| Author | Message | ||
| Dennis Registered user Username: Dennis Post Number: 996 Registered: 4-2000  |
"I united with the Adventists when I was a mere boy, uneducated, with no knowledge of the Bible, of history, or of other churches. I went into it through ignorance. For years my zeal for that faith, and my unbounded confidence in its leaders, blinded me to their errors. But, as I grew older, read my Bible more, read history, met with other churches, heard sermons and read books against Adventism, became better acquainted with our leaders, with the inside workings of the church, learned more about its unfavorable origin, the many mistakes we had made, saw the fruit of it in old churches, on families and society, got hold of the early writings of Mrs. White and others; gradually I began to see that Adventism was not just what I had first supposed it to be. When I embraced it in 1859, Seventh-day Adventism was only fourteen years old, the believers wer few, and it was comparatively untried. But when Adventism was twenty-five years older, then times as large, and fully developed its spirit and shown its fruits, when I had had the education, observation and experience of a quarter of a century, I think my judgment in the matter ought to be worth more than when I embraced it as a green boy...The fact that I remained with them under all these trials for twenty-eight years, showsd that I am not a vacillating man, as they now try to think. I am often asked why I did not leave them sooner. Why it took me so long to find that it was an error. Then the Adventists affirm that I must have been dishonest while with them, or I am dishonest now. They say I am an apostate now, because I left them and joined the Baptists. My answer is this: If to change one's opinion and join another church makes one an apostate, then more than half their members are apostates, for they have come from other churches to join the Adventists. Again, they circulate and commend highly a book called "Fifty Years in Rome," written by a man who was many years a learned priest in the Roman church. They say that his high standing and long experience in that church makes his book invaluable. But they say that the fact that I was with them in high standing so long, and now have left them, only proves that I am a hypocrite!" [Excerpts taken from Dudley Canright's book, "Seventh-day Adventism Renounced"] By the way, the Berean Baptist Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that D. M. Canright pastored for many years, is still active today. Dennis Fischer |
