The Gathering of Israel

Chapter 9—Seventh-day Adventists and Time Setting

While James and Ellen White were living in Oswego, New York, in 1849-1850, they found themselves contending with two time setting preachers who printed a paper there, The Watchman, to proclaim the Advent in 1850. ¹ The Seventh-day Adventists were doctrinally immune to any shifting of the 2300 days or 70 weeks, yet they were exposed to all these notions as either set forth or refuted in the other Adventist journals. Although James White kept date-setting out of his own papers (the Present Truth, the Advent Review, and the Review and Herald), two of his brethren went into print on their own: Hiram Edson for 1850 and Joseph Bates for 1851. GI 7.2

Edson’s 1849 booklet predicted with great assurance the close of probation in that year and the Second Advent in 1850; Bates’ 1850 pamphlet set forth no positive prediction, but made the point clearly enough in his conclusion that Christ’s ministry in the Holy of Holies would last seven years (from 1844). ² Both dated “the fullness of the Gentiles” and the end of “the times of the Gentiles” in 1844, and both saw this as bringing a change to “a remnant” of Israel, ³ yet neither adopted the Literalist view. Do we see here the influence of Litch’s 1848 work already mentioned? GI 7.3

Although Bates barely referred to “mercy being extended to a remnant of literal Israel,” Edson wrote a whole pamphlet on “the final return of the Jews in 1850.” ⁴ He quoted newspaper accounts of the European upheavals, and Noah’s flowery speech. He concluded that 1844 had ended the treading underfoot of the sanctuary, and that 1850 would see 144,000 Jews gathered to Jerusalem and sealed. Since his term “Jews” includes also the ingrafted Gentiles who receive the seal (the Sabbath) his language almost seems to invite the reader to go to “old Jerusalem,” though he does not actually say that. ⁵ And he was definitely not a Literalist. GI 7.4

Neither of the private publications seems to have had widespread influence on Seventh-day Adventists, and both men abandoned their atypical views almost before the ink was dry. GI 7.5

In 1850 David Arnold, writing in the Present Truth, likewise quoted the Noah address as evidence that the Jews were no longer trodden down since the end of the times of the Gentiles, in 1844. ⁶ Probably James White permitted that article in his columns because it opposed the 1850 date setting, and it did not actually teach Literalism. GI 7.6

These productions show the need for Mrs. White’s 1850 and 1851 messages to guard her brethren against some of the contemporary winds of doctrine. GI 7.7