The Sealing Angel and Sabbath Truth
By Joseph Bates
The above letter I directed to Elder Himes at Boston, Mass., where his paper, the Advent Herald, stated that he should preach the first Sabbath in August.—As my letter (so far as I know) remains unanswered, it seems duty for me to make the following statements: 1. Elder Himes says: I was "firstly the sealing angel ascending from the east, and went about sealing the brethren before I got the Sabbath." I will here give an extract from a work which I published in Jan. 1849, entitled "A Seal of the living God," which will show my views on the point in question. Rev. vii, 2. "And I saw another messenger ascending from the rising of the sun, having a seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four messengers to whom it was given to injure the earth and the sea." Whiting's Trans. "ANOTHER MESSENGER: how shall we understand this? Answer: men and women which are moved upon by the word and Spirit of God to execute his will here upon this earth. Why cannot this messenger or angel mean an invisible one? Answer: because we never hear invisible angels or messengers preaching with loud voices to men. See the text, also, Rev. xiv, 7, what the Advent people cried with loud voices in 1842 and 1844. These in Chap. vii are some of the same messengers that have continued to pass on through the three messages in Rev. xiv, and are now keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." Page, 17. It is well known that the great majority of advent teachers that did not believe in the sealing work of the servants of God in 1849, taught then, and still do, that the angels of Rev. vii, 1, 2, are symbols of earthly governments and men. This, as stated in the foregoing extract, was what I then believed in common with them. In May, 1849, I published a tract, entitled, a "SYNOPSIS OF A SEAL OF THE LIVING GOD." On the first page of which I acknowledged the change in my views of Rev. vii, 1, 2, as follows: "Since writing the Sealing Message, I have been satisfactorily convinced that the exposition which I then gave of the four messengers standing on the four quarters of the earth, and the ascending, sealing messenger, was incorrect. The difficulties which then prevented me from seeing the clear light on this subject, [as I stated on pages 65, 66, of the Seal,] have since been removed and I now praise the Lord for the clear light that shines; viz., that the four messengers instead of being the four principal governments of earth, are four literal angels commissioned by God to execute his purpose in the destruction of the wicked, by his four sore judgments; (or winds;) viz., sword, famine, noisome beasts and pestilence. "ANOTHER MESSENGER.—Literal, like the four in the 1st verse, having charge of the sealing of the 144,000, and also power to prevent the four angels from letting a wind blow; until the servants of God are all sealed." 2. He says that I "enjoined caution on those brethren not to speak to any body but their own fraternity." I have no knowledge of any such teaching. If there are any brethren in this truth that I have ever so taught, they will remember it. Let them speak. 3. "That afterwards I got the Sabbath for a seal." My answer to this statement is, that I have been endeavoring in all good conscience to keep the Sabbath according to the commandment; [Ex. xx, 8-11,] since March, 1845. In 1847 I published a pamphlet, entitled "The Seventh day Sabbath." Since that time I have published and taught it more publicly. Hence, it may be seen that instead of teaching the sealing work before I got the Sabbath, that I kept and taught the Sabbath more than three years before I knew what the sealing work was. JOSEPH BATES. Akron, Ohio, Aug. 23d, 1853.