Yesterday we saw that Enoch Jacobs, Apollos Hale, Joseph Turner, and William Miller had by late 1844 tied the October date and the Sanctuary doctrine to the heavenly pre-Advent judgement of Daniel 7. Thus those non-Sabbatarians had begun to see such central Millerite texts as the judgement of Daniel 7 and the arrival of the bridegroom at the wedding as being the coming of Christ to the pre-Advent judgement rather than His return in the clouds of heaven. That same rationale applied to the cleansing of the sanctuary of Daniel 8:14 and the judgement hour of Revelation 14:7.

   But what about the Sabbatarian leadership? How did they stand on the teaching of a pre-Advent judgement in the late 1840s?

   Joseph Bates was quite positive on the topic. "Respecting 'the hour of God's judgement is come'," he penned in 1847, "there must be order and time, for God in His judicial character to decide the cases of all the righteous that their names may be registered in the Lamb's Book of Life, and they be fully prepared for the eventful moment of their change from mortality to immortality." And in late 1848 he claimed that "the dead saints are now being judged." Bates was probably the first of the Sabbatarian leaders to teach the pre-Advent judgement.

   It appears that by January 5, 1849, Ellen White agreed with him on the topic. Commenting on a she had received on that date, she wrote that she "saw that Jesus would not leave the most holy place until every case was decided either for salvation or destruction" (EW 36).

   So far as good. Bates and Ellen White seem to be in harmony on the topic. But not James. As late September 1850 he would openly aggressively disagree with Bates on the topic of a pre-Advent judgement. In that month he wrote that "many minds have been confused by conflicting views that have been published on the subject of the judgement." "Some [meaning Bates] have contented that the day of Judgement was prior to the second advent. This view is certainly without foundation in the word of God." 

   A side lesson here is that even the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers differed with each other on important topics, yet they still managed to respect each other. We need that spirit in our own day. 

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