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The Great Controversy
Becoming a member of the consistory of Wurttemberg, he advocated
the cause of religious liberty. “While maintaining the rights and priv-
ileges of the church, he was an advocate for all reasonable freedom
being accorded to those who felt themselves bound, on grounds of
conscience, to withdraw from her communion.”—Encyclopaedia Bri-
tannica, 9th ed., art. “Bengel.” The good effects of this policy are still
felt in his native province.
It was while preparing a sermon from
Revelation 21
for advent Sun-
day that the light of Christ’s second coming broke in upon Bengel’s
mind. The prophecies of the Revelation unfolded to his understanding
as never before. Overwhelmed with a sense of the stupendous impor-
tance and surpassing glory of the scenes presented by the prophet, he
was forced to turn for a time from the contemplation of the subject.
In the pulpit it again presented itself to him with all its vividness and
[364]
power. From that time he devoted himself to the study of the prophe-
cies, especially those of the Apocalypse, and soon arrived at the belief
that they pointed to the coming of Christ as near. The date which he
fixed upon as the time of the second advent was within a very few
years of that afterward held by Miller.
Bengel’s writings have been spread throughout Christendom. His
views of prophecy were quite generally received in his own state of
Wurttemberg, and to some extent in other parts of Germany. The
movement continued after his death, and the advent message was
heard in Germany at the same time that it was attracting attention in
other lands. At an early date some of the believers went to Russia and
there formed colonies, and the faith of Christ’s soon coming is still
held by the German churches of that country.
The light shone also in France and Switzerland. At Geneva where
Farel and Calvin had spread the truth of the Reformation, Gaussen
preached the message of the second advent. While a student at school,
Gaussen had encountered that spirit of rationalism which pervaded
all Europe during the latter part of the eighteenth and the opening of
the nineteenth century; and when he entered the ministry he was not
only ignorant of true faith, but inclined to skepticism. In his youth
he had become interested in the study of prophecy. After reading
Rollin’s Ancient History, his attention was called to the second chapter
of Daniel, and he was struck with the wonderful exactness with which
the prophecy had been fulfilled, as seen in the historian’s record. Here