An article in the National Baptist of 1878 says:
We do not hold that we are to live each day as
though we expected the Lord to come on that day, any more than we are to live
each day as though that day would be our last. If we believed that the Lord was
coming to-day, we should take very little trouble about next year’s elections,
or about any future event. We believe we are each day to discharge the duties
of that day. Practically, and so far as regards our future state, the
hour of death, the hour of the Christian’s release, is the Coming of the Lord.
This may come at any day, at any hour. And it becomes us to be in readiness for
it.
I know I read something in Zion's Watch Tower that addressed this view. Now that I want to use it, I can't find it. Maybe you can.
And ...
The New York Independent, a Congregationalist paper, in the same year wrote:
Their way of considering Christ’s
kingdom as visible, physical, and political is intensely Jewish and
non-Christian in its character. It proves somewhere a false exegesis – that a
doctrine is deduced from Scripture, which is not in harmony with the spiritual
nature of the Christian system. There is no deeper truth in the Bible than
this: ‘Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.’ Those who are now
looking for such a glorious personal Advent with the succeeding political reign
of Christ in Jerusalem, seem to us to dishonor Gospel dispensation.
I have the same issue here. I know Russell considered the charge that his system was derived from the Old Testament and was thus not Christian. I can't find the reference, and I'm out of ideas.
Another ...
The Interior, a protestant magazine, editorialized on the 1878 propheic conference:
This convention gives a new impulse and added respectability
to a doctrinal affectation which is much more fashionable, just now, than
godliness.
No doubt it is pleasant to one who loves the good things of
the world – honor, fame, power, exalted rank – and who is not specially solicitous
that others shall enjoy the same to ‘stand and wait,’ as Dr. Tyng said in his
address that they were doing, in the blessed hope that the Lord will suddenly
come bringing all these glorious things to the, unearned, and damnation to
fourteen hundred millions more who sit in the shadow of ignorance.
Russell considered this too, I believe. I can't find his comments on any of these objections. I seriously need some help.
3 comments:
As far as the first point, perhaps the article from the August 1886 Wacthtower entitled "Take no Thought for Tomorrow.
Andrew
As for the first thought, perhaps the article in the 1886 WT entitled "Take no Thought for Tomorrow."
Andrew
first thought: life report in watchtower 1 Dec 2004, p.29
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