Letter from Hiram Edson to S.S. Snow
published in The Jubilee Standard
By Robert K. Sanders
Hiram Edson’s letter to Snow showcases "the sure foundation" upon which Ellen G. White and the founders of the denomination built their faith in setting many dates for the Lord's return. On May 29,1845, Hiram Edson wrote his letter of warning to "the Jubilee Standard" paper, as a warning that the Lord was going to come, and predicted his coming in three months, August 1845. Notice the underlined words I placed for emphases.
Little wonder all their time setting dates failed. Wm. Miller spawned many false prophets that predicted a date for the Lord’s coming. Not only did Miller but also James and Ellen White, Hiram Edson and Joseph Bates. Bates date setting was calculated by using the seven drops of blood formula that forecasted the Lord would return in 1851. The sure foundation and pillar of the faith was date setting, and in doing so contradicted the Word of God. Jesus says in, (Mat 24:36 NIV) ""No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mat 24:26 NIV) ""So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the desert,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it." If you were an Adventist back in the early 1840’s would you have followed this fanaticism and disobey the Lord? This is exactly what the White’s and their followers did and the Adventist Church still supports them as being guided by God in their rebellion. The Adventist Church claims these pioneers are his special people and they have God’s special message to the world. Are you proud of your Adventist heritage and being a member of the remnant church?
Some may not be aware that the Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Watchtower Society (The Jehovah’s Witnesses) was associated with Millerites. He also predicted several dates for the Lord to return and was a total failure as were the Adventists pioneers. There is no doubt Adventism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses start was based on fanaticism, instead of the Word of God.
Letter from Hiram Edson to S.S. Snow
Manchester, May 22, 1845
Dear Bro. Snow:
THE LORD COMETH! so says the law and the testimony. I believe it to a point generally conceded that the lot in which Daniel is to stand at the end of the 1335 days will be the redeemed "purchased possession", the land which the righteous shall inherit and dwell therein for ever. Therefore the Lord may come, raise the dead and change the living saints, cut off the wicked, root out the transgressors, before or by the ending of the days; see Isa. xxxiv. 1-10, especially the 8th verse; also ixiii. 4. And we believe we have good evidence that the 1335 days end this year and I cannot extend time beyond August next.
Our Lord swore to the time, and that when we shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people all these things shall be finished. Has not that come? Is not our power gone? Deut. xxxii-35,36. Have we not gone even to Babylon? Knowledge shall be increased the wise shall understands, and the path of the just is to shins more and more unto the perfect day.
I need not pause to present evidences that the year of God’s redeemed is come and the year of the recompense for the controversy of Zion. Has not the trumpet of alarm been sounded in all God’s holy mountains, and given a certain sound? Have not the inhabitants of the land trembled in consequence of the evidence presented showing the day of the Lord at hand? Have we not had the midnight cry, the antitype, of the Jubilee trumpet in the 49th year? There have been voices saying 'the kingdoms of this world are become,’ &c. ‘And the time of the dead that they should be judged and that reward should be given,‘ &c. Also the marriage of the Lamb in come, and It has been written ‘Blessed are they that are called to the MARRIAGE SUPPER Of the Lamb,’ And He say these are the true sayings of God; hath He said and will he not do it? Hath he promised and will not He make It good? We have had all these in chronological order, perfectly agreeing with the Word; and the Lord has nowhere warned us of a counterfeit currency of this kind. And as these voices were to be heard under the seventh trumpet, does it not follow of necessity, that the seventh trumpet has sounded? And the Lord has condescended to mark out the signs of the times of these last days with so much exactness that his people might know the whereabouts, where they were nearing the haven of eternal rest.
The ‘times of the Gentiles’ are fulfilled; we have come to 'this dispensation of the fullness of times,’ - ‘the times of restitution of all things,' and the time of blotting out of sins, when the ‘refreshing shall from the presence of the Lord.’ and the times of the Covenant, when He ‘shall take away their sins;’ Rom. viii. 23; xi.25-27; Eph. i.14; iv.30; Acts iii.19-21.
We came up to the types of the 7th month, and was not the Lord in it? Is not the cloud between us and our enemies? We came upon the types of the passover in the first month, and was not the Lord in it? Was not the passover the Day Dawn, and is not the Day Star arising? Are we not in the morning watch? The Lord has been looking through the pillar and troubling our enemies, taking off their chariot-wheels so ‘that they drove them heavily,’ burning their cities and their land. Have not the servants of God been sealed in their foreheads? The destroying angel has commenced hurting the earth. The four winds are being loosed, and speedy preparations are being made for the slaughters and soon the Lord shall raise up a great whirlwind from the coasts of the earth. On rushes the time of trouble, but the Lord will be the hope of his peoples and deliver then out of it.
We come next in chronological orders not to mount Sinai, to receive the law on tables of stones but the anniversary of the Lord's descent thereon, I believe, to receive the law written on our hearts and in our minds, no more to teach our neighbor or brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,’ for then all shall have known him from the least unto the greatest.
The third, and next, order of types claims our present attention. Please examine with care the following scriptures: Ex. xxxiv.22-2l; xxii.16,l7; Deut. xvi.9-12; Num. xxviii.26; Matt. Xiii.39; Lev. xx3iii.15-21; Isa. xviii.7, and make the application. The first fruits are a very prominent feature of the quotations on types. Paul says, ‘Christ the FIRST FRUITS, afterwards they that are Christ's AT HIS COMING.’ It was on this anniversary that the Holy Ghost descended and sat upon the Apostles like unto cloven tongues of fire, and they spoke 'with other tongues, as the spirit gave them utterance.' This is the anniversary of the Lord's decent on mount Sinai. 'whose voice, Paul says, ‘then shook the earth, but now, hath he promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven,' thus connecting the second shaking and the removing of those things that are shaken with this anniversary. And I think we have not had the antitype of the two-wave loaves baked with leaven, which are the first fruits unto the Lord. If so, where and when? ‘Till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass, till all be fulfilled.’ 'Thou shalt number from the morrow after the sabbath,’ (in the passover week) 'from the day ye brought the first fruits of the wave offering, seven sabbaths shall be complete.' The number seven is an important number in the Bible, and brings us to important points. And in this case it is expressly said to be 'complete’, at the end of which the two wave loaves Jews and Gentiles, both houses of Israel are to be brought out of their habitations, baked with leaven. These are expressly declared to be the first fruits unto the Lord.
Now we understand that Christ's resurrection is the antitype of the first fruits on the morrow after the sabbath, in the passover week; and from that point, when the passover is being fulfilled In the kingdom of God, I believe seven sabbaths will complete the first fruits unto God, even they which are Christ's at his coming.' 'Then shall the present be brought unto the Lord,’ Isaiah xviii,7. Paul, after exhorting us to certain duties in Heb. x, assures us if we sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truths, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. And exhorts not to cast away our confidence, for we have need of patience after we have done the will of God that we might receive the promise, 'For yet a little while and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry,’ Then in the 12th chapter, presents the example of Esau, to the intent we should not do as he did, for when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.' There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins; 2 Esdras vi. 8,9 says, Esau is the end of the world, Jacob in the beginning of it that followeth.
Paul after this admonition goes on to tell us we ‘are not come to the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire and the voice of words,’ &c.; but we ‘are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.’ Followed by exhortations; insists that antitype of Mt. Sinai is not yet fulfilled.
Yours, waiting,
Hiram Edson
—The Jubilee Standard, New York City, 5/29/1845, p. 90, 2nd Col.., p. 91, 1st Col.