Those who deny the Pentateuch to be a revelation given through Moses,
have often pointed out the periods in the history of Israel in which the most
plain commands of the law were set aside, either by neglect, or by direct and
positive contravention. Thus when, in the days of the Judges, the people so
often practiced idolatry, how is it possible (it has been said) that they could
have a law which so positively forbids all worship save that of the true God,
and any religious honour to be paid to any image or picture? Is it not evident
that the Mosaic law must have been a subsequent invention? If in the days of
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the people had possessed the law, how could that
king have ventured to set it aside in all essentials? May we not (they say)
conclude that the law which forbids all image worship, which limits the
priesthood to a particular family, which prohibits sacrifice except in the
place that God chose, and which defines so precisely at what period in the year
the stated feasts should be observed, was then unknown? And, if unknown, could
it then exist?
Sceptical questionings of this kind have a certain weight; but they at
once fall to the ground when confronted with even the smallest quantity of
fact; and if they had really any conclusive force, we must know that in the
same way it might be said that the Christian Church cannot in general have
possessed the New Testament. And if it be said that in many lands even now the
Scripture is withheld from the people, so that no counter-argument can be drawn
from its being practically set aside, yet in this country there is no such
restriction; and thus any manner in which it is ignored amongst us, illustrates
the way in which the law was neglected often by Israel of old; or, as in the
days of our Lord, made of no effect through the tradition which had virtually
supplanted it.
Now, it is very remarkable that those who have the Scripture, and who
read it with some measure of attention, can have adopted or received a system
which contradicts some of the simplest statements of our Lord and His inspired
apostles, thus we can feel no surprise that there was a similar setting aside
of the early portion of revelation: and as we find that this system is
defended, so we may well imagine that there were some who could defend the
proceedings and practices of the days of Jeroboam, “who made Israel to sin”.
Our Lord has promised that He will return in the clouds of heaven with
power and great glory, and that then He will send forth His angels to gather
His elect.
The secret advent doctrine teaches that He will come privately, and that
then He will raise His sleeping saints and change the living, taking them up to
Himself a good while before His manifestation.
The Scripture warns the saints of perilous times, and of evils in the
latter day before the coming of Christ.
The secret advent theory maintains that no such events can be known as
would interpose an interval between the present moment and the coming of the
Lord.
The Scripture speaks only of Christ's second coming, until which He
remains at the right hand of God the Father.
The secret advent is a notion entirely opposed to this; for it
represents our Lord first coming in a private manner to take the Church to meet
Him, and then at a future period (according to some, a long interval) coming in
glory; and this some call His third coming.
The Scripture teaches the Church to wait for the manifestation of
Christ.
The secret theory bids us to expect a coming before any such
manifestation. Our Lord says that the wheat and tares shall be together in the
field until the harvest.
The doctrine of the secret rapture affirms that at some time
considerably before the harvest, all the wheat shall have been removed, leaving
only tares.
Our Lord bids us look for certain signs, and use them in our watching.
The advocates of the secret advent contradict this, saying that signs
are not for us.
The Scripture tells us that the first resurrection of the saints will be
when the Lord has come forth as the conqueror, and that those will share in
this resurrection who have suffered under the final Antichrist.
The teachers of the secret doctrine say that the resurrection of the
present Church will take place long before the first resurrection,[9] and
before the manifestation of the Antichrist.
Is it not surprising that men with their Bibles in their hands, can be
led to adopt a theory of doctrine which not only adds to Scripture, but
contradicts it at all points? This is just the simple and natural consequence
of the acceptance of the one leading addition to Scripture, that there shall be
a secret coming of the Lord, and a secret rapture of His Church.
When Christ distinctly states a truth, it might have been expected that
at least those who profess to be His believing people would receive His words
as conclusive; and thus it might have been thought that those only who avowedly
reject His authority would deny the force of what He said. Now our Lord has
expressly taught us that His coming shall not be secret: He has told us this,
not only by saying that it will be manifest, but also by warning against any supposition
of such a secret coming as suits some of the “Jewish” notions. After speaking
of the unequalled tribulation, He says, “Then if any man shall say unto you,
Lo, here is Christ, or there, believe it not. For there shall arise false
Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch
that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have
told you before. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you, Behold, He is in the
desert, go not forth; behold, He is in the secret chambers, believe it not. For
as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so
shall also the coming of the Son of Man be” (Matthew 24:23-27). No man with
these words in his Bible, ought to accept the doctrine of any secret coming
without feeling that he is casting off, in so doing, the authority of the Lord;
for this is done, virtually, when the warning of Christ is treated as if He had
taught the very reverse, and as if He had charged us to believe and expect
what, in reality, He says shall never be, and against the supposition of which
He warns us.
------------------
[9] In 1839, I heard it maintained with such approbation that objectors
were hardly allowed a hearing, that if strictly correct language were used, the
first resurrection of Revelation 20 would be called “the SECOND-first
resurrection”; for it was said that “the FIRST-first resurrection” would have
taken place privately a good while before. Is it not a sitting in judgment on
Holy Scripture when endeavours are thus made to correct and to improve the words
used by the Spirit of God? No one would do this unless he felt in his
conscience the force of the words of inspiration, and struggled to set them
aside.
