The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

VI. Jones-Logical Secretary of First Conference

And now we come to the secretary of that first conference, HENRY JONES (1804-1880), Congregationalist minister, teacher, and ardent abolitionist. He was born in New Hampshire, and in 1835 graduated from Dartmouth. Little is known of his early life. We first hear of him as an anti-Masonic writer, but seceding from them in 1828. Next we find him pastor of the Congregational church of Cabot, New York. Jones was one of the first to take serious note of Miller’s views on the prophecies. In fact, he wrote a succession of letters to Miller over the years which reveal the steps leading up to his inevitable entry into the Millerite movement. He had first been stimulated by a conversation with a fellow minister who, in turn, had been influenced in his thinking on the millennium by Miller’s pre-millennialist articles in the Vermont Telegraph. As a result, Jones secured the first eight articles of the Telegraph, and later sought an extended interview with Miller, and an opportunity to discuss certain points. ⁴¹ PFF4 576.2

His first contact was through a letter to Miller in 1832, when traveling in New York State as agent for the circulation of temperance literature. Temperance reform was then just beginning to receive serious attention, and was being bitterly attacked on all sides, much of it, strangely enough, coming from the clergy. Jones had an inquiring type of mind. When first he heard of Miller’s teachings he was led to read the book of Revelation through again and again, together with the other prophecies of Daniel, Christ, and the apostles. And he prayed earnestly about them and their meaning. In his intensive reform activities, taking him from town to town, he not only combated the drink evil but undertook to instill, “practically” as well as in theory, ⁴² “temperance in regard to food and dress.” These activities made it difficult, at the time, for him to give the time that he desired to the study of prophecy. PFF4 577.1

Jones was similarly allied with the abolition movement. And in those days identification with antislavery reform was often fraught with grave personal danger. But he was a man of conviction, and fearless in his make-up. He kept on studying prophecy as best he could, attempting to lecture upon it before small groups in 1833. And he was even then engaged in writing a dissertation upon Matthew 24 and the signs of the times, and upon Revelation 20 and the second advent as coming at the beginning of the millennium. ⁴³ His early grasp of the great fundamentals of prophetic interpretation was really astonishing, and unusually comprehensive. PFF4 577.2

He greatly desired to visit Miller at Low Hampton and to study the prophecies under his personal guidance. He already knew full well what it meant to be allied with an unpopular cause, and to be debarred from preaching in many of the churches because of his abolitionist views. The acceptance of Miller’s views would mean still further alienation. Nevertheless, be began to contemplate just such an association. In 1834, nine years before Fitch put similar views into print, Jones wrote to Miller on the need of coming out from “Babylon” according to Revelation 18. And Babylon, he contended, was more than the Papacy. Here are his words: PFF4 578.1

“In the 18th chapter [of Revelation] the saints are commanded to come out of Babylon. Will you tell me, brother, does Babylon here mean the papal church, the united wickedness of the wicked, or the present visible church of various names? When I look at the slavery, intemperance, wars, Sabbath breaking, lewdness, gambling, extravagance, pride, covetousness, persecution of saints, etc., now fellowshiped by the church, I inquire, does this Babylon mean particularly our churches?” ⁴⁴ PFF4 578.2

He studied and restudied the entire book of Revelation. By that autumn he had committed the entire Apocalypse to memory, and had begun to summarize the writings of all the prophets in relation to the Revelation. ⁴⁵ He even wrote two books on prophecy in 1837, and shortly after, and his name is attached to the call made through the Signs of the Times for the holding of the first General Conference, in October 1840, in Himes’s church in Boston. PFF4 578.3

Thus it was that Jones came to embrace the advent truth with all his heart. He was a man of brilliant talents and a very active worker. He wrote the Scripture Searcher. And for a time he published a paper in New York City, called Second Advent Witness, really the forerunner of Midnight Cry. Small wonder, then, that he was chosen secretary of the first General Conference of ministers of varying faiths, coming together to study the prophecies and to unite in their effective proclamation. In 1842 he organized the “Second Advent Association of New York and Vicinity,” with Dr. A. Doolittle as chairman, ⁴⁶ who was also chosen chairman of the eleventh General Conference, held in the Apollo Hall in New York City, in May, 1842. PFF4 578.4

Like Ward, Jones also demurred on the point of the “specific time” of “1843.” But there was something vastly larger than “time” that attracted men of such training and reputation to give their time and talent to an unpopular cause. It was the basic issue of premillennialism and a soon-coming Saviour. Jones’s various other writings include The Seven Churches in Asia (1831); Principles of Interpreting the Prophecies (1837); Dissertation on the Nature and Manner of Christ’s Second Coming (1841); American Views of Christ’s Second Advent (1842); The Restoration of Israel (tract); Compend of Parallel and Explanatory Scripture References, of Christ’s Second Advent at Hand (1843); Modern Phenomena in the Heavens, or Prophetic Great Signs of the Near Approach of the End of All Things (1843) ⁴⁷ PFF4 579.1