitable, exclusive, bigoted, and narrow-minded, having no interest in anybody but ourselves, and no sympathy with the reform movements of the day. In order to make this impression as effective as possible, he misrepresents the position held by this people concerning Babylon and its fall. His statements convey the unmistakable impression that we have no confidence in the religion of members of other churches, but consider them all as rejected of God and lost, and ourselves as the only favored ones, whom God regards because we keep the seventh-day Sabbath and believe in Mrs. White’s visions. We are, of course, aware that in some instances he speaks of us personally as an honest and good people, who are trying to obey God and be conscientious and true to our convictions; yet, nevertheless, he ever keeps the impression uppermost that we are utterly illiberal and exclusive, and that our peculiar faith makes us so. RCASDA 64.2

We consider these representations of us and our faith to be wicked slanders, and if Eld.C. has any memory left he must know them to be such. He has heard our representative men preach scores of times, and taught the same thing himself, that we believe to-day that the great majority of true Christians are in the Protestant churches. We have never taught in a single instance, as a denomination, that our little church comprehends all the Christians in the world; have never believed such a thing for a moment, and he knows it. Why, then does he so constantly convey such an impression as he does?— To lower us in the opinion of members of other churches, to make our work hard for us, and to utterly destroy our influence by exciting prejudice against us. If he can accomplish these objects, he will, of course, palliate his own apostasy and please those who hate us and our doctrine, to whom he has offered his services. If he can make our work appear mean and contemptible, and blacken our reputation, he hopes this will make his course in leaving us and defaming us appear necessary and honorable. As we are lowered, he and his work are exalted. The candid reader will pardon an honest indignation at such attempts to bring contempt upon that to which some of us have consecrated our lives as the cause of God—a pure, holy, noble work. RCASDA 64.3

We will now briefly state to the reader what positions S.D. Adventists do hold concerning Babylon and the fall of Babylon; and we refer all such to our published works to be found in all our offices and depositories in confirmation of our statements. RCASDA 65.1

In Rev.l4:8 we read, “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.” Here is a prediction of Holy Writ which surely must be fulfilled. It is contained in a striking prophecy which Adventists believe constitutes the last warning message to mankind, to prepare a people for the coming of Christ. (Read verses 6-16.) RCASDA 65.2

Three symbolic angels proclaim startling truths to man. These three angels symbolize important religious movements in the last days, having each special truths applicable to the time it is given. The first brings to view a mighty move in the last days, proclaiming the close of the prophetic periods, and bringing to view the commencement of the investigative Judgment, the closing work of Christ, our great High Priest, in the heavenly Temple above. The decision is made in the case of every person before Christ comes. This judgment work occupies a space of time, a period which is of vast moment to the race. It is every way fitting that the commencement of this solemn judgment period should be known to the humble, earnest ones who are preparing for Christ’s coming. It is announced by this first message. S.D. Adventists believe the great advent proclamation of 1836 to 1844, which began with William Miller and reached to the ends of the earth, began the fulfillment of this message. The second, as we have seen, announced the fall of Babylon. The third brings to view a people who keep the “commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” and contains a fearful threatening against the worship of “the beast.” This power is apostate in character, though professedly Christian (2 Thessalonians 2:3-8), persecuting the saints of God, and one which has thought to change the law of God. Daniel 7:25. It has ruled for ages. It is, in short, the papacy. In the last days its work is to be fully exposed, and all its corruptions of God’s truth to be avoided by his true people, who shall be finally translated when Christ comes. This message takes time to develop and be fully consummated. But it must be one of vast importance to the human family. S.D. Adventists believe the light and truth contained in this message, they are now giving to the world. RCASDA 65.3

But we are now speaking of the second message proclaiming the fall of Babylon. Babylon is a symbol of great bodies professedly religious in character. Commentators generally agree in this. The meaning of the term Babylon is “confusion, mixture.” The term is purely distinctive, embracing the great family of professedly Christian churches, commencing with that of Rome, and including all others which have truth and error mixed together, more or less, in their profession of faith. Chapter 17 brings to view in symbolic prophecy a woman sitting upon a scarlet-colored beast, gorgeously arrayed, and drunken with the blood of saints. This unmistakably refers to the Church of Rome, and it is here distinctly named “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” Here, certainly, is a family, a mother and daughters. The latter must be those that came from the communion or body of the former, and must certainly embrace churches which are Protestant. RCASDA 66.1

To prove that Adventists are not uncharitable in this view, nor take a different one from eminent writers of other denominations, we quote a few from the many testimonials we might present, as follows:— RCASDA 66.2

Lorenzo Dow says of the Romish Church:— RCASDA 66.3

“If she be the mother, who are the daughters? It must be the corrupt, national, established churches that came out of her.”—Dow’s life, p. 542. RCASDA 66.4

Says the Religious Encyclopedia, art., Antichrist:— RCASDA 67.1

“If such persons are to be found in the mother of harlots, with much less hesitation may it be inferred that they are connected with her unchaste daughter, those national churches which are founded upon what are called Protestant principles.” RCASDA 67.2

The Tennessee Baptist says:— RCASDA 67.3

“This woman (popery) is called the mother of harlots and abominations. Who are the daughters? The Lutheran, the Presbyterian, and the Episcopalian churches are all branches of the (Roman) Catholic.” RCASDA 67.4

Dr. Guthrie, as quoted by the Watchman and Reflector,the leading organ of the Baptist denomination, says:— RCASDA 67.5

“Three hundred years ago, our church, with an open Bible on her banner, and this motto, Search the Scriptures, as her scroll, marched out from the gates of Rome,” and then significantly adds, “Did they come clean out of Babylon?” RCASDA 67.6

It will be seen that these, and we might quote many others, take precisely the view we have indicated. There is no other that can be taken consistent with the evident meaning of the scripture. There is no other term but “confusion” and “mixture,” that would properly describe the great sisterhood of churches, quarreling with one another, filled with pride and vainglory, and having many doctrines differing from one another. If their condition is not that of confusion and mixture, what is it? Their condition is certainly much different from what Christ indicated when he prayed that his people might be one even as he and his Father were one. RCASDA 67.7

Adventists, then, believe that this great sisterhood of the churches, when they were humble, though they did not have the whole truth in reference to his word, yet as they moved out in light and truth, God’s blessing greatly rested upon them, and their existence has been a wonderful blessing to mankind. But they believe when the last days were reached, and the time came for the proclamation of the glorious truths of the second advent of our Redeemer, if these bodies had listened to it with respect, it would have greatly benefited them. But instead of this, as bodies they turned against the advent doctrine, and have been opposed to it ever since. They have taken a worldly position, leading them toward the pleasures of this sin-cursed earth, and are crying “Peace and Safety,” while God’s word plainly teaches that the end of all things is at hand. RCASDA 67.8

When they took this position, and turned against the truths of the Bible concerning the second advent of Christ, we believe that a change came over them, and God has not been with them since as before; that there has been a great increase of corruption, pride, vanity, and wickedness coming into their midst; that they are developing more and more into the condition of a worldly church, instead of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ; and that their condition is now very much like that of the Jewish people when they turned against the truth concerning Christ’s first advent. As a body the Lord was not with them as before, and gradually they developed more and more in the wrong direction until the judgments of God came upon them in the destruction of Jerusalem. But we all know that multitudes of pious, devoted Jews were to be found among that people for years after Christ was crucified; and that the duty of searching for these and bringing the gospel before them was ever prominent in the work of the apostle Paul and others. These were gradually brought to see the light of the gospel, and none of them were destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem. RCASDA 68.1

So we believe in regard to the movement preparatory to Christ’s second advent. While the tendency of the religious bodies of Protestants is away from God’s truth toward worldliness, pride, etc., there are multitudes of excellent, devoted, noble-hearted Christians among them who are living up to all the light they have, and are mourning over the sad state of the churches in the various communions of the Protestant world. If this view be uncharitable, we must be set down as such. We believe God has given special light to us as a people concerning Christ”s second advent and the truths necessary to be obeyed to prepare one for it. If we did not believe this, we would dissolve as a people, and join the popular denominations around us. But believing that as the Bible plainly teaches these truths, we must be true to our profession regardless of fear or favor. Eld. Canright would fain represent us as an uncharitable, bigoted set because we believe as we have stated. We utterly deny the charge, and propose to show that many eminent writers and religious teachers in the Protestant churches themselves admit all we claim. RCASDA 68.2

Howard Crosby says:— RCASDA 69.1

“The church of God is to-day courting the world. Its members are trying to bring it down to the level of the ungodly. The ball, the theater, nude and lewd art, social luxuries, with all their loose moralities, are making inroads into the sacred inclosure of the church; and as a satisfaction for all this worldliness, Christians are making a great deal of Lent and Easter and church ornamentation. It is the old trick of Satan. The Jewish Church struck on that rock; the Romish Church was wrecked on the same; and the Protestant Church is fast reaching the same doom.” RCASDA 69.2

Bishop Pierce, in the “New Book of Sermons,” by twenty leading Southern Methodist ministers, four of them bishops. says:— RCASDA 69.3

“The Bible makes a broad distinction between the church and the world.... Yet the vain, wicked, corrupting experiment of harmonizing the two goes on, perhaps in no age of the church more broadly and with less disguise than now.... The process of amalgamation goes on almost without let of hindrance.” RCASDA 69.4

Says T. De Witt Talmage:— RCASDA 69.5

“I simply state a fact when I say that in many places the church is surrendering and the world is conquering. Where there is one man brought into the kingdom of God through Christian instrumentality, there are ten men dragged down by dissipations... Look abroad, and see the surrender, even on the part of what pretend to be Christian churches, to Spiritualism and humanitarianism, and all the forms of devilism. If a man stand in his pulpit and say that unless you be born again you will be lost, do not the tight kid gloves of the Christians, diamonds bursting through, go up to their foreheads in humiliation and shame? It is not elegant. RCASDA 69.6

“There is a mighty host in the Christian church, positively professing Christianity, who do not believe the Bible, out and out, in and in from the first word of the first verse of the first chapter of the book of Genesis, down to the last word of the last verse of the last chapter of the book of Revelation.... Eternal God! What will this come to? I tell you plainly, that while here and there a regiment of the Christian soldiery is advancing, the church is falling back, for the most part, and falling back, and falling back; and if you do not come to complete rout, aye, to ghastly Bull Run defeat, it will be because some individual churches hurl themselves to the front, and ministers of Christ, trampling on the favor of this world, and sacrificing everything, shall snatch up the torn and shattered banner of Emmanuel, and rush ahead, crying, On! on! this is no time to run; this is the time to advance!” RCASDA 69.7

Says the Christian Union:— RCASDA 70.1

“Affiliation between the church and the theater is proceeding, we should think, as rapidly as the most ardent advocate of an alliance between them could reasonably desire.” RCASDA 70.2

The North-Western Christian Advocate says:— RCASDA 70.3

“It is of the utmost importance that this tide of trifling, and amusement, and sin be stayed, or it will drown out the life of the Christian church.” RCASDA 70.4

The Examiner and Chronicle says:— RCASDA 70.5

“When a man like Thomas Hood dares to say that as soon as he hears a man is pious, he begins to suspect him,-when he can say this, and not outrage the sense of the world by it, then we begin to ask what kind of Christians our age of the world has to show. For the insolence of the Sadducees will always be found in near proportion to the indolence of the Christian. Many a church of Christ at the present time sits like Eli, without courage to rebuke sin in its own members, yet trembling for the ark of God.” RCASDA 70.6

The report of the Michigan yearly conference, published in the True Wesleyan of Nov. 15, 1851, says:— RCASDA 70.7

“Sins that would shock the moral sensibility of the heathen go unrebuked in all the great denominations of the land. These churches are like the Jewish Church when the Saviour exclaimed, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!’” RCASDA 70.8

We could multiply tenfold these extracts from eminent Protestants, to show the terrible condition and tendencies of the Christian bodies of our world at the present time; but perhaps these will be all we can now give for want of space. Every intelligent person knows that these statements are true. Yet we are charged with great bigotry for stating these things. Will Eld. Canright accuse these persons of great bigotry who have made statements fully as strong as any that we have made? Every intelligent man knows that the statements we have inserted above are true; that the Protestant churches, as this report of the True Wesleyan states, are repeating the experience of the Jewish Church after rejecting the doctrine of Christ’s first advent. We have page upon page of extracts before us, from which we could present striking and powerful pictures of the sins now being practiced by the churches; such as church lotteries, gambling, grab-bags, dancing, card-playing, etc. RCASDA 70.9

It is a well-known fact that Governor Washburn, of Wisconsin, in his public message to the legislature of that State, expressed himself against the practices of the churches, and charged them with being the nurseries of the pernicious spirit of gambling, etc. Just think of it, kind reader, a church of Jesus Christ rebuked by a politician before a legislature, for gambling! RCASDA 71.1

Hear what Mr. Moody said at Baltimore:— RCASDA 71.2

“And there are your grab-bags-your grab-bags! There is too much of this. Your fairs and your bazaars won’t do, and your voting, your casting of ballots for the most popular man or the most popular woman, just helping along their vanity. It grieves the Spirit; it offends God. They have got so far now that for twenty-five cents young men can come in and kiss the handsomest woman in the room. Think of this! Look at the church lotteries going on in New York! Before God I would rather preach in any barn, or in the most miserable hovel on earth, than within the walls of a church paid for in such a way. What is the use of going to a gambling den when you can have a game of grab with a lady for a partner?” RCASDA 71.3

The utterances of the Rev. C.H. Spurgeon, the most eminent Baptist divine in the world, are particularly pertinent in this connection. Mr. Spurgeon has quite recently withdrawn from the English Baptist Union, and here are his views with regard to the condition of affairs in the churches:— RCASDA 71.4

“A new religion has been initiated [in the Baptist churches], which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese. And this religion, being destitute of moral honesty, palms itself off as the old faith with slight improvements, and on this plea usurps pulpits which were erected for gospel preaching. The atonement is scouted, the inspiration for Scripture is derided, ...the punishment of sin is turned into fiction, and the resurrection into a myth; and yet these enemies of our faith expect us to call them brethren, and maintain a confederacy with them! RCASDA 71.5

“At the back of doctrinal falsehood comes a natural decline of spiritual life, evidenced by a taste for questionable amusements, and a weariness of devotional meetings.... RCASDA 72.1

“The case is mournful. Certain ministers are making infidels. Avowed atheists are not a tenth as dangerous as those preachers who scatter doubt and stab at faith. A plain man told us the other day that two ministers had derided him because he thought we should pray for rain. A gracious woman bemoaned in my presence that a precious promise in Isaiah which had comforted her had been declared by her minister to be uninspired. It is a common thing to hear working-men excuse their wickedness by the statement that there is no hell-the parson says so.” RCASDA 72.2

We will give one more extract on this painfully unpleasant subject. It is from the Watchman and Reflector, the leading paper of the Baptist denomination:— RCASDA 72.3

“A member of a church went to his pastor and entreated his intercession with his favorite son, who had become ruinously addicted to the vice of gambling. The pastor consented, and seeking the young man, found him in his chamber. He commenced his lecture; but before he concluded, the young man laid his hand upon his arm and drew his attention to a pile of splendid volumes that stood upon the table. ‘Well,’ said the young man, ‘these volumes were won by me at a fair given in your church; they were my first venture; but for that lottery, under the patronage of a Christian church, I should never have become a gambler.’” RCASDA 72.4

We well know that there are pious, devoted people in the churches, who look upon these practices with all the abhorrence that we do. But we know at the same time that they are not sufficiently strong to check these wicked practices that are sanctioned by the leading member of the popular churches. If there is an influence in the church which is sufficient to meet these things, why are they permitted to exist year after year, and thus continue to depart from the principle of Christianity as taught by our Redeemer more and more? These things as we have said, show that these churches, as bodies, have fallen, and that corruption is rapidly gaining possession of them; but we believe that God has a truth in the earth with which to call his people out from such corruption. RCASDA 72.5

Will Eld. Canright hold up these whom we have quoted as uncharitable? He has tried to make it appear that the Seventh-day Adventists generally are unjust and unchristian; but has he found any statements which we have ever made stronger that those made by popular clergymen? The evidence is overwhelming to prove that the statements we have advance concerning the religious bodies of the present day are correct. And he knows they are true. The fact is, the whole tendency of popular Christianity at the present time is worldly, and the ambition of the church is to be a great power in the world, and to rule over the nations,-very much as the Jews hoped that the Messiah would come and place them over all the nations of the earth. This was why they rejected Jesus at his first advent. They did not love the humble, self-denying doctrines which he taught. They had no interest in laboring for that salvation which he set before them. Their desire was to be among the great, proud, rich, and influential of the earth; hence they rejected the lowly Galilean-the Man of sorrows. They never would have him to reign over them. It is much the same to-day in the religious bodies of the world; they are courting the world, and the world is courting them, until there is very little difference between them. RCASDA 73.1

In saying this we do not deny but that there are many good things favored by the churches; but there are many Unitarians and Universalists and skeptics and unbelievers who are just as much in favor of morality and good government as the churches themselves. As the great commentator, Albert Barnes, declared years ago, the churches were for a long time the bulwarks of slavery. They have not led in the reforms of the day, more than others. Many of the most eminent philanthropists for the past fifty years were not members of the orthodox churches. And yet there are large numbers of most excellent, devoted people who are members of these churches. We make these statements to show that the badge of church membership is not a distinguishing mark of morality or reform. These are facts which every intelligent person understands. Seventh-day Adventists feel that they have a special work to warn the world of Christ’s coming and prepare a pure, holy people for that event. Of course, holding these views of popular Christianity, and like honest men proclaiming them at proper times, leave them with out the sanction of these popular bodies. We expect to meet opposition everywhere we go. As far as they do right, we wish them God-speed. RCASDA 73.2

In everything good which they teach, we are in hearty sympathy. We venture the assertion that there is not a church in the land in which so large a per cent of its membership favor temperance and prohibition and vote for them, as among Seventh-day Adventists. As a body they were unanimously opposed to slavery in the days of its supremacy, and we claim that there is not a single true reform agitating the public mind with which we are not in hearty sympathy. Yet of course, being comparatively a small people, and having a great work to do in proclaiming doctrines which we consider important for the benefit of our fellow-men, we cannot scatter our efforts, and make specialties of things outside of the one great object which has given us an existence-a proclamation to prepare a people for the coming of Christ. These are the positions we hold. We believe before God they are right and true. G.I.B. RCASDA 74.1