| 246 giving to the readers of the Herald the embodied results of this Prophetic Conference, as it was called; and in doing so can not resist the temptation of writing the thought, that the platform looks as though some Latter Day Saint wrote it.
The committee on resolutions reported the following, which were received and adopted unanimously:
"Before closing this conference composed of brethren from so many different branches of the one redeemed church of our Lord, we desire disclaiming whatever doctrines have been or may be held in connection with the belief of the premillennial of our Lord which conflict with the faith once delivered to the saints and received by the church universal among the ages, and to bear our united testimony to that which we believe to be the truth of the gospel in the particulars which follow, viz.:
"1. We affirm our belief in the supreme and absolute authority of the written word of God on all questions of doctrine and duty.
"2. The prophetic words of the Old Testament concerning the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ were literally fulfilled in his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and so the prophetic words of both the Old and New Testaments concerning his second coming will be literally fulfilled in his visible bodily return to this earth in like manner as he went up into heaven; and this glorious epiphany of the great God, our Savior, Jesus Christ, is the blessed hope of the believer and of the church during the entire dispensation.
"3. The second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is everywhere represented in the Scriptures as imminent, and may occur at any moment. Yet, the precise day and hour thereof, is unknown to man, and known only to God.
"4. The Scriptures nowhere teach that the whole world will be converted to God, or that there will be a reign of universal righteousness and peace before the return of our blessed Lord, but that only at, and by his coming in power and glory, will the prophecies concerning the progress of evil and the development of anti-Christ, the time of the Gentiles, and ingathering of Israel, the resurrection of the dead in Christ, and transfiguration of his living saints, receive their fulfillment and the period of millennial blessedness its inauguration.
"5. The duty of the church during the absence of the bridegroom is to watch and pray, to work and wait, to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and thus hasten the coming of the day of God and to his latest promise, 'Surely I come quickly,' to respond in joyous hope, 'Even so, come Lord Jesus.' . . .
"Resolved, That the doctrine of our Lord's premillennial advent, instead of paralyzing evangelistic and missionary efforts, is one of the mightiest incentives to earnestness in preaching the gospel to every creature till he cometh."
Forty years ago the Saints were universally ridiculed by the clergy for teaching and exhorting the people to believe in the personal coming and
(page 246) |
