The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 3
II. Heralds 1847 Advent in All Travels
1. DISTRIBUTES BIBLES AND DISCOURSES ADVENT TRUTH
In all his travels Wolff was constantly distributing Bibles and tracts among rabbis and priests, and to all who would receive them. 44 The Caraite Jews 45 especially received them “with gladness and gratitude, as they did the Old Testament.” 46 He discussed Bible truth with the leading Jews, Mohammedans, Protestants, and Roman and Greek Catholics of the various communities, as well as with the diplomats. Two samples of Wolff’s teaching and preaching on the coming Messiah, must suffice. PFF3 471.2
Beginning with a discussion, on his first journey, with the ship’s officers and a Welsh Methodist minister, he repeatedly applied the prophecy of Daniel 9 to the first advent, and he also cited Daniel on the second advent. 47 To a Jew he said: PFF3 472.1
“The prophet is here speaking of the second coming of our Lord; of that time which Jesus Christ himself predicteth; of that time, when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him; when he shall sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him all nations shall be gathered: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats.” 48 PFF3 472.2
He expressed his joy in the second advent in a sermon: PFF3 472.3
“Let this be our sincere prayer. ‘Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.’ ... What a beautiful song we shall hear, from a whole ransomed creation, when He shall come! ... THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH. He cometh! He cometh! ‘He cometh to judge the earth; with righteousness shall He judge the world, and the people with equity.’ 49 PFF3 472.4
On his last mission to Bokhara, in 1843-45, the Persian banditti of the Khan of Khorasaun made him a slave, with the design or selling him to the Turkoman chiefs, but they finally set him free, declaring him their guest and sending the Arabic Bibles he gave them to their mullahs. Concerning his activities while at Meshad under those circumstances, Wolff wrote: PFF3 472.5
“I fixed on their tents public proclamations, announcing to them the second coming of Christ in Glory and Majesty, called on them to repent of their evil doings, and especially exhorted them to give up the practice of making slaves of the Persians.” 50 PFF3 472.6
2. PARTICIPANT AT ALBURY PARK CONFERENCE
In 1826, when Wolff was back in England, Drummond and Irving sent for him to come to London, then to Albury Park to attend the important first Prophetic Conference. Wolff lists the leading participants and the characteristics of the conference, remarking about “each person speaking out his peculiar views.” 51 PFF3 472.7
3. CITES PROPHECIES TO JEW AND BEDOUIN ALIKE
Wolff quotes a letter which he wrote to the Jews at Alexandria, upon one of his visits there, in 1828. He stresses the imminence of the return of the Messiah and the restoration of the Jews to the favor of God. As proof, Wolff cites the prophecies of the first advent that were fulfilled: the scepter has departed from Judah; the seventy weeks of Daniel have expired; Jesus was born in Bethle hem; He was born as the son of a virgin; He confessed Himself to be the Son of God before the high priest; and He was a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the house of Israel. 52 PFF3 472.8
In another letter, to Sir Thomas Baring, Wolff recites a discussion with the Bedouins who visited his tent near Cairo. They inquired, “When will Christ come?” Wolff answered, “In a very few years.” Then he referred to the numbers in Daniel and the portentous signs of the times, showing “the restitution of all things cannot be very far off”-as witness rationalism in Germany, infidelity in France, and atheism in Spain. 53 PFF3 473.1
4. LOOKS FOR SECOND ADVENT IN 1847
In conversation with the Goosh-Bekee at Bokhara, representing the king of Bokhara, Emeer 54 Almooneneen, in 1832, Wolff witnessed concerning Christ and His second advent. After stating, “This Bible is my occupation,” Wolff said: PFF3 473.2
“He died for our sins, rose again, went to Heaven, when he shall come again, according to my opinion, in the year 1847, and reign at Jerusalem 1000 years.” 55 PFF3 473.3
Certain members of the Jewish Society in London, it should be added, took exception to Wolff’s emphasis of the advent in 1847, at the beginning of the millennial period, and protested. 56 PFF3 473.4
5. PLACARDS ANNOUNCE ADVENT FOR 1847
Wolff pressed the second advent before his hearers in all his travels, stressing the year 1847 as the date of Christ’s return. He had a rather dramatic experience at Alexandria. To test out, in this instance, “how far one may go in preaching the gospel to Turks, without exposing one’s life to danger,” he executed the following: PFF3 473.5
“I wrote proclamations to Turks, and Jews, and Christians, in the Arabic language; in which I exhorted them to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the Son of God, to have died for our sins on the cross, to have risen again, and that, according to my conviction produced by the reading of Daniel, he will come again in the year 1847; when the Jews shall look on Him whom they have pierced and mourn; when he shall restore them to Jerusalem, where he will reign over them with his saints; then the Turkish empire shall fall, and be destroyed. I exhorted them, therefore, to repent and believe in Jesus Christ.” 57 PFF3 474.1
These public proclamations he posted on the walls in the various streets of Alexandria. As a result, several Turks of high position came to hear what he had to say. Jews came also, as did Protestants. Discussions lasted for hours, as he preached Christ and distributed Bibles and Testaments in their own languages. This resulted in correspondence with officials in which Wolff “proclaimed to them Christ crucified, and at the same time the judgment over the Turkish Power.” 58 Wolff reported all this through a letter to his friends, published in the London Morning Herald, 59 as he did not fail to capitalize on the press. A “great sensation” resulted from one of his letters to the mufti of the capital. In fact, such a stir followed that the British consul urged Wolff to leave Alexandria. PFF3 474.2
6. LUCKNOW MUSSELMAN CHALLENGES 2300 YEARS
In1833, at Lucknow, in the kingdom of Oude, the Musselman Moulvees (Emeer Sayd Ahmed, Mujtehed of the Sheah), wrote Wolff a truly remarkable response. In a previous communication Wolff had maintained from Daniel 8 that “Christ would descend upon the earth after twenty-three hundred years from the time of Daniel, which was 453 years before Christ; that having deducted 453 from 2300, there remained 1847; and the present year is 1833, from which the latter sum having been deducted there remained 14 years, 60 which is the period of Christ’s coming.” 61 PFF3 474.3
The Emeer challenged this interpretation with a remarkable grasp of the issues, contending that (1) in the prophecy Christ’s coming is not alluded to; (2) the dating 453 is not proved; (3) the 2300 are days, not years; (4) to fix upon the year is contrary to Christ’s declaration that no man knows the day or hour; (5) wars and “rumors” are not any particular sign; (6) the flying angel does not refer to the propagation of the gospel; and (7) the New Testament is not the Word of God. 62 PFF3 474.4
7. MESSIAH’S ADVENT FOLLOWS FOUR WORLD POWERS
It is highly desirable to note Wolff’s explicit answer, for we have here his exposition of prophecy: PFF3 475.1
“The contents of Daniel 2, and again 7:1-28, are a fourfold succession of kingdoms, which should arise out of the earth, but which should not endure for ever; whereas the kingdom of the Son of Man and his saints, of whom Daniel speaks, should endure for ever. That the ‘Son of Man, coming in the clouds of heaven,’ mentioned in verse 13, is Christ the expected Messiah, is not only admitted by Christians and Jewish commentators, but must be likewise admitted by you, as an orthodox Mohammedan; for according to the Koran and your Hadees, Christ, not Mo hammed, went in the form of the Son of Man to heaven, and therefore he only can return in that form.” 63 PFF3 475.2
8. SANCTUARY CLEANSED AT SECOND ADVENT
Then Wolff continues, leading directly to the 2300 years and the cleansing of the sanctuary: PFF3 475.3
“The eighth and following chapters of Daniel contain a succession of events which shall precede and follow the coming of that Son of Man; one of them is in chapter 8:14: ‘That the sanctuary should be cleansed,’ i.e. Jerusalem, called in Hebrew a name which the Jews gave to that place from time immemorial, and on which account it was called by the Mohammedans Kudus, i.e. holy. It is therefore clear that the cleansing of the sanctuary shall be concomitant with those wonders (7:13.), when the four empires shall be broken to pieces by that ‘Stone’ which shall descend from heaven, i.e. the Son of Man, in order that He, the Lord of glory, may enter into that cleansed sanctuary. By that ‘Ram, He-Goat,’ etc., to which you allude, are here meant different Kings, which is explained in the text itself, i.e. of the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman empires.” 64 PFF3 475.4
9. YEAR-DAY APPLICATION TO DANIEL’S PROPHECIES
As to the issue of the prophetic days as years, Wolff says: PFF3 475.5
“I answer, that by a prophetic day, a year is meant, that is clear by Ezekiel 4:4, 5. And that Daniel took this method of counting days for years, according to Ezekiel, his contemporary, is clear by Daniel 9.; for both profane and sacred history teach us that ‘from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah, and the cutting off of the Messiah,’ as many years did elapse as Daniel prophesied days should elapse. (Daniel 9:25, 26) You cited above English authorities without giving their names; I now give you English authorities with their names, i.e. the famous Doctor Scott in his answer to the Jewish Rabbi Crool; Doctor Mant, in his commentary of the Bible; Newton, Hooper, etc. and I would quote also the Italian and Spanish authors, Cornelius a Lapide, Bellarmin, and Ben Ezra.” 65 PFF3 476.1
10. APPROACH OF ADVENT HERALDED BY SIGNS
Concerning Matthew 24:36, Wolff’s method of answering questions is disclosed: PFF3 476.2
“Did our Lord say that that day and hour should never be known? Did he not give us signs of the times, in order that we may know at least the approach of his coming, as one knows the approach of the summer by the fig tree putting forth its leaves? Matthew 24:32. Are we never to know that period, whilst He himself exhorteth us not only to read Daniel the Prophet, but to understand it? and in that very Daniel, where it is said that the words were shut up to the time of the end (which was the case in his time), and ‘that many shall run to and fro,’ (an Hebrew expression for observing and thinking upon the time,) ‘and knowledge (regarding that time) shall be increased. Daniel 12:4. Besides this, our Lord does not intend to say by this, that the approach of the time shall not be known, but that the exact ‘day and hour knoweth no man;’ enough, he does say, shall be known by the signs of the times to induce us to prepare for his coming, as Noah prepared the ark; (for he compares those days to the days of Noah, Matthew 24:37-41.) Enough is revealed to us in the Scripture, to know by all that has come to pass in the Eastern and Western Roman empires, that He, Christ, will soon set up the ark of his Church, as the only possible place of safety.” 66 PFF3 476.3
11. PROCLAIMS SECOND ADVENT TO KING OF OUDE
And to the king of Oude himself Wolff wrote this appeal: PFF3 476.4
“My earnest wish is, that your Majesty and your whole court should enquire into the truth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, with prayer and supplication; and your Majesty will be then convinced that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit; and that the fulness of the Godhead was in Him bodily; and that He died for our sins, rose again, and went to heaven; from whence he will come again in the clouds of heaven. In believing this glorious doctrine, your Majesty will experience joy, peace and love in your own heart, and begin to diffuse among your Majesty’s subjects, that peace, joy, and love by means of which your Majesty will become the father spiritual and temporal of your subjects; and your Majesty will one day shine like the stars, and like the brightness of the firmament for ever and ever. “Your Majesty’s most obedient and humble servant, “Joseph Wolff, Missionary.” 67 PFF3 476.5
After summarizing the results of his travels, Wolff speaks of the “divers instruments” God is employing for “overturning, overturning, overturning, until He comes whose right it is.” 68 PFF3 477.1
12. HERALDS 1847 ADVENT THROUGHOUT INDIA
In 1833, when Wolff was in Calcutta, Mr. Dealtry, afterward bishop of Madras, had him lecture “on the personal reign of Christ, and state his proofs for believing that Christ would come upon the earth in 1847.” Wolff did it with such modesty that he “gained the affection of all.” 69 That Wolff held and proclaimed the advent-in-1847 concept in all his travels is evidenced by a letter to Wolff from the viceroy of Goa, dated November 6, 1833: PFF3 477.2
“You assure that the said Old and New Testament, which contain the glorious news of the establishment of our Lord Jesus Christ’s personal reign on earth, in the city of Jerusalem, fourteen years hence [1847], is presented for my edification.” 70 PFF3 477.3
13. PREACHES ADVENT TO MUHAMED ALI’S MINISTER
In 1836, when Wolff was in Cairo, he had a conference with Boghos Bey, minister of Muhamed Ali. Of this Wolff says: PFF3 477.4
“I had one day a conference with Boghos Youssuf Bey, minister to Muhamed Ali; he told me a great deal of the activity of his master, the Vice Roy, and his son, Ibrahim Pasha; that both devote very few hours to sleep, and that Ibrahim Pasha had lately taken thirty thousand fire arms from the Druses in the mildest manner, so that the Christians of Damascus, and throughout Syria, and even Jews, enjoy the most perfect liberty, and were no longer molested by the Turks. Boghos also informed me that people are sent to Muhamed Ali from Daghestaun. I preached to him (Boghos) the second coming of our Lord, and shewed to him Isaiah 19.” 71 PFF3 477.5
Following this he preached to the British residents at Alexandria. PFF3 477.6
“On the 31st January I preached to the British Inhabitants of Alexandria, on the restoration of the earth to its original beauty and glory, under the government of Jesus Christ and His Saints, when the Lord again shall look down upon the earth, and say, ‘Behold it is very good/ when the curse shall be taken away from her, and peace and good will toward men shall prevail.” 72 PFF3 478.1
14. CLASHES WITH THE CATHOLIC FAITH
Wolff’s distribution of Bibles drew upon him hostile Catholic bulls and an them as from Rome in 1825, as well as prohibitory Turkish fir mans, which were read at Constantinople and Aleppo, chiefly because he was a “Bible Man,” circulating the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, and especially without the Apocrypha. The bull specifies “One Wolf, of Bamberg,” who had once been “expelled from the college in this city,” and had “miserably gone astray,” condemning him for infusing deadly heresy, and for attempting to establish a college at Antoura. 73 Members were forbidden to communicate with him, under pain of excommunication. 74 PFF3 478.2
Wolff later capitalized upon his banishment from Rome in 1818, in a printed Letter Addressed to the Citizens of Rome (1849). He warned that the overturning foretold in Ezekiel 21 “has commenced, and it will continue until He come whose right it is.” 75 Boldly declaring popery to be “a lie,” that can never be reformed, but has to be destroyed, 76 he urged them to read the writings of Savonarola, and “above all, publish translations of the Spanish work of the Jesuit Lacunza on the Coming of Christ in Majesty and Glory, in which work the downfall of the Pope is predicted.” 77 He designated himself, “Formerly Pupil of the Collegio Urbano della Propaganda at Rome.” PFF3 478.3
In 1822 Wolff declared the pope to be Antichrist, as is seen in his discussion with Catholic priests on Mount Lebanon, where he says, “I showed that the Pope is Antichrist. 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4.” 78 In his appeal to the Jews of Great Britain he arraigned the pollutions and perversions of the Church of Rome, and summoned them to “come out of Babylon and be separate.” 79 Wolff also made strictures on the Protestant apostasy, and in 1831 referred to the Jewish Society as “that mystical Babylon in Wardrobe Place,” 80 Wardrobe Place being the head quarters of the Jewish Society. PFF3 479.1
15. PREACHES ADVENT BEFORE AMERICAN CONGRESS
At the time of Wolff’s visit to America, the Congressional Globe of December 18, 1837, recorded the motion of ex-President John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives for the use of the hall for a lecture by Joseph Wolff. In his remarks Adams called him “one of the most remarkable men living on the earth at this time,” telling of his background and his life de voted to “the propagation of that gospel throughout the world,” and how “he has visited every part of the world.” Stating that he had heard one of his lectures, Adams declared, “A more pro found, closely-reasoned, and convincing argument upon the proofs of Christianity, than that contained in the lecture to which he had alluded, it had never been his lot to listen to.” 81 The motion was passed, and Wolff preached to the assembled Congress and the clergy of Washington. PFF3 479.2
In expressing his gratitude for this unusual privilege in a letter printed in the National Intelligencer, addressed “to the Honorable Members of Congress,” Wolff thanked them that he had been permitted to speak before them “the truth of the ever lasting Gospel, and illustrate that great truth as experienced by me during my peregrinations from the Thames to the Oxus, to the Ganges, the wilderness of Arabia, and the mountains of Abyssinia.” At the close he repeated his affectionate regards for such “hospitality, kindness, and attention, and into whose ears I was enabled to sound the words: ‘Behold He comes in clouds descending, once for poor sinners slain.’” He signed it, significantly enough, “Joseph Wolff, Missionary to all the nations.” 82 PFF3 479.3
16. PROCLAIMS SECOND ADVENT TO AMERICAN HEARERS
In his farewell letter to Bishop Doane (Episcopalian) he declared, before leaving the American shores, that “an invisible power had continually carried me from land to land, and from sea to sea, to preach the tidings of salvation, and the second coming of our Lord in glory and majesty.” 83 And to his American hearers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, he expressed heartfelt appreciation for having “been allowed to proclaim to you the coming glory, and personal reign of Jesus Christ, upon the throne of his father David. I have been allowed to point out to you His humiliation upon Calvary, and his future glory at Jerusalem, when his feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives.” 84 Challenged on his interpretations, he gave this clear answer in defense of the historical and literal interpretation of prophecy: PFF3 480.1
“Whether I am right or wrong in regard to my literal interpretation of prophecy must be determined, not by any letter written at Calcutta, but by the grammatical construction of Holy Writ, and by the interpretation of its figures and symbols, for the purpose of bringing out of those figures and symbols not a Platonic mysticism, but the corresponding physical, historical, and literal meaning.” 85 PFF3 480.2
17. VIEWS WIDELY DISCUSSED IN THE PRESS
Much space and publicity were given to Wolff’s travels and views at the time of his American visit, through both the secular 86 and the religious press. 87 Some of these were reports, and some were published letters from Wolff to the editors. He was charged by some with believing in Irving’s tongues movement, which he categorically denied. 88 Just before he left America in 1837 someone asked Wolff, “What will you say, Mr. Wolff, when 1847 arrives, if the millennium does not commence?” “Why, I shall say,” he re plied, with inimitable simplicity, “that Joseph Wolff was mistaken.” 89 PFF3 480.3
While Wolff in the earlier years of his travels stressed the prophetic dates, in later life he gave up the positions formerly held on the 1260 years, and the papal Antichrist, and finally on the 1847 date for the advent. 90 PFF3 481.1
18. CHALLENGED AS TO “VISIONS” OF CHRIST
Challenged as to certain “visions,” he related how once, when discouraged over his work out in Bokhara, “suddenly a splendor covered the room, and the voice ‘Jesus enters!’ thundered in my ears. I saw suddenly Jesus standing upon a throne surrounded by little children, mercifully and kindly looking at them. I fell down, and worshipped, and the vision disappeared.” 91 Again, in Malta, when similarly “very much cast down,” then “suddenly my room was transfigured and I believe I was in New Jerusalem. Jesus Christ, surrounded by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Apostles, walked about the street.” 92 But Wolff said nothing about these incidents except when asked, holding that he was called to preach Christ crucified, not personal experiences. PFF3 481.2
19. ARAB EXPECTANCY OVER RETURNING MESSIAH
In his travels in Bokhara, in 1839, Wolff reports this remarkable expectancy in that vicinity. “The Arabs of this place [Hodeyda] have a book called Seem, which treats of the second coming of Christ, and his reign in glory.” 93 Of another place he records: PFF3 481.3
“I spent six days with the children of Rechab (Beni Arhab). They drink no wine, plant no vineyard, sow no seed, live in tents, and remember the word of Jonadab the son of Rechab. With them were children of Israel of the Tribe of Dan, who reside near Terim in Hatramawt, who expect, in common with the children of Rechab, the speedy arrival of the Messiah in the clouds of heaven.” 94 PFF3 481.4