PROGNOSTICATION!!
[From the Mohawk Herald]
We publish the following in compliance with the solicitation of the
author. He is a respectable inhabitant of this town. The constant exercise of
his mind on religious topics, has, it is thought by many of his friends,
affected the sanity of his mind; on every other subject, he appears entirely
rational. —Ed. Herald.
Remarkable VISION and REVELATION: as
seen and received by Asa Wild, of Amsterdam, (N. Y)
Having a number of months enjoyed an unusual degree of the light of
God’s countenance, and having been much favored of the Lord in many respects:
and after having enjoyed the sweetest, and most soul ravishing communions
with Him; the Lord in his boundless goodnes[s] was pleased to
communicate the following Revelation, having in the first place presented me
with a very glorious Vision, in which I saw the same things:
In the first place I observe that my mind had been brought into the
most profound stillness, silence, and awe; realizing in a remarkable manner the
majesty, presence and glory, of that Being before whom all nations are as the
drop of the bucket. It seemed as if my mind, though active in its very nature,
had lost all its activity, and was struck motionless, as well as into nothing,
before the awful and glorious majesty of the Great Jehovah. He then spake to
the following purport; and in such a mannor as I could not
describe if I should attempt.— He told me that the Millen[n]ium state of the
world is about to take place; that in seven years literally,
there would scarce a sinner be found on earth: that the earth itself,
as well as the souls and bodies of
its inhabitants, should be redeemed, as before the fall, and become as the
garden of Eden. He told me that all the most dreadful and terrible judgments
spoken of in the blessed scriptures, were to be executed within that time; that
more than two thirds of the inhabitants of the world would be destroyed by
these judgments: some of which are the following — wars; massacres; famine;
pestilence; earthquakes; civil, politic[a]l, and ecclesiastical commotions; and
above all, various and dreadful judgments executed immediately by God, through
the instrumentality of the Ministers of the Millen[n]ial dispensation; which is
to exceed in glory every other dispensation; a short description of which may
be seen in the last chapter of Isaiah, and in other places. He also told me,
that every denomination of professing christians had become extremely corrupt;
many of which had never had any true faith at all; but are
guided only by depraved reason, refusing the teaching of that Spirit which
indited the scriptures, and which alone can teach us the true meaning of the
same; even as the diamond alone can cut its fellow. He told me further, that he
had raised up, and was now raising up, that class of persons signified by the
Angel mentioned by the Revelator, xiv. 6, 7, which flew in the midst of
heaven; having the everlasting gospel to preach: that these persons are of an
inferior class, and small learning: that they will be rejected by every
denomination as a body; but soon, God will open their way, by miracles,
judgments, &c.: that they will have higher authority, greater power,
superior inspiration, and a greater degree of holiness, than was ever
experienced before: inasmuch as this is [by] far the most glorious dispensation
of divine grace and glory. Furthermore he said that all the different
denominations of professing christians, constituted the New Testament Babylon; and
that he should deal with them according to what is written of IT, in the book
of Revelation: that he is about to call out all his sincere children, who are
mourning in Zion, from the oppression and tyranny of this mother of harlots;
and that the severest judgments will be inflicted on the false and fallen professors
of religion; which will immediately commence in Amsterdam, and has already
commenced in different parts of the world, and even in this country. And though
their operations at first are gradual, and under cover, yet it will soon be
generally seen that it is the immediate execution of divine vengeance upon an
ungodly world.
Much more the Lord revealed, but forbids my relating it in this way.
But this, I have written and published, by the express and immediate
command of God: the truth and reality of which, I know with the most
absolute certainty.—Though I have ever been the most backward to believe things
of this nature; having been brought up in the Calvinistic system, and having
had a thorough understanding of the same, and was fully established in the
belief of it for several years after I experienced the love of God in my heart:
but finding the Calvinists did not understand the glorious depths of holiness,
and conformity to the divine character in heart and practice, which I saw was
our privilege and duty, I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, which I found
had much clearer and more scriptural views on these and some other points than
the Calvinists; though I soon saw that they as a body, were
very corrupt, having departed much from their primitive purity and holiness. I
also saw that their first founders did not travel into all that was their
privilege; and that vastly greater depths of holiness might have been
experienced, even by them. Yet I thank God for what light I have received
through their instrumentality, but know that much greater and more glorious
light is about to burst upon the world.
Amsterdam, October, 1823.
N. B. Printers of newspapers and periodical publications are requested
to insert the above.
I further observe that I shall soon publish, in a cheap pamphlet, my
religious experience and travel in the divine life, with a more full account of
the truths above written, and many other things connected with them.
ASA WILD.
Amsterdam, October 1.
(“Prognostication!!,”
From the Mohawk Herald, repr. Wayne Sentinel 1, no. 4 [October
22, 1823]: 4)
Further
Reading:
Elden J. Watson, “The ‘Prognostication’
of Asa Wild,” BYU Studies 37, no. 3 (1998): 223-30
