“‘We the undersigned, partakers of the same hope, children of the same faith, looking for the same deliverance, loving the same Lord, feeding on the same word, enjoying the same Spirit, suffering the same trials, subjected to like disappointments, and having the same care and fellowship for your welfare and furtherance in the truth, as ye have one for another and for us, address you by this our epistle, in the way of consolation and advice; knowing that while we may comfort and console your hearts, we are establishing and strengthening our own. For if through many disappointments, temptations and trials, you stand fast in the faith once delivered to the saints, we rejoice in your steadfastness, are comforted together with you, and are strengthened even in the inner and the outer man.
“‘We thank God always on your behalf, when we hear, as we already have heard, that your and our late disappointment has produced in you, and we hope in us also, a deep humiliation and close inspection of our hearts; and although we are humbled, and in some measure pained in our hearts to see and hear the scoffs and jeers of a wicked and perverse generation, yet we are in nowise terrified or cast down by the adversaries of our faith. We pray you, then, brethren, to “let patience have its perfect work,” knowing “that patience worketh experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed.” No, we are not ashamed, for we all know why we hope. You can and will, all of you, from the least of you to the greatest, old or young, when inquired of for the reason of your hope, open your Bibles and with meekness and fear show the inquirer why you hope in the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. You need not in a single instance refer the inquirer to your minister to give the reason of your faith and hope.
“‘We bless God for you, my brethren, that you are all taught of the Lord. Your creed is the Scriptures; your spelling-book is the Bible; your grammar is the word indited by the Spirit; your geography respects the promised inheritance of the holy land; your astronomy respects the bright starry crown of righteousness; your philosophy is the wisdom which cometh down from God; your bond of union is the love and fellowship of the saints; your teacher is the Holy Ghost; and your professor, the Lord Jesus Christ; your recitation room is your closet; your recitations are heard in your prayers, and your songs fill up your vacations. We speak not of rewards, diplomas, and degrees, for these are reserved in Heaven for us, when these dusty walls of this tabernacle shall be dissolved, and we are called home into the new heavens and new earth, to a full fruition of that hope of which we are not ashamed. Ashamed of this hope? No. Ashamed of looking for this hope? No. Ashamed of expecting Jesus? Why, what a question!! When we look, do we not expect? The ministers of our formal churches, some of them, say “they look, but do not expect.” Yet, brethren, we have expected time and again and have been disappointed, but are not ashamed.
“‘We would not yield a hair’s breadth of our expectations for all the honors of Cæsar’s household, with all the popular applause of a worldly church. We exhort you, then, by all the love and fellowship of the saints, to hold fast to this hope. It is warranted by every promise of the word of God. It is secured to you by the two immutable things, the council and oath of God, in which it is impossible for God to lie. It is ratified and sealed by the death, blood, resurrection and life of Jesus Christ. You have already had a foretaste of the bliss of this hope, in the seventh month, when every moment you looked for the heavens to open and reveal unto your anxious gaze the King of glory. Yes, then your whole soul was ravished with a holy joy, when you expected every moment to hear the shout of the heavenly host descending from the Father’s glory, to welcome you, a weary pilgrim, to your blessed abode of eternal rest. In that eventful period where was the world with all its vain allurements and empty show? It was gone.
“‘If our Saviour then had come as we expected, no tears would have fallen for a receding world, nor sighs have heaved our breasts for a dissolving earth, with all its pomp, its pleasures, or its praises. All this was then no more to us than is a bubble in Niagara’s cataract. God’s goodness gave us then a slight repast, like Elijah’s meat, that lasted forty days. And how can you, or we, give up a hope so full of joy, of holy love and heavenly anticipation, as is this? The world may frown and scoff; the unbelieving church may laugh and sneer and try to call us back. They may and will report their slanderous tales to complete our trials, vainly supposing they can wound our pride, and by this means take away our hope, and make us, like themselves, a whited sepulcher. In all our trials those who have obtained this blessed hope by the study of the Scriptures have remained steadfast and immovable among the scoffs and jeers with which we have been assailed.
“‘This, to us, is a source of great joy; and it shows conclusively where our faith is founded and our hope predicated. It is upon the sure word of prophecy, and no other evidence, that we rely. This is our main support, as even our opposers will, and do, admit; or why do they, in their attacks upon us, first try to show that prophecy is not to be understood, or if it is, that it is couched in such mystical and ambiguous language, that the ignorant and unlearned (as they are pleased to call us poor Bible students, in their mighty elemency) cannot comprehend its true import? Or why do they ridicule us as a set of fanatical, unlearned heretics, in trying to understand the sure word of prophecy, without first coming to our bishops, or themselves, to learn what the original text may mean? Why do they use these and similar arguments in order to overthrow us if they are not sensible of the fact that the prophecies of God’s word are our main pillar? Why do they, without any discrimination, try to make our sure word of prophecy so dark, mysterious, and incomprehensible, and in many instances acknowledge their own ignorance, and then call us heretics because we search and believe what to us looks clear, consistent, and harmonious with every part of God’s holy word? But, say they, “time has proved you in an error; unerring time has favored us, and proved what you say we failed to do.”
“‘True, gentleman, time has failed us in one or two instances, yet you cannot show why? And as you do not show any reason for the failure, permit us to give ours before we take your ground and deny that prophecy can be understood. Every man of common intellect and information knows that we are dependent in some things on what we call human chronology for the conclusion of our premises as it respects time. Again, they well know that our most learned and studious writers and historians disagree in the chronology of the events from which we date, some four or five years. It is true that we who have been most efficient in presenting this subject before the public, have chosen, and we think wisely too, the earliest possible time at which these momentous things might be expected to transpire, believing that it would be infinitely better for the souls of our fellow-beings to come short of the time, rather than to pass over. And indeed, we do not see any good reason now why we should not have done in this matter as we have; for if we had looked only to the very last point of disputed time, and the accomplishment had come before that, or even at that time, how could there have been a tarrying time as the Bible predicts?
“‘How could there have been a time for the trial of our faith and patience, and the purifying and sanctifying of the whole house of the true Israel? If we had not anticipated the time a little, with what propriety could the wicked scoffer and those who professedly belong to the house of Israel say, “The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth”? and what has God said we shall answer this rebellious house of Israel with? With another specified time? No. How then shall we ever silence their caviling and scoffing, if we can fix no future time? We answer, That is not our work to do. God has promised to do that work. Hark! and hear what the Lord saith. “I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel.” God will perform his engagements in his own time and manner. We have only to believe and be patient.
“‘But we are taunted with, “Oh! you have prolonged your vision again and again; and you have failed every time; now won’t you give it up and come back to us? You are not honest if you will not.” When they thus call us dishonest, have we nothing we can say? If we altogether hold our peace, they will be wise in their own conceits, and go and report that they have shut up our mouths so that we could not say a word for ourselves; and thus the cause would be injured. But never fear, brethren; God has told you what to say; do as he bids you, and he will take care of the consequences. God says, “But say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision.” See Eze. 12:21-25. So we see God has been in this thing; he well knew into what a straightened place we should be brought; he knew what the rebellious house of Israel would say, and he has given us the best weapon of defense.
“‘The word of God has a sufficiency of all armor, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work. We therefore hope that none of us will try to change the chronology of the visions; for they must all fail in all our eyes; and if any vision should be so construed as to fix on another definite time in the future, we cannot conceive how the Scripture would be fulfilled, that “every vision faileth.” Let us then be satisfied in patiently waiting for God’s time. But let us be careful that we do not lay off our armor, cease our watching, go to sleep at our post, or be caught in a snare, when the Son of man shall come. It is better to be ready before the time, and wait a while, than not to be ready when the time shall come, and be lost. We exhort you then with the Lord’s advice, “be like men waiting for their Lord, that when he cometh they may open to him immediately.”