J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH by John Norton Loughborough

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 24, 1914

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

By John Norton Loughborough

The Second Advent Movement — No. 11

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

When the Lord especially works for his people, we should expect it to be for those who have consecrated life and all to his service and to their faith in his immediate coming. It was so in this case; for some very soon began to receive light which explained the great disappointment and their situation. Hiram Edson, of Port Byron, N. Y., had been an earnest worker in the midnight cry movement, and he with others was in prayer meeting all night of the tenth day of the seventh month. The next morning, in company with a young man, O. R. L. Crozier, he went home across the cornfield. They talked of the situation, and then knelt down by a shock of corn and prayed.

In the third season of prayer the Spirit of God came in a powerful manner upon Brother Edson, nearly smiting him to the ground, and with it the word came, as distinct as if spoken with an audible voice, “The sanctuary to be cleansed is in heaven.” He told this impression to Brother Crozier, and said, “What does that mean?”

They hastened home, and, asking God to guide, Brother Edson opened his Bible to the eighth and ninth chapters of Hebrews. As he read that the earthly sanctuary was a “shadow” of the heavenly, a “figure,” and the service “an example,” he said to Brother Crozier: “I have read that a hundred times, but I never saw it as I see it now. The sanctuary is in heaven, and Jesus has gone in to cleanse the sanctuary.” They followed out their study, and it resulted in a clearly written article on the sanctuary, which was published in the Day-star, an Adventist paper of Canandaigua, N. Y.

In another Adventist paper, the Voice

of Truth, published at Rochester, N. Y., Nov. 7, 1844, the editor said: “We cheerfully admit that we have been mistaken in the nature of the event we expected would take place on the tenth day of the seventh month, but we cannot yet admit that our High Priest did not on that day accomplish all that the type would justify us in expecting. We now believe he did.” Shortly after, the same editor said in his paper: “We have had the first and second messages. There is a third to be given. Search for that message.”

As the Adventists approached the tenth day of the seventh month, and saw the hardness and impudence of the ungodly, they said, “We have done with the nominal churches and all the wicked, except so far as this message may affect them.” What, then, was their surprise to see that, after the time book had been eaten, and its honey sweetness passed, and they were in the bitter state of disappointment and reproach, to read, “Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings.” Rev. 10: 11. This very language shows that those to whom it is addressed thought their work was done.

They began earnestly to inquire: “How can we get started? We cannot meet the people until we have some explanation of our past disappointment.” The Lord had made provision for that in the very next words, “And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein.” Rev. 11: 1. They said: “This measurement is not a literal measurement in cubits, for ‘God is no respecter of persons.’ The measure of the worshippers must be a delineation of character. And the standard for this measurement is the law of God, for ‘by the law is the knowledge of sin.’ Rom. 3: 20. Also, the measurement of the temple must be the study of it and its service.”

They had taught that when the seventh trumpet should begin to sound, the mystery of God — the gospel work — should be finished, as declared to his servants the prophets. In the prophecy of Daniel this close of Christ’s work was to be the cleansing of the sanctuary, at the end of the 2300 days. While they had in mind the popular idea that the earth was the sanctuary, they supposed its cleansing must be by fire, in the destruction of the wicked at the coming of Christ. Now they saw that, at the sounding of the seventh angel, “the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” Rev. 11: 19.

They saw that the earthly sanctuary was a “figure” of the true, and its service an “example” of the heavenly, and that the apartment containing the ark was opened only once a year, and that for the high priest to enter in and cleanse the sanctuary. They said, “The time has indeed come for Christ to cleanse the sanctuary,—his last work as high priest, his blotting out the sins of his people.”

Then, again, the text said, “There was seen in his temple the ark of his testament.” His testament is the testimony that God spoke with an audible voice from Sinai, and wrote on two tables of stone. This was a duplicate of what is now seen by faith in the ark in heaven, for that was what God gave to Moses. They could say, “We have found the reed, like unto a rod, by which the people are to be measured. The ten commandments — the fourth, and all — are binding, just as God spoke them on Mt. Sinai.” Then began to appear a special need that the law of God should be proclaimed, that the people might see how they came short of doing the whole will of God.

Some of the Adventists began to teach the Sabbath from another standpoint than the ark, but their work was of short duration. T. M. Preble based his effort on what was said about the little horn of Daniel changing times and laws, and he put out this terse statement, “Pope’s Sunday keepers are God’s commandment breakers.” Very soon, however, he took the position that the ten commandments were abolished at the cross. J. B. Cook answered the texts brought forward to prove Sunday keeping, and said, “Thus easily is all the wind taken out of the sails of those who sail, perhaps unwittingly, under the Pope’s Sabbatic flag.” His work soon ended, he claiming that he had discovered from the church Fathers “an eighth day to be kept,—Sunday.” Those who stayed by the work were those who received the light from the sanctuary, the ark, and the third angel’s message.

Lodi, Cal.