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The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress - Contents
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    The Temporal Millennium—Patterson

    “When our Lord left his church on earth to go to the Father, he left her in a sorrowful condition. His five hundred disciples were surrounded by the whole world of his enemies, organized into anti-Christian religions and governments by one of the highest intelligences, animated by the most venomous malice, and educated by the experience of ages in the most effectual modes of destruction. The Lord was not ignorant of our danger; nor in his last discourses did he extenuate it, nor promise any abatement of the world’s enmity and the church’s tribulation. But he did promise that he himself would return to overthrow his enemies, and that he would support us till that blessed day. ‘The world hateth you. In the world ye shall have tribulation. Ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.... Ye now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. If I go away, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.’GSAM 73.2

    “Such was the blessed hope of his personal return with which he comforted his church on his personal departure. During all the period of his absence, he said we must suffer tribulation; and so it has come to pass. If we are to enjoy any period of outward peace during his absence, if his church is to be delivered from the assaults of the world, if there is to be any age of purity when the tare shall not grow among the wheat, or if, at his coming, he shall be welcomed by the population of an earth filled with the glory of the Lord, or indeed even be able to find faith in the earth, it will be to him a most unexpected surprise. Jesus did not know of this millennium. We say he did not know of it, because he did not tell us of it; and he says, ‘I have called you friends, for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.’ But in all his discourses and parables there in not the least hint that we are to hope for any period of peace or glory before his coming. The apostles are equally ignorant of a Christless millennium. For three hundred years after our Lord’s departure the blessed hope of the church was the hope of his return.GSAM 74.1

    “But when, in the progress of her predicted apostasy, the bride of Christ began to solace herself in his absence with the friendship of the kings of earth, very naturally she averted her eye from the eastern sky, and from the return of her Lord, which would put an end to her worldly grandeur. When the Reformers put the gospel trumpet to their mouths ... the dreams of a Christless millennium were instantly swept away, ... and the church again began looking for the coming of the Lord to destroy antichrist.... In their letters, sermons, and confessions of faith, the Reformers proclaimed their premillennial hopes.GSAM 74.2

    “The Westminster Assembly conclude their confession with a declaration of their faith in the second coming of the Lord in words which fully express the faith of premillenarians. They proclaim in these weighty words: ‘As Christ would have us certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgement, both to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity, so will he have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come: and may ever be prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus: and come quickly!’ 56“Confession of Faith,” Chap. 33, sec. 3.GSAM 74.3

    “Our reforming ancestors strengthened their hearts by looking for the coming of the Lord, and encouraged each other by the cry, ‘Hold the field! for he is coming with legions of help,’ a sentiment embodied recently in popular revival hymn, but familiar to the old Scottish Covenanters.GSAM 75.1

    “But ere long a second apostasy from the faith set in among the reformed churches. It was known in Scotland as Moderatism; in England, as Arianism, and more recently, as Broad Churchism; and in America it called itself Unitarianism; and in Germany, Rationalism. Setting up human reason as the judge, and our very limited modern observation as the evidence, and denying that any event could occur but according to the course of observed laws of nature, it reduced Jesus to the rank of a Jewish rabbi, rather in advance of his day, but totally unacquainted with modern science. Of course the notion of such a person returning from the invisible world to reign upon the earth was remanded to the Hebrew mythology.GSAM 75.2

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