[Sabbath Controversy #3] A Vindication of the Seventh-day Sabbath, and the Commandments of God

PAST AND PRESENT EXPERIENCE

To William Miller, SC3 180.1

Dear Sir, - The time was, when all second advent believers were dear to you, and they called you father and brother Miller. Alas, how changed the scene is now! Jesus says “whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.” They can’t believe that you are doing the will of God, as you once were, though they cannot help loving and venerating your name for the great light which you have given - because you are wounding their feelings by calling them Fanatics, Door-Shutters, and almost any thing but honest people, to destroy all their reputation and Christian fellowship, and make them feel if possible, that they are worse than the heathen. In this way you have weaned their affection from you, and when you give them an exposition of God’s word now, they doubt: say they, he first gave us the light, and we rallied to his standard, because it agreed with the Scriptures - but when we were come to the most trying and toilsome part of our journey then he forsook us and joined in with the shepherds and those of like faith, to berate us. But we soon learnt from the prophets that there would be a people in the last days, answering this description, that God had promised to save, called Outcasts! - Jeremiah 30:17; Psalm 147:2 now you are encouraging these same deniers of our faith to be peaceable, for - say you - we shall soon get into the kingdom of God. Methinks if we should all meet there under existing circumstances, there would be a great deal of confessing before we could be reconciled to listen to each other’s joys. But it will not be so; if you and your brethren, and the outcasts too, are saved, then I predict that we shall have to stay here until a perfect reconciliation takes place. When that will be, I cannot tell, for in my judgment the gulf between us has been widening for the last three years. Now, I prefer to remain on that side of it with the Outcasts, for they have the promise that they shall be gathered. When we made our sacrifice during a cry at midnight, we considered and were fully persuaded that we were doing our last work, and surely that would be done the best of any work. Then of course we had no right whatever to take back the sacrifices we then made, and rob God. We were fully aware that our disappointments would not change our course, for if we were ever saved it must be by our onward course. But those with whom you were associated sounded the retreat, and all that did not follow in their train have been subject to your unsparing epithets. SC3 180.2

If you knew as much about this afflicted and torn people, (whom you have been the instrument in leading out into the Philadelphia state of the church, and then leaving and driving them from you,) as I do, you would shudder to appear before Him who has promised to be a Father to them and keep them. The principal cause of many offences which they committed were from bad teachers and teaching. You have a sample here in this work. (We have no wish, neither do we uphold any one who does not follow the teachings of the sure word.) I think you have listened too much to them. SC3 181.1

If I could just take you with me to some of the stopping places of these people, and show you their scanty wood piles at this inclement season of the year, and then to the barrels which once held their beef, pork and flour, together with the scanty subsistence they now have, and with no earthly prospect of another supply, only as their trust is in the living God, in whom they had committed their all, because of their honest sacrifice and anxious waiting for their coming Lord; turned out of their former employment and reproached for keeping God’s holy Sabbath day; whipped by cruel, unmerciful men for shouting the praises of their God and king, and still persevering in their faith, etc. And then, for a contrast, to step on board the cars and be rolled away to your own comfortable and commodious house, with well stocked barn and granaries, beef and pork barrels - the produce of your own valuable farm - with all things that heart could wish for, and set down by your comfortable fire with your family, (all believers with you in the coming of Jesus,) and recount to them the strange scenes you had witnessed among an afflicted people, who once listened with anxiety and delight to every word you had to say about the second coming of Jesus, and they were so delighted with this, to them, joyful news, that they wanted to hear about it all the time. We may imagine your conversation to proceed somewhat in the following strain: SC3 181.2

‘You remember how elder Himes used to insist on my going with him from city to city, and from state to state, because of the people’s anxiety to hear me preach about the coming of Christ in 1843 and’44.’ SC3 182.1

‘Yes, father, I remember it well - for when I was with you it seemed as though the people were hardly willing to let us come home and rest a little while.’ SC3 182.2

‘I know it, my son, and I used to think that God never would have sustained me in such continued and incessant labors as I was then called to perform, if it were not his cause. Why, when I saw the wonderful effect that it produced on backsliders and sinners, in bringing them to God, and the glow of joy that lit up in the countenances of God’s honest, believing children, and how they hung upon every word; and then the contrary effect, when some of their learned ministers raised their objections - I said I know this is God’s cause, and as it rolled on through that cry at midnight, down to its closing scene, you all remember with what joy and glory I was filled, and how I publicly declared my faith, and stated that ‘I might be called a FANATIC, but, I said, call me what you please, Christ will come,’ etc. Well, these singular people are some of the very ones that used to hang on my words and others, who preached to them of this doctrine. And during this cry at midnight they made sacrifice of all they had - (some of them were almost as well off as we are, and some were poor,) - but they offered what they had, and that was all that was required.’ SC3 182.3

‘Grandfather, what makes them poor now that had something then? You know the Saviour didn’t come then, as you said he would, and that is more than three years ago! SC3 182.4

‘Well they thought it would be contrary to Scripture to take back their sacrifice, and so many of them have made no improvements on their farms, nor their buildings, - no, they have not even made stone walls! Some of them sold what they had, and have been trying to help the poorer ones, because they said they still believed that Christ was coming, and they would not need it. For instance, they believe what Luke has recorded in his 12:33 - “Sell your goods and give alms; lay not up treasure on the earth,” - they think this must be understood literally! and they have gone off into many strange notions, believing the door is shut, etc.etc.’ SC3 183.1

‘Well, how do they appear, father?’ SC3 183.2

‘They do not seem to be, in the least, alarmed at poverty; they are expecting soon to be delivered and made heirs with Jesus, to an incorruptible inheritance that will abide forever. I could get along with many points in their faith, and believe them honest, if they did not make them tests for us; and because we do not believe in the great work that was wrought in the past, and the present truths that they advocate, they have no charity for us. They say we have backslidden and gone into a cold lukewarm Laodicean state of the church.’ SC3 183.3

‘Well, father, I believe there is a great deal of truth in their statements, for there certainly is a wonderful difference in our camp and conference meetings, to what there used to be, for if any one shouts glory to God, now, as they used to in ‘43 and ‘44, it seems as if the whole meeting was agitated, until it is ascertained that it is one of the deluded ones, it seems as though they hardly dare say amen, either because they do not believe what you say, or for fear they shall be called fanatics. You know how they tried you and how hard you talked to them about it in the conference in Boston, last spring. You thought it was because they had no religion. And then the camp meeting too, at Lake Champlain; I suppose the most of them thought that you were going to prove that the door was shut, and that the past was true; and a good many of them might still have thought so, if elder Marsh had not taken it up and called forth your explanation, in his paper of Sept. 28th. For my part, I don’t really understand all these things - that as soon as you begin to advocate the past truths in any of our meetings, these editors are either writing or visiting you to explain it more fully in their papers, and then neither party seems to be satisfied. If I were you, I would take a strait-forward course, and try to please God, if I could not any one else.’ SC3 183.4

‘Well, my son, you know that these two editors have stood by me ever since 1842, and as for elder Himes, he has stood by me and been my warm and fast friend all these years of joy and trials, and I cannot separate from him. No, I have told him that I would sustain him and his paper if I had to carry down our ‘potatoes to Boston,’ to raise the means. You see I must stand by him, and he and brother Marsh will defend and justify my course and views of Bible doctrine; and defend my character from the aspersions of my enemies, and gladly publish any thing I have to say against the Door Shutters, etc.’ SC3 184.1

‘Yes, yes - I know all that, father, but some how or other, these things do not look right. You began with a strait forward Bible course, and it cut like a sword with two edges, and that is the reason why these door shutters, etc., as you call them, believed your testimony, and they think there is just as much edge to the sword now as there ever was. However, you have studied the Bible much more than I have, therefore, I shall not dispute you, but I cannot see that this people, whom you have been to visit, are so much out of the way for venturing to go forward, after your clear directions to them, soon after the cry at midnight.’ SC3 184.2

But it may be said that these are what are termed the “No-work Folks.” No sir, they do not belong to that class, although their views are, in most all other respects, similar. You have been told - or, I have - by one of your traveling lecturers, that there were but twenty-five of them, all told. he said they were proclaiming that they were all that would be saved at the second advent. We have no such view. We believe, what I shall attempt to prove by-and-by, that there will be 144,000 saved at the coming of Jesus. Furthermore, we believe that the same commandment which teaches us to keep the seventh-day Sabbath, also teaches that we may labor the other six days for just as much as we comfortably need; more than that would counteract the direction of Jesus, viz. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures on the earth,” etc. This is all right, for our faith teaches us we do not need it. If we hoard up what we have got, it certainly is not selling and giving alms. My opinion is, that this is now to be made clear, and that God’s people will be absolutely afraid to be found with a surplus treasure here, when Christ comes. As the keeping of the fourth commandment, in its true scriptural sense, carries us to the gates of the city, so our laboring honestly for what we immediately want, also carries us to that point. But we have no controversy with those who honestly and sincerely live to God without laboring; though they tell us that they have no charity for us, still we believe if they honestly live out their faith God, will not condemn them for not working six days. SC3 184.3

Your explanation respecting the time that Christ might, or has, began to reign, to prove that you had no connection or fellowship with “door shutters” or their views, is the most enigmatical of all your ideas, since 1845. I refer to your letter in the Advent Harbinger of Sept. 28th. It is endorsed by the editor, and also by the Advent Herald, in justifying the ground you took - and grew out of a report that elder S.Hall of Bangor, made from your conversation and preaching at the Champlain camp meeting. I reported what I heard, and it was therefore stated that I was present. This you could have contradicted, but the editor has since acknowledged his mis-statement. S.Hall is an entire stranger to me. I have written him two letters on the subject, without reply. But it is your own written statement that so puzzles me. You give from 1815 to 1847, thirty-two years, for Michael in Daniel 12:1, to stand up to reign, and you further say it might have been at the end of the 2300 days. This is the first intimation I have had, since you took your stand against us, that you believed the days ended; but the forty-five years latitude for Christ to begin to reign, and your anathemas at those who believe the door is shut, is as incomprehensible to me as Swedenborgianism—J. Marsh’s explained exposition of Nov. 9th, to the contrary notwithstanding. As I have already given my views about the time when Christ began to reign, in Way Marks, page 35 and onward, I may not say much here. Have the 2300 days really ended then and nothing to mark their end? This was the burden of your cry. It was also the prophets, and one of them said it should speak and not lie. Then, of course, it would not come silently; but the wise would understand when it did end. You reply, I suppose, according to the 11th chapter of Revelations, from which you were speaking, that the seventh trumpet had begun to sound; but was there nothing else connected with the ending of the 2300 days? Yes - the third woe, because that belongs to the seventh trumpet; see 8:13 Now the 10th chapter, 7th verse, shows us that when this seventh trumpet begins to sound, the Mystery of God should be finished. Oh, you say, that’s the old story of 1845. Yes sir, and more than seventeen hundred years beyond that. Here is your trouble; but the most of your hearers, though they may listen with delight to you, yet they preach that the seventh trumpet does not sound until Christ comes to raise the dead. You ought to correct them here, for they are certainly in the dark; Christ is not the seventh messenger. SC3 185.1

Besides, if Christ has began to reign as you say, over the nations, he has, according to your showing in Daniel 12:1, changed his position. If so, how can he be in the mediatorial seat? His leaving that finishes the Mystery, and that forever shuts the door, unless you or some one else can prove that he leaves this work over the nations, and goes back again to finish what he left undone. Now, who is the fanatic here? You cannot make all this work in harmony - it is impossible; besides, you call us spiritualizers, because of our view of the Bridegroom. If we are, pray what are you? and how did you find out that Christ had changed his position, even twenty years ago? or when the 2300 days ended, somewhere since 1843? It really appears to me, that if we had put forth such a view that we should have been pronounced crazy! and yet your two editors will patch it all up, and throw all the stigma upon us, forsooth, because they think we shall claim you as an Outcast! Their fears are unnecessary - we have no claim to such views; they would only disturb our ranks. We believe that the seventh trumpet began to sound on the first day of the seventh month. Then the Mystery was finished, and the third woe came. The virgins in the parable, were divided - some went after oil. On the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement. At this point in 1844, in the order of the fulfillment of the types in Leviticus and New Testament testimony, (which we have referred to in the Way Marks) Jesus received his Bride and the kingdoms of this world, and entered the Holy of Holies as our Great High Priest, and commenced the cleansing of the Sanctuary. Why? Because here the 2300 days ended: - The appointed time. At this point too, commenced the trial of God’s people. Surely you never can forget this, until the trial ends; and that cannot end in accordance with the type, until our Great High Priest and King has finished the cleansing of the Sanctuary, the New Jerusalem, and it is made holy; see Joel 3:17 Now follow the type and Bible testimony, and it is positively clear that Jesus changes his position from the daily ministration to the most holy place, just as certainly as Aaron did. here then, in short, is where we prove the Bridegroom come to the Marriage, and the door shut, in the parable of Matthew 25, and in the types. If it does not prove this in our past history, and that we are now waiting for our coming king, then these types are superfluous. We do not believe that Michael stands up, as you have stated, until he has accomplished what is above stated. We cannot possibly see how he can begin to reign over the nations as king, while he is in the most holy place, cleansing the Sanctuary, and the saints being perfected for the blessing when he lays aside his priestly robes and takes the sickle, as in Revelation 14:14; and God speaks, as in Joel 3:16 If what you have stated, had been even approbated in Oct.1844, it would have thrown the whole harmony of the Scriptures, in our past history, into confusion. As I have said, I will here repeat it, that unless you follow the Bible rule as I have stated here and in the Way Marks, you never can harmonize the Scriptures with the past nor present; and I think I shall make it plainer still, before I lay down my pen. SC3 186.1

One thing more: Much derision is made about those of our company that have joined the Shakers. I say it is a shame to them first, to have preached so clearly and distinctly the speedy coming of our Lord Jesus Christ personally to gather his saints - and then to go and join the Shakers in their faith, that he (Jesus) came spiritually in their Mother, Ann Lee, more than seventy years ago. This, without doubt in my mind, is owing to their previous teaching and belief in a doctrine called the trinity. How can you find fault with their faith while you are teaching the very essence of that never - no never to be understood, doctrine? For their comfort and faith, and of course your own, you say “Christ is God, and God is love.” As you have given no explanation, we take it to come from you as a literal exposition of the word; and although the editor of the Herald, of Dec. 4th, endeavors to justify you in your published view of the Unity in 1842, and thinks he has made it clear that you have not changed your views on this subject, just as he is in the habit of doing without your knowledge, but still you have not confirmed it, and your having changed your views once at least since 1844, leaves us in doubt about the editor’s remarks. We ask, then, where you find this passage, and if ever love was seen; and if that is what we are looking for from heaven, to come the second time? If so, how will it look, and where is the Scripture that describes it? It seems to me that the Shakers have a better claim to you than we have. SC3 187.1

We believe that Peter and his master settled this question beyond controversy, Matthew 16:13-19; and I cannot see why Daniel and John has not fully confirmed that Christ is the Son, and, not God the Father. How could Daniel explain his vision of the 7th chapter, if “Christ was God.” Here he sees one “like the Son (and it cannot be proved that it was any other person) of man, and there was given him Dominion, and Glory, and a kingdom;” by the ancient of days. Then John describes one seated on a throne with a book in his right hand, and he distinctly saw Jesus come up to the throne and take the book out of the hand of him that sat thereon. Now if it is possible to make these two entirely different transactions appear in one person, then I could believe that God died and was buried instead of Jesus, and that Paul was mistaken when he said, “Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead out Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep” etc., and that Jesus also did not mean what he said when he asserted that he came from God, and was going to God, etc.etc,; and much more, if necessary, to prove the utter absurdity of such a faith. Without going any further, we say that one of two things is certainly clear, that the doctrine of the second advent, which you, and your adherents promulgated down to Oct.1844, was positively wrong, if you now are right. We believe it was right and approved of God and therefore we fully believe that we are in the right road still, but we have nothing to boast of; our track has been made dark by your opposition, but still we have travelled on, believing that light is sewn for the righteous, and we have realized it; to God be all the praise. If you and your adherents could have turned us into your course, you would. We rejoice that we are in the furnace. Our deluded course, as it is termed, arises from three things that we practice: First, we are called Judaizers, because we keep the Sabbath according to the commandment; our reasons for it, are with you. We say further that God set us the example, as he has the whole world. Jesus and the apostles followed, and so do we. Second, because we wash one another’s feet, here we have the plain and positive teaching and example of Jesus: “If I, then, the master and the teacher, have washed your feet - Happy are ye who know these things provided ye PRACTICE them.” - [Camp. trans.] - John 13 Third, that we practice kissing. - Here we have the teaching, of the great apostle to the Gentiles, to churches and households and every individual believer in Christ Jesus; see Romans 16:3, 6, 12-16; 1 Thessalonians 5:26, “Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss;” Philippians 4:21 “Salute every saint in Christ Jesus.” Now I do not say but here is dangerous ground, and no doubt many have fallen, because they could not stand the test, as Paul’s brethren could not the communion; but did Paul advise them to give it up because some had lost their lives for it? No! Well, then, the rule is the same with us, not to yield because some have spiritually died. It is a test of our fellowship for one another, and we may just as well be ashamed of the teachings of the Bible as to be ashamed or afraid to practice what is clearly taught. Our course is onward; we leave you to say what you please of us. We very clearly see if we persevere in this course, that it will lead us to immortality. SC3 188.1

P.S. Some days after writing the above, an acquaintance of mine loaned me the Advent Herald of Jan. 8th, 1848, to read the remarkable dream, which you had in November last. I am glad that the Lord comforted you by giving you this dream. Since I have read it, I do feel a hope that the Lord will yet save you from the delusive snare into which your pretended friends seemed to have drawn you. Joel’s prophecy, quoted by Peter, at the Pentecost, respecting dreams and visions of the last days, are not, in my view, fulfilled; nor cannot be, unless it can be proved that the last days are past. I fully believe that God warns and instructs his children in various ways, when deep sleep is fallen upon them. There certainly are some very remarkable cases on record in the Bible, and I as much believe them, as other portions of his word. SC3 189.1

It seemed to me that I could see some of the outlines of this dream; for instance, the “curiously wrought casket, filled with all sorts and sizes of jewels, diamonds, precious stones, and gold and silver coin of every dimension and value, beautifully arranged in their several places in the casket.” These, I think, clearly represent the special treasure, the jewels of the Lord of hosts, that are now being made up in this day of trial, as saith Malachi; brought out and made manifest by the second advent doctrine, which you began to give to the world some few years ago. Many of them, at that time, bound down by the sectarian creeds and formulas in Babylon, were aroused and won away by the soul-stirring doctrine of the coming of Christ, in 1843 and ‘44. No wonder that your friends, who then gathered around you, shouted for joy when they began critically and earnestly to examine the curiously wrought casket, (the word of God,) and to see, the more they examined and expounded, the more the diamonds and jewels increased in splendor, brilliancy and numbers, (converts from the churches and the world,) and scattering all over the land, (the centre table,) and in a few years throughout the world, every nation, kindred, tongue and people, (all over the floor and furniture.) By this time the flying messengers in Revelation 14, began to draw these jewels out into a clear place by themselves, (the Philadelphia state of the church,) saying, behold, the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him! As soon as the disappointment came in Oct.1844, then your counterfeit coin and immense quantities of spurious jewels (hypocrites and unbelievers) were seen as you saw, scattered among the genuine. here you felt the great responsibility of the doctrine you had been propagating, and proclaimed that our work for the world was done, and you was grieved to see that so few of the great multitude which had appeared delighted with your doctrine, really believed it. Hence you became “vexed in your very soul, and began to use physical force to push them out.” Here, I think is where you changed your views and course, in the spring of 1845, and untied with those that have been increasing three to one, as you saw, bringing in dirt, and sand, and shavings and all manner of rubbish and covered up both the genuine and false jewels and diamonds, etc. These I think represent the false doctrine, since 1844, mixed up with almost every thing, and from every where, calling the honest and confiding children of God almost any thing, but their true names; thus covering them up with, as you saw, dirt, sand, shavings, and rubbish of all kinds; at the same time so covering up also the spurious coin, (false teachers) that nothing of them, or of that beauty and glory that was so apparent a little while since, can now as it were, be seen, breaking in pieces your casket (the word of God) and trampling it also under foot. Just look at the Sabbath controversy, for one item, and the daubing with untempered mortar, this all absorbing subject of Christ coming to Judgment, and compare it with Ezekiel 34 chapter, particularly the 21,22 and 31st verses, and surely it will be admitted that “the Dream is certain and the interpretation thereof sure.” SC3 190.1

And whereas thou sawest a man enter the room with a dirt brush and open the windows to cleanse it of its filthiness at which time all the people passed out. The spurious coins also arose and passed out of the windows. The room was then cleansed of all its rubbish. All the genuine diamonds, precious coin and jewels, even to those not larger than the point of a pin, were collected, and beautifully arranged in another casket, which, when the man called you to look into, caused you to shout with very joy. SC3 191.1

“Know therefore and understand,” that in this day of atonement, while our Great High Priest is cleansing the sanctuary, (blotting out his people’s sins,) preparing his jewels (Malachi 3:17) of all sizes to enter the splendid and most glorious mansions in the New Jerusalem, which he promised them, John 14 And whereas thou wast not shown in thy dream, how the first casket was prepared, that being unnecessary, as thine own experience for the last few years would clearly come into thy mind, which, when compared with our history, brought to view in the 14th chapter of Rev. particularly 6-11 verses, would show thee how it was done. And the oneness of the angel or messenger in performing this first work, will help thee to understand, how the man (or messenger) which thou sawest enter the room will also be distinctly seen; since our great disappointment in Oct.1844, operating under the divine guidance of the word and spirit, as far as can be seen through the gross darkness and infidelity that is becoming more and more manifest; through all of their instrumentalities, such as prayer, exhortation, visiting, comforting, writing, especially epistolary correspondence, and all other proper means to ascertain the whereabouts, and the number of the scattered sheep of the house of Israel: even the most lonely and most despised. SC3 191.2

Wait patiently therefore and watch, remembering what God has taught in these last few years respecting the clear fulfillment of his word in our experience, and the perfect harmony we are now made to see in place, manner and time, for every point. As he had distinctly taught us, viz. “Which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.” “A time for all things.” “Every thing on his day.” “Not one jot or tittle of the law to fail,” even the thoughts of God towards us to be perfectly considered in the latter (or last) days. - Jeremiah 23:20 As therefore it required the space of a few years to arrange and develop the first casket, so then here likewise must be order and time to cleanse, prepare, and properly arrange, the second casket, by the same kind of instruments. SC3 192.1

And whereas thou didst cry to him to forbear for fear he would injure the precious jewels, and he replied fear not, I will take care of them; that is, those that are “keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” will not injure the jewels (their brethren) for they will act in harmonious concert, under the new commandments of their officiating great high priest and king. SC3 192.2

Your cry to forbear, looks ominous of further resistance and as for any of your assistance in collecting, cleansing and arranging the jewels of the Lord of hosts (the last casket,) it looks still more dubious, as it seems you kept your eyes closed (in a quiet state,) until the jewels were all arranged. This is the reason why you did not see the pains that the man (or messenger) took in arranging them. SC3 192.3

This I fear, that you will not open your eyes to see this important work until the sealing time, and God speaks himself; but I cannot but still hope that your “shout for very joy,” will be one of triumph and redemption. SC3 193.1

Several nights before I saw your dream, I had finished writing your letter, I presented the subject of my work before the Lord again, for wisdom to direct me in all that I had, or may write for the benefit of his children, and the vindication of his word. And that I may do so, I asked for a dream, vision, or any way that was consistent with his will to instruct me. The next thing, as near as I can now recollect, was the following SC3 193.2