The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

X. Scottish Begg-Blends Advent, Prophecies, and Sabbath

Another nineteenth-century herald of the seventh-day Sabbath, beginning to be heard about this time, was JAMES A. BEGG (1800-1868),” ⁵³ born in Paisley, Scotland. His father was a teacher and saw that he obtained a liberal education. Begg was then apprenticed to the printing trade, which he followed for some time. Next he became a book seller and stationer in Glasgow, but was at the same time publisher of works on prophetic, doctrinal, and other Biblical subjects, some of them being his own. And he continued to be a persevering student even to his old age. He excelled in the use of the English tongue, rising to a recognized place among the prophetic expositors of his time ⁵⁴ But while especially attracted to Bible prophecy, he also lectured on Biblical science-geology, creation, and the Flood. PFF4 937.1

In his earlier life he was an adherent of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, but came to differ from that church over the question of the prophecies. Emphasis on the imminent, second, premillennial coming of Christ then sweeping over Great Britain and the Continent—and just getting under way in North America-gripped his young heart. And in 1829 he published the first edition of A Connected View of Some of the Scriptural Evidence of the Redeemer’s Speedy Personal Return (later revised and enlarged). This was followed, in 1831, by The Scriptural Argument for the Coming of the Lord, Letters to a Minister of the Gospel, on His and Other Interpretations of Our Saviour’s Predictions of His Return, and Christ’s Speedy Return in Glory. In 1832 he issued a pamphlet, True Cause of the Prevalence of Pestilence, and in 1835 published Extracts on Prophecy, Chiefly the Approaching Advent and Kingdom of Christ. In this he quotes from thirty prominent expositors, an evidence of his own wide reading. PFF4 937.2

Begg was particularly emphatic and explicit on the Little PFF4 937.3

Begg was particulary emphatic and explicit on the Little Horn as the papal Antichrist and Babylon of the prophecies, upon whom tremendous judgments were due. In common with most British expositors, he stressed the literal restoration of Israel and looked forward to the overthrow of Turkey. He also included spiritism, just appearing on the horizon, among the signs of the approaching end of the age. But beginning about 1832, soon after publishing his first work on prophecy, Begg began the observance of the seventh day as the Sabbath. ⁵⁵ PFF4 937.4

His espousal of the seventh day as the Sabbath and his personal observance of it thereafter until his death; his contact with the newly published Millerite Signs of the Times in 1840, as the first to welcome it as a stalwart American herald of the advent; his offer of articles on the continuing obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath, which it declined; his first communications in the Seventh Day Baptist Sabbath Recorder, in New York in May, 1845; ⁵⁶ his publication in Glasgow of An Examination of the Authority for a Change of the Weekly Sabbath at the Resurrection of Christ (1850); and finally his baptism in Glasgow, on July 7, 1853, by J. W. Morton, a Seventh Day Baptist minister from Plainfield, New Jersey-all form part of a unique and fascinating story. And it appears that Begg was convinced of the binding obligation of the seventh-day Sabbath by the study of the Word itself, not initially from contact with Seventh Day Baptists. ⁵⁷ PFF4 938.1

Begg’s earliest acquaintance with unfulfilled prophecy was derived from Archibald Mason, ⁵⁸ his fellow countryman and Presbyterian minister, to whose “occasional pulpit ministrations” Begg was indebted. ⁵⁹ His Connected View was a reply to a score of antagonistic articles in the Christian Instructor. He makes frequent allusion to the writings on prophecy of Cuninghame, Faber, Way, Irving, and Keith (all discussed in Volume III of Prophetic Faith). He extols the study of prophecy and shows how it determined the time of Christ’s first advent. He holds Antichrist will be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s second coming, before the millennium. ⁶⁰ This is found to be after the four world powers, of Daniel 7, and the time of the ten nations into which Rome was divided, and the period of the Little Horn, or papal Antichrist, when the beast with the ten horns is destroyed.’ ⁶¹ PFF4 938.2

The same destruction is visited through the seven vials of the Apocalypse, under the sixth of which the Turkish Empire is dried up and by the last of which Antichrist is destroyed as well. ⁶² Begg also places the angelic message of Revelation 14:6, 7, on the hour of God’s judgment, just before the destruction of mystic Babylon, and with this the final overthrow of the ten horns which have power one hour with the Beast. ⁶³ The first resurrection, he holds, introduces the thousand years. The grand prophetic outline, prior to the millennium, is this: PFF4 939.1

“The seventh chapter [of Daniel] contains, as we have seen in speaking of the destruction of Antichrist, a prediction of four great empires which should exist from the beginning of the captivity till the Millennium. From three of these, viz. the Babylonish, the Persian, and the Grecian, the extensive dominion has long since passed away; and as it was predicted of the fourth or Roman empire, that ‘the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise/ so was it divided into ten kingdoms, forming the present European dynasties, in which state it has continued many centuries. The rise of Antichrist was predicted, as a little horn growing up among these horns or kingdoms; on account of whose blasphemies, thrones of judgment for his destruction are represented as being at length set by the Ancient of Days.’” ⁶⁴ PFF4 939.2

These are the same four monarchies, he understood, as are represented in the great image of Daniel 2, the Roman Empire forming the legs and feet, and its subdivision into the present European kingdoms appearing as the ten toes, with the mingling of the iron and clay as “royal intermarriages,” and the whole “broken to pieces when Christ shall come in the clouds of heaven for the establishment of that Kingdom which ‘shall not be left to other people.’” This synchronizes with the sounding of the seventh angel, when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and the downfall of Babylon is announced by a heavenly shout of triumph. 11” ⁶⁵ PFF4 939.3

Britain is one of the ten “toes” of Daniel 2 and of the ten “horns” of Daniel 7, and will be involved in the general overthrow of all nations. Begg looks upon the close of the 2300 years as determining the “mighty year of God’s glory.” ⁶⁶ And Turkey not only is the special objective of the visitation of the sixth vial but is involved in Daniel 11 as well. According to Begg, “Daniel, in predicting the final overthrow of the Ottoman power, (this application being generally admitted, we stop not to notice the grounds on which it is made,) foretold that ‘tidings out of THE EAST and out of THE NORTH shall trouble him.’ Daniel 11:44.” ⁶⁷ PFF4 940.1

Such was the prophetic interpretation, in brief, of Sabbatarian Begg. PFF4 940.2

Begg’s proffered articles on the Sabbath, for the American Signs of the Times, Avere tendered in these words: PFF4 940.3

“For myself, I must be allowed to say, that the little leisure which my business allows for the more congenial occupation of authorship, I require in the meantime for a work on the continued obligation of the Seventh Day, as the Christian Sabbath, which I am preparing for the press. If acceptable, I would, however, be glad to furnish you with notes of a course of Lectures on Prophetic Subjects, which I have delivered here.” ⁶⁸ PFF4 940.4

But these discussions, which included the prophesied change of the Sabbath, appeared unacceptable to the Adventists of either Britain or America at that time. Rebuffed in these overtures, he then made contact with the Seventh Day Baptists. And in the issue of the Sabbath Recorder for November 13, 1845, he began a series headed “Original Sabbath Unchanged.” In his writings Begg contends consistently that Sunday observance is the direct fruitage of the “falling away” of 2 Thessalonians 2, which was uncorrected by the Reformation. PFF4 940.5