In Defense of the Faith

Witnesses Impeached

Now we shall have to admit that these are pretty strong texts that Mr. Canright has cited. They appear to make out a strong case for the eternal-torture idea. “The wicked shall ‘endure eternal torture by fire,’” “eternal fire and torments, which shall cling to you for all time,” etc. Also, he finds a text which speaks of people as “having received pure and immortal souls from God.” No wonder someone called this book of Mr. Canright’s a “dumbfounder” for the Adventists! We are not, however, so much dumfounded over these texts as we are over the fact that a Christian, Protestant minister should resort to them for proof of Christian doctrine! At that we, are dumfounded. DOF 246.1

Will the reader kindly take his Bible just here, and turn to these texts cited by Mr. Canright? What? Can’t find them? Why, yes, turn to 4 Maccabees, chapter 9, verse 9. Not in your Bible? Well! well! Strange, isn’t it? The writer has had the same difficulty. This book of Maccabees is not in his Bible either. What, then, shall we conclude from this fact? Just this, that Mr. Canright had “another Bible just the same as the Mormons have.” (See his charge against Adventists, in Seventh-day Adventism Renounced, page 136.) DOF 246.2

Mr. Canright’s appeal to the Aprocrypha shows the desperate straits he was in to prove his contention. The Apocrypha is not recognized by Protestants as of any authority whatever in matters of Christian doctrine, and 4 Maccabees is not recognized even by Catholics. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia says of this book, that it is “absent from the Vulgate, and therefore from the Romanist canon and from the Protestant versions.” Not only did Mr. Canright have another Bible, but, as we have seen, he made it himself, admitting to it anything from any source that he could use to discredit that which he himself had so zealously taught for twenty eight years. DOF 246.3

But why did he turn to the Apocrypha instead of to the Bible? We answer, Because he could get no help from the Bible. It is not on his side. Its teachings are exactly contrary to his theory. Therefore it became a pressing necessity that he find proof elsewhere, so he turns to the Apocrypha. He has “another Bible.” It says what he wants it to say. Almost every spurious doctrine can be found there, and it was to these uninspired books that Mr. Canright turned for proof of an eternally burning hell and the natural immortality of the soul. DOF 247.1