In Defense of the Faith

What Spirit?

If, therefore, the Spirit of God led Mr. Canright back into the light in October, 1884, and placed in his heart a settled conviction that Seventh-day Adventism was truth, what spirit was it that led him to renounce this light on February 17, 1887, two years and four months later? Could the same spirit have led him on both occasions? He was certain in 1884 that the experience that came to him and which fully settled him in the Adventist faith was “directly from heaven-the work of the Spirit of God.” Whence, then, came the change two years and four months later, which led him to repudiate this whole experience? Does he claim this also to be from heaven and the work of God’s Spirit? Is, then, God divided against Himself, leading men one way today and another way tomorrow? DOF 32.2

And if Mr. Canright was in the “light” in 1884, when he became fully settled in the Seventh-day Adventist faith, what was he in when he renounced it two years later? Should it be said that when he left the Adventists he had. had his eyes opened and saw clearly that he had been in darkness all the time that he was connected with them, we would reply that only two years and four months before, he tells of having felt in his heart the most remarkable change he had ever experienced in all his life. It is described as a wonderful work of God, direct from heaven, an experience that could “only be prompted by the Spirit of God,” which fully satisfied him with the Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, and caused him to take his stand, to risk all he was or had or hoped for, in this life and the life to come, with the Seventh-day Adventist people and their work. DOF 33.1

Which experience, therefore, shall we take to be 1: genuine? If he was mistaken in the first instance, can we be sure that he was right in the second? If he was right in the 1884 experience, then he must have been wrong in the 1887 experience. At any rate, can a man who thus frequently changes his mind and who has so many experiences, all of which he in turn attributes to the Holy Spirit, be a safe guide for other men in religious matters? We think not, and we believe that our readers will also seriously question his qualifications as a spiritual counselor and interpreter of the Word and will of God. DOF 33.2

In our reply to Mr. Canright’s arguments against the moral law and the seventh-day Sabbath we shall follow quite largely the plan of permitting him to answer himself, by comparing what he wrote on these subjects while he was still a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, with what he later said in his book Seventh-day Adventism Renounced. His former statements in support of the enduring claims of the Ten Commandments and the original seventh-day Sabbath are so clear and convincing and so full of Bible proof, whereas his later arguments against these doctrines are so confusing and unbiblical, that we feel sure a careful comparison of the two will readily serve to convince any candid reader that in renouncing Seventh-day Adventism, Mr. Canright went from clear light into dense darkness. DOF 34.1

It is of such persons we are warned by Isaiah the prophet when he said: DOF 34.2

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” “Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah 5:20, 24. DOF 34.3