1

Leslie,

The ^c( 0 {-\ .s4i

AlW <S^SO



RADIO REPLIES IN THREE VOLUMES, 85c each

LIBRARY EDITION OF RADIO REPLIES $2.95 EACH

MY CATHOLIC FAITH BY BISHOP MORROW, $2.95

CHATS WITH PROSPECTIVE CONVERTS AND NON-
CATHOLICS BEFORE MARRIAGE $1.00

THE CLEAN OBLATION $2.75

THE FAIR FLOWER OF EDEN $1.00

THE LIFE OF FATHER PRO $1.00

FRAGRANCE OF THE LITTLE FLOWER $1.00

WHAT SAY YOU $2.75 REVISED CATHOLIC CAMPAIGNERS
FOR CHRIST HANDBOOK $2.75

SUICIDE BENT $2.00 JEWISH PANORAMA $3.00

LETTERS HEBREW CATHOLIC TO MR. ISAACS $2.00

40 YEARS AFTER, Revised Second Edition $2.75, BOUND $3.75

STORY OF ANTOINETTE KUHN $1.50

THE MASS AND THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS $1.00

RETREAT NOTES FOR PRIESTS & NUNS $1.00

DEATH OF CHRIST THE WARRIOR 50c

CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN CATHOLIC DOCTRINE 50c

THE UNAVOIDABLE GOD 50c

BIBLE QUIZZES 15c PURGATORY QUIZZES 15c

INDULGENCE QUIZZES 15c CONFESSION QUIZZES 15c

MARRIAGE QUIZZES 15c HELL QUIZZES 15c

BIRTH PREVENTION QUIZZES 15c

EUCHARIST QUIZZES 15c TRUE CHURCH QUIZZES 15c

VIRGIN WORSHIP QUIZZES 15c

BOUND IN BOOK FORM FOR INSTRUCTOR, QUIZZES $2.00

JUST WAGES AND SALARIES 25c

HEART TALKS ON THE PARABLES 25c

THE HOLY ROSARY ACCORDING TO THE LITURGY 15c

Nihil Obstat:

D. P. MURPHY,
Censor Deputatus.

Imprimatur:

* D. MANNIX,
Archiepiscopus Melbournensis.

COPYRIGHT 1951
Radio Replies Press

Saint Paul 1, Minn., U. S. A.



•ft* ADVENTISTS

By REV. DR. RUMBLE, M.S.C.

Seventh Day Adventists, in their dealings with

the public, would appear to have adopted the policy

of concealing their identity as long as possible. Hosts

of people patronize Sanitarium Health Foods, or dine

at the Sanitarium Restaurants, without realizing

that they are customers of the Seventh Day Ad-

ventists—unless, as did a friend of mine, one were
occasionally to find a tract under the salt-cellar con-

taining the startling information that the Pope is

the “Beast” of Revelation!

Travellers go from door to door selling a two-

volume book called “The Desire of Ages.” This book

purports to have been written by Mrs. E. G. White,

and to have been printed by the “Signs Publishing

Company.” To induce Catholics to buy it, despite its

many erroneous interpretations of Scripture, agents

tell them that it is a beautifully illustrated life of

Christ, quote references (in at least one case obtain-

ed by misrepresentation, as the writer later alleged)

in praise of it, and issue receipts for payments in the

name of “Local Distributors of Desire of Ages.”

There is not the slightest hint that the books are

being sold on behalf of the Seventh Day Adventists,

and all inquiries are met by evasion. The salesmen

may say that they represent “Interdenominational

Missions,” or fall back on some other subterfuge.

One thing they will not say, and that is that they are

Seventh Day Adventists.

l



ORIGIN OF ADVENTISM

In the year 1740, George Whitefield, a Methodist

preacher who had been John Wesley’s companion in

England, went to America and fanned the flames of

a revivalist movement which swept through the

ranks of the colonists there, with the result in many

cases of what can be described only as religious

frenzy. Wandering exhorters kept people in a state

of uninterrupted excitation. An epidemic of Bible

reading spread on all sides; and the Apocalypse, or

Book of Revelation, which has ever been the happy

hunting-ground of religious cranks, proved most at-

tractive to fanatics.

The Book of Revelation is of course as much the

inspired Word of God as any other part of the Bible

;

but owing to its mystical and symbolical character,

it is one of the most difficult to understand. St. John,

writing in his own perilous age of general persecu-

tion by pagan emperors, wished to strengthen Chris-

tians by his prediction of the ultimate victory of

good over evil. And he has left us the legacy of his

inspired assurance that Christ will indeed come to

judge mankind, overthrowing Satan and redeeming

the good from this worldly-arena of strife and strug-

gle and sacrifice.

Concentrating on an unwarranted literal inter-

pretation of apocalyptic passages, many made a

central feature of their religion an expectation of

the imminent return of Christ to reign for a thou-

sand years on earth, with His headquarters at

Jerusalem. They taught that, after this Millennium,

the wicked, including Satan and all evil spirits, will

2



be annihilated, whilst Christ and the Saints will

ascend to eternal bliss in Heaven.

Those who held to these general ideas of the

imminent second advent of Christ, though with

many variations as to detail, became known as “Ad-

ventists.”

WILLIAM MILLER

Amongst these new explorers of the Apocalypse

was a man named William Miller. William Miller

was born on February 15, 1782, at Pittsfield, Massa-

chusetts, U.S.A. Four years after his birth, the

family moved to Low Hampton, N. Y., where William

grew up a farmer, and a quite irreligious one at that.

When thirty-four years of age, however, William

Miller was converted at a revivalist meeting and be-

came a Baptist. An ardent study of the Bible—for
which he was in no way fitted—qualified him as a
Baptist preacher, and more and more he devoted

himself to expositions of biblical prophecy. Combin-

ing the prophecies of the Book of Daniel with those

of the Apocalypse, he concluded that the Papacy was

Antichrist. Reading in Daniel (viii, 14), “And he

said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred

days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” he de-

cided that the “cleansing of the sanctuary” referred

to the second advent of Christ, and that this per-

sonal return of Christ to purge the world would take

place on March 21, 1843.

In 1818, therefore, he began to preach that, in

about 25 years from then, the present state of the

world would come to an end, and the reign of Christ

would be established. For ten years he lectured up

3



and down the country, carrying on a vigorous propa-

ganda by means of a paper he had founded and call-

ed “The Signs of the Times,” winning thousands

over to his belief that the world would end in 1843.

Before long he had broken with the Baptists al-

together, and he and his followers became known as

the “Millerites.”

As March 21, 1848, drew near, terrific excitement

prevailed amongst them
;
but, alas, the day came and

went, and nothing happened. Miller went back to his

calculations, checked them over, and discovered that

he had mistaken the year. March 21, 1844, was the

correct date. When that, too, failed, he moved the

date forward to October 22, 1844. Failure this time

destroyed his confidence in his own predictions, and

he declared that the second advent would certainly

take place soon, but that he could not say when.

FIRST ADVENTIST CHURCH

On April 29, 1845, the Millerites held a Confer-

ence at Albany, N. Y., to define their views and plan

for the future. They decided upon a congregational

basis of organization, and drew up a statement of

faith which included belief in the Bible only, in the

imminent second coming of Christ, in the overthrow

of the Papacy, and in the early establishment of the

Millennial Kingdom of Christ on earth.

No date was set for the second advent; but it is

certain that if they had been told that the world

would still be going on as usual in 1950, over a hun-

dred years later, they would have been completely

incredulous and scornful. It is to be noted, also, that

the Millerites had no idea that there was anything

4



wrong with the Christian observance of Sunday. In

fact, Adventists who had taken up the observance of

Saturday instead of Sunday, were excluded by the

Albany Conference. Poor William Miller, who died

on December 20, 1849, had no idea that he had all

along—according to modern Seventh Day Advent-
ists—been subject to a Satanic deception by his
Sunday observance!

In 1858 another Conference was held at Boston

where the name “American Millennial Association”

was adopted, to be altered a few years later to “The

Evangelical Adventist Association.” But through

all these changes the number of adherents was

steadily diminishing. The failure of William Miller’s

prophecy that the second advent of Christ would

occur on October 22, 1844, seemed too great an ob-

stacle for the Adventist movement ever to over-

come.

New life, however, came with the remarkable dis-

covery by one Hiram Edson, of Port Gibson. He de-

clared that William Miller’s calculations were correct

after all. But Miller had misunderstood the nature

of Christ’s second coming. Hiram Edson got a

“revelation” that the “sanctuary to be cleansed,” ac-

cording to Daniel viii, 14, “is in Heaven, not on

earth.” He quoted Hebrews (viii, 1-2), “We have a

High Priest ... in the heavens; a minister of the

sanctuary.” On October 22, 1844, he declared, Christ

entered the heavenly sanctuary to cleanse it! It is

true that Christ entered Heaven at the ascension;

but—said Hiram—He did not then enter the Inner
Sanctuary. That event took place in 1844, when

5



Christ began investigating the records of all man-

kind, already dead or still living. In 1884 Mrs. Ellen

G. White—of whom we shall see more later—wrote
in explanation of this, “The judgment is now pass-

ing in the sanctuary above. Forty years has this

work been in progress. Soon—none knows how
soon—it will pass to the cases of the living” (S.P.,
Vol. 4, p. 315). When this auditing of the books is

finished “Christ will return to earth to execute judg-

ment accordingly.”

Faithful Adventists grasped eagerly at this as-

surance that William Miller was not mistaken about

the date of the second advent, and easily overlooked

the unscriptural and absurd details of Hiram Ed-

son’s explanation. So the Adventist movement sur-

vived, though not as a unified body
;
for it went the

way of all such man-made sects, dissolving into

many broken fragments.

ADVENTIST DIVISIONS

The extent of the disagreements and dissensions

amongst the Adventists is evident from the mere

list of different denominations to which they gave

rise. Thus we find in America the “Life and Advent

Union”; the “Seventh Day Adventists”; the “Ad-

vent Christian Church”; the “Church of God (Sev-

enth Day)”; the “Churches of God in Jesus Christ”;

the “Church of God (Oregon, Illinois)”; the “Church

of God, Adventist”; the “Church of the Blessed

Hope”
;
the ‘Brethren of the Abrahamic Faith”

;
the

“Restitutionists”
;

the “Age-to-come Adventists”

;

and the “Primitive Advent Christian Church.”

Each of these Churches either disagreed with

6



some already accepted teaching, or tried to intro-

duce new doctrines of its own. Thus John T. Walsh

broke away from the Millerites in 1848 to form the

“Life and Advent Union,” because he held that there

is to be no resurrection of the wicked ; and that this

earth, not heaven, is to be the eternal abode of the

righteous.

Joseph Bates, James White and Mrs. White,

relying on visions Mrs. White claimed to have re-

ceived, insisted not only on the imminent second

coming of Christ, but also on the observance of

Saturday instead of Sunday
;
and in 1860 they estab-

lished the Seventh Day Adventists.

In 1861 Jonathan Cummins departed from the

Millerites and founded the “Advent Christian

Church,” because he disbelieved in the theory of the

“heavenly sanctuary,” which had been concocted to

safeguard William Miller’s prediction of the second

advent of Christ on October 22, 1844.

In 1865, Elder Gilbert Cranmer abandoned the

“Seventh Day Adventists” to found the “Church of

God, Adventist,” as a protest against Mrs. White’s

claim to divine inspiration.

Most of the breakaway sects, however, never at-

tained to significant proportions. The most progres-

sive and active of them all today, is that of the

“Seventh Day Adventists.” And with that branch

of the Adventists, this booklet is mainly concerned.

MRS. ELLEN G. WHITE

In 1842 a Miss Ellen G. Harmon was converted

at an Adventist revivalist meeting conducted by the

Millerites, and at once began to have what she claim-

7



ed to be divinely-inspired dreams. In 1844, when

Miller’s predictions failed to eventuate, she had a

vision of Adventists going straight to Heaven; and

all rejoiced, many accepting her as a prophetess.

Miss Harmon herself admitted that she had suf-

fered severe head injuries as a young girl, and since

then had been given to fainting and epileptic fits. It

was invariably after having swooned that she claim-

ed to have received during a trance new and heaven-

ly communications.

With other Adventists she had eagerly accepted

Hiram Edson’s interpretation of the “cleansing of

the sanctuary,” but was soon adding further doc-

trines of her own. In 1846 she married Elder James

White, gaining both prestige in the movement and

an ardent advocate of her teachings.

Before very long she claimed to have had a vision

in which Christ in Heaven showed her the Tables of

Stone, with the commandment, “Remember that

thou keep holy the sabbath day,” surrounded by a

halo of light. At the same time a nearby angel as-

sured her that Saturday and not Sunday is the day

to be observed by Christians.

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS

It was this last-mentioned vision which led to a

break with the followers of Wililam Miller, whose ad-

ventism had never for a moment questioned Sunday

observance; and in 1860, at Battle Creek, Michigan,

under the leadership of Joseph Bates, Elder James

White and Mrs. Ellen G. White, the “Seventh Day

Adventist” denomination was formed.

For more than fifty years, until her death in

8



1915, Mrs. White was the accepted prophetess of the

new Church. Although she was a woman of little

education, her visions and writings have become

fundamental with Seventh Day Adventists. They

are placed on the same level as Sacred Scripture, and

are quoted as infallible utterances.

Her “Testimonies for the Church” are regarded

as the only authetic interpretation of the Bible. “It

is God,” she says, “and not an erring mortal, who

has spoken.” She devoted 38 pages of her “Testi-

mony No. 33” to vindicating her divine inspiration

—

a claim to infallibility far in excess of any ever made

by the Pope

!

In his book, “Seventh Day Adventism Renounc-

ed,” D. M. Canright says, “Mrs. White claims that

the very words in which her visions are recorded

are divinely inspired. I know they are not, for she

often changes what she has written, scratching out

a whole page at times. She reads her MSS. to her

husband, while he suggests changes which she

makes. As she is ignorant of grammar, she has em-

ployed an accomplished writer to correct the manu-

script, improve its style, and polish it up generally.

She also copies largely from other writings.”

Another ex-Seventh Day Adventist, Warren

Latham, of Spokane, Washington, U.S.A., writes,

“The denomination regards her writings as the voice

of God, and in their public teaching they will not

admit that slie made any mistakes in her published

writings. They place her writings on an equality

with the Bible, although they emphatically deny this

statement. Like a man trying to catch a horse in an

9



open field, with feed in one hand and a halter behind

his back in the other, so are these Adventist evan-

gelists who preach from an open Bible, but keep the

“Testimonies” concealed. After the converts are

made, and the halter on, the “Testimonies” always

take precedence above the Scriptures, because they

are used to interpret the Bible.” And Warren

Latham adds,
“
‘W

T

hat does Sister White say?’ is a

stock term with all good Adventists.”

The credulity of Adventists where Mrs. White is

concerned is proof against all reasoning and evidence

to the contrary. Dr. William Russell, a physician at

the Seventh Day Adventist Sanatarium, Battle

Creek, Michigan, wrote in 1869 that her visions were

the result of a diseased brain. Dr. Fairfield said in

1887 that they were due to hysterical trances. But

to this day Mrs. White is accepted as an infallible

prophetess by Seventh Day Adventists.

ADVENTIST TEACHINGS

The Seventh Day Adventists, originated by

Protestants in a Protestant environment, and draw-

ing its recruits mainly from Baptists, Methodists

and Congregationalists, began with the usual pro-

fession of belief in the Bible only, and in salvation

by faith alone. But under the guidance of William

Miller, and later of Mrs. White, they soon developed

distinctive doctrines, which really meant the nega-

tion of both those fundamental Protestant tenets.

Mrs. White’s writings became a substitute for the

Bible, whilst she herself expressly rejected salva-

tion by faith alone. “Those who accept the Saviour,”

she wrote, “however sincere their conversion, should

10



never be taught to say or feel that they are saved.

This is misleading” (“Christ’s Object Lessons,”

p. 155).

Seventh Day Adventists claim to believe in the

Divinity of Christ, though their other doctrines im-

plicitly deny it over and over again. They insist,

without any real warrant at all from the Bible, that

baptism must be by immersion. They say also that

the Levitical code for foods (Lev. xi) must be ob-

served. Strictly speaking, all Seventh Day Adven-

tists are expected to be vegetarians, and on no ac-

count to take alcoholic drink or indulge in the use

of tobacco. Devotion to “Health Foods” is part of

their religion, and a condition for their translation

to the Millennial Kingdom.

Most important of all, the seventh day, Saturday,

is to be observed, and not Sunday. All Churches ex-

cept that of the seventh Day Adventists have been

deceived by Satan through the agency of the Papacy

into the observance of Sunday. All of them consti-

tute “Babylon,” and are rejected by God. But this

is particularly true of the Catholic Church, presided

over by “Antichrist” or the “Beast” in the person

of the Pope.

Needless to say, the Seventh Day Adventists

claim that they alone correctly understand the pro-

phecies, to which they give most attention and ac-

cording to which they say they are called by God to

give a last warning to the world.

JUDGMENT NOW

A basic doctrine of the Adventists is that the
second coming of Christ is imminent. Though Wil-

li



liam Miller was wrong in his expectations of what

would happen on October 22, 1844, he rightly calcu-

lated that the prophecy of Daniel referred to that

date.

What did happen, say the Adventists, was that

Christ then entered into the heavenly sanctuary to

begin the “Investigative Judgment’ of all mankind.

As soon as He has made Himself aware of all the

iniquities of each of the living and the dead—and
it may be at any moment now, for He has already

been engaged in the task for over a hundred years

—

He will come again to this world in all His majesty

and glory, the first resurrection will take place, and

the Millennium or a special period of a thousand

years will begin.

It must be noted here that, according to the Sev-

enth Day Adventists, man’s soul is not naturally im-

mortal. When a man dies, all consciousness ceases.

But the souls of men continue to exist in a kind of

coma, waiting for the resurrection. At the first

resurrection only Christ’s chosen ones will be raised

from the dead to have immortality conferred upon

them. These will then go to Heaven with Christ,

reigning with Him there and spending the thousand

years of the Millennium going through the records

and judging the wicked.

During these thousand years the world will be

in great distress, and Satan will be made to bear the

sins of the saved as a kind of scapegoat. After this

Millennium, all others will be raised from the dead,

the Final Judgment will take place, Satan and all

evil spirits and wicked human beings will be annihi-

12



lated (there’s no hell), the earth will be recondition-

ed, and the Holy City will descend from Heaven.

The world will then be the eternal home of the saved,

under the rule of Christ and of 144,000 Seventh Day

Adventists.

Such, in brief outline, is the Seventh Day Ad-

ventist system. With its every item it will be im-

possible to deal in this booklet. But let us take at

least some of its outstanding features.

On the sanctuary question we need not delay.

That there is any sanctuary in Heaven that needs

to be cleansed, that Christ is there engaged in in-

vestigating the records to discover who is worthy of

love and who of hatred, and that He entered upon

this task in 1844—all this is not only fiction without
a trace of Scriptural support, but also such utter

nonsense that no intelligent person could even be

expected to accept it. It is obviously an invention to

rescue William Miller’s prediction of the second

coming of Christ in 1844 from the consequences of

its failure.

IMMORTALITY OF MAN’S SOUL

When we turn to the nature of the human soul,

Mrs. White tells us that the souls of the dead are

quite unconscious, apparently existing in a state of

coma or trance. The doctrine of “consciousness in

death”—she declares—rests upon “the fundamental
error of natural immortality, a doctrine opposed to

the teaching of the Scriptures.”

But that the human soul is by nature immortal

happens to be the teaching of the very Scriptures

by which she claims to be guided ! When Christ said,

13



“Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not

able to kill the soul” (Matt, x, 28), He taught both

the difference between the material body and the

spiritual soul, and also the immunity of the latter

from the processes of death. And that the souls of

the departed are conscious is certainly stressed in

Christ’s parable of the rich man who died and who,

after death, was granted a vision of Lazarus in

Heaven and made the agonizing appeal, “Father

Abraham, have mercy on me!” (Luke, xvi, 24.)

Again, when Christ on Calvary said to the repentant

thief, “This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise”

(Luke xxiii, 43), the promise was one of conscious

happiness. So, too, when St. Paul wrote to the Philip-

pians of his desire to be dissolved and “to be with

Christ, a thing by far the better” (Phil., i, 23), his

words would be meaningless if death meant the laps-

ing of his soul into complete unconsciousness!

The Adventist doctrine that Satan and all evil

spirits and the souls of the wicked will be annihi-

lated at the Last Judgment is equally opposed to the

clear teaching of Holy Scripture. Christ warned men

to take the most drastic precautions and be prepared

to make any sacrifices in this life rather than “go

into hell, into unquenchable fire, where their worm

dieth not, and the fire is not extinguished” (Mark,

x, 42-43). And the end of the drama of the wicked

will be, “these shall go into everlasting punishment

;

but the just into life everlasting.” (Matt, xxv, 46.)

The one fate is just as interminable as the other!

THE MILLENNIUM

The Millennial views of the Seventh Day Ad-

14



ventists are based on a mistaken-literal interpre-

tation of the twentieth chapter of the Apocalypse.

There St. John speaks of a reign of Christ for “a

thousand years.”

In the early Church there were some who inter-

preted St. John’s words to mean that the power of

pagan Rome would be overthrown, to be followed by

a “Millennium,” or rule of the Saints with Christ

upon earth for a thousand years, during which time

the activities of Satan would be greatly restricted.

Then Satan would be permitted for a brief time to

organize the wicked for a final attack upon the

Saints, God Himself stepping in to end the conflict

by the Last Judgment.

But this literal interpretation is quite opposed

to the method the rest of the Book demands. St.

John’s language throughout is not literal, but alle-

gorical. The number “1000” must be regarded sym-

bolically, and not numerically, as signifying an in-

definitely long period. St. Augustine, in Book xx.

of his “City of God,” written in the Fourth Century,

refuted the early literalists, and gave the true ex-

planation of the Millennium. He declared that the

advent of Christ into this world in the first place

brought with it a grace more than sufficient to crip-

ple and defeat the work of Satan, and that the Mil-

lennium is the whole interval from that time till the

Last Judgment. To teach a literal Millennium is to

go against the voice of the Church of all the ages,

and to support from one apocalyptic passage what is

opposed to the general teaching of the Bible as a

whole. For in Sacred Scripture the second advent of

15



Christ is clearly predicted as coinciding with the

Last Judgment, the Church suffering till the end of

time and enjoying no pleasant interval of freedom

from trials for any period of a thousand years.

The reign of the Saints with Christ represents

the entire course of the Church’s existence as the

Kingdom of God on earth. That is the only Millennial

reign St. John had in mind. In spite of any appear-

ances to the contrary, God’s plans are being fulfilled,

and the will of Christ is really being carried out, so

that those who have made their wills one with His,

and love Him and live for Him, reign upon the earth

as He does.

St. Augustine’s explanation gave the death-blow

to Millennarian speculations, and the subject was

practically ignored until revived by the Anabaptists

in Germany during the Protestant reformation
;
and

it has continued as a delusion amongst many of the

smaller Protestant sects, including the Seventh Day

Adventists.

But a far greater delusion, and one which the

Seventh Day Adventists themselves regard as a mat-

ter of supreme importance, is the peculiar idea that

the Jewish Law of Sabbath observance is still bind-

ing upon Christians.

SABBATH OBSERVANCE

We have seen earlier that the original Adven-
tists, as founded by William Miller, had no idea that

the observance of Sunday was in any way sinful. But

some of his followers had been associated with the

Seventh Day Baptists, who had derived the custom

of observing Saturday from the Anabaptists in Ger-

16



many. In 1884 a group of Adventists, therefore,

adopted the Seventh day Baptist teaching on the

subject, and as we have seen, were excluded from

the newly-formed Adventist Church, which resulted

from the Conference at Albany, N. Y., in 1845.

The dissident group of Adventists, in their advo-

cacy of Saturday, quoted the account of creation in

Genesis, the appointment of the Sabbath by God in

honor of His creative work, the commandment, “Re-

member that thou keep holy the Sabbath day,” and

the message of the third angel, “Here is the patience

of the saints : here are they that keep the command-

ments of God and the faith of Jesus.” (Rev. xiv, 12.)

They declared that the expression, “the command-

ments of God,” included that of the Jewish Sabbath

every bit as much as any of the others.

Mrs. Ellen G. White affiliated herself with this

group, and conveniently had her vision, in which

she claimed to have had revealed to her that observ-

ance of the Jewish Sabbath is the crucial thing that

makes a person a Christian, and that all observers

of Sunday are apostates, deceived by-Antichrist.

She declared Saturday observance to be essential

to salvation. The Mosaic Law binds for all time.

“God is eternally the same,” she argued. Does He

not say, in Psalm 89, 34, “My covenant I will not

break, nor alter the thing that has gone out of My
lips” ? She did not advert to the fact that, although

God is eternally the same, things are not necessarily

willed by Him to be eternally the same! He may

eternally will that people who are faithful will in-

herit blessings, but forfeit them if they fail in their

17



fidelity. And she quite overlooked the prediction,

“Behold the days shall come, said the Lord, and I

will make a new covenant with the house of Israel,

and with the house of Juda; not according to the

covenant which I made with their fathers in the day

that I took them by the hand to bring them out of

the land of Egypt; the covenant which they made

void” (Jer. xxxi, 31-32).

NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING
Appealing to the New Testament, Mrs. White

denied that any record can be found there indicat-

ing a distinct command of God that Sunday should

be substituted for Saturday (in which she happened

to be right), and declared that Antichrist, operating

through the Papacy, and with the assistance of the

Roman Emperor, Constantine, in 321 A.D., was re-

sponsible for the change (in which she was as wrong

as she could possibly be).

Let us admit at once that if the New Testament

insists anywhere that Christians are obliged to ob-

serve Saturday, then the Catholic Church is un-

doubtedly in error
;
though that would not make the

Seventh Day Adventists right as a Church, with all

their other omissions and violations of New Testa-

ment teachings, both in doctrine and practice.

But the New Testament nowhere declares that

followers of Christ are obliged to observe the Jewish

Sabbath. In fact, it teaches the abrogation of the

Jewish Dispensation in favor of the New Law es-

tablished by Christ.

Considerable confusion exists in the minds of a

multitude of persons regarding the change of the

18



sabbath-day. It is often due to failure to realize

that when God said: “REMEMBER THE SAB-
BATH-DAY, TO KEEP IT HOLY” (Ex. 20), He did
not say keep SATURDAY holy. Sabbath, Shabbath
in Hebrew, means, REST, while Yomha-Shabbath

means Day of Rest, and not Saturday, hence Sab-

bath is not a specific day be it the seventh or the

first.

(Read the excellent expose of this Adventist

blunder in What Say You by Goldstein, p. 274,

Radio Replies Press.)

The Book of Exodus makes it very clear that the

observance of the Sabbath was a special prescription

for the Jews only, and that it was inseparably con-

nected with the Old Covenant. But Christians live

under the New Testament or New Covenant, which

insists that those who have accepted the full and

perfect revelation and grace of Christ are no longer

bound by the laws and customs of the Jews. Thus

St. Paul, speaking of the higher ideals of the Chris-

tian religion as compared with the Law “graven

with letters upon stones,” declares, “if that which is

done away was glorious, much more that which re-

maineth is in glory” (II Cor. iii, 7-11).

Mrs. White has to agree that Our Lord abolished

the ancient “Jewish Law,” but she says that this

refers to the “ceremonial” or ritualistic elements of

the “Law,” not to the moral law found in the Ten

Commandments. But the fact is that, with the insti-

tution of His own Church by the Messiah, the whole

of the Jewish dispensation lapsed, including all ten

commandments viewed as part of that dispensation.

19



If Christians are bound to observe the basic moral

principles taught in the Ten Commandments, it is

not because they are contained in the Decalogue,

but because they are of their very nature part of the

natural moral law—a natural law which is perma-
nently binding in any case. But even granted Mrs.

White’s distinction, her position is not improved, for

Jewish Sabbath observance was patently “cere-

monial” in character.

ATTITUDE OF CHRIST

“But,” urge Seventh Day Adventists, “Jesus

Himself observed the Jewish Sabbath.” Of course

He did. He purposely complied with all the require-

ments of the preparatory Old Law prior to complet-

ing and perfecting it by the fullness of His own new

revelation and dispensation. But He Himself pre-

pared the way for the abolition of the Jewish Sab-

bath.

He defended His disciples when the Jews accused

them of not observing the Sabbath strictly in the

traditional sense, adding, “For the son of man is

Lord even of the Sabbath” (Matt, xii, 1-8). He re-

buked a too severe interpretation of the Sabbath

law. (Luke, xiii, 10-16; xiv, 1-5; John v, 9-18; vii,

22.) He showed His authority to do as He pleased

with the Sabbath (Mark ii, 27-28.)

Nowhere, moreover, did He reassert the obliga-

tion of observing the Jewish Sabbath. Never did He

quote this Jewish Law. In enumerating the com-

mandments to the rich young man who asked what

must be done for salvation, He omitted all reference

to it (Mark x, 19).

20



THE EARLY CHURCH

The Apostles certainly understood the mind of

Christ on the subject, and the account of the Coun-

cil of Jerusalem in Acts xv shows that they had no

intention of imposing the obligation of the Jewish

Sabbath on Gentile converts.

It is true that Jewish converts, from sheer force

of custom, continued to observe the Jewish day.

They were free to do so. But they were not obliged

to do so. And when some of them began to speak of

obligation in this matter and showed signs of wish-

ing to impose it on others, St. Paul at once denounc-

ed such Judaizing tendencies. Again and again he

stressed the fact that Christians are not under the

Jewish Law but under grace (Rom., vi, 14) ; he

warned the Galatians that a return to the Jewish

Law on their part would render his work among

them in vain (Gal., iv, 11) ; and he told the Colos-

sians to pay no attention to those who blamed them

for not observing Jewish Sabbaths (Col., ii, 16).

Yet Mrs. White comes forward with a revival of the

first century Judaism St. Paul so strongly condemn-

ed! D. M. Canright, in his book “Seventh Day Ad-

ventism Renounced,” speaking of their Jewish legal-

ism, says of the Seventh Day Adventists, “Their

constant theme is law, law, law. They preach it ten

times as much as they preach Christ.”

But if Christians are not obliged to observe the

Jewish Sabbath, what day were they obliged to ob-

serve as a day of rest ? The answer is—no particular
day. It is true that, from the very beginning, they

gave special honor to the first day of the week.

21



Christ had risen from the dead, thus completing the

work of redemption, on the first day of the week;

He had chosen the first day of the week for His ap-

pearances to the Apostles; and fifty days after His

resurrection He had sent the Holy Ghost upon them

on the first day of the week. What wonder that the

early Christians held that day in particular esteem

!

So we read, in Acts, xx, 7, “ On the first day of the

week, when we were assembled to break bread.” To

the Corinthians, St. Paul wrote that collections were

to be made amongst them when they met “on the

first day of the week” (I Cor., xvi, 2). And St. John,

in the Apocalypse, referred to the first day of the

week as “the Lord’s Day” (Rev., i, 10).

But the first Christians did not regard the first

day of the week as a substitute for the Jewish Sab-

bath. There was no question of transferring Jewish

obligations from one day to another. The obligation

of the Jewish Sabbath had lapsed, even as the Old

Law generally had ceased to oblige. They did not

regard it as necessary to abstain from secular pur-

suits on the first day of the week. They engaged in

business as usual. But from motives of devotion

they began that day by meeting for the celebration

of the Eucharist which Christ had left to them as

His last legacy and command on the eve of His cruci-

fixion and death.

LAW FOR CHRISTIANS

That custom became the Christian tradition. As

early as 107 A.D., St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch,

could write, “If we still live according to the Jewish

observances, we confess that we do not accept the

22



grace of Christ. Those who once lived according to

the Old Law have come to a new hope, no longer ob-

serving the Jewish Sabbath, but the Lord’s Day on

which our Life rose from the dead.” St. Justin

Martyr, who died in 167 A.D., wrote, “On Sunday

we meet to celebrate the Lord’s Supper and read the

Gospels and Sacred Scriptures, the first day on

which God changed darkness, and made the world,

and on which Christ rose from the dead.”

But no Christians at that time dreamed of relat-

ing the observance of the Lord’s Day to the Deca-

logue, nor of identifying it with the Jewish Sabbath.

In the year 321 A.D., the Roman Emperor Con-

stantine decreed that the first day of the week, Sun-

day, was to be observed as a civic day of rest from

ordinary work and business. That did not impose

any obligations of religious observance upon Chris-

tians. But in 336 A.D., the Catholic Church, at the

Council of Laodicea, made the ecclesiastical law

obliging the faithful to attend Mass and to abstain

from servile works on Sundays. And all Christians

accepted that law in virtue of the divine authority

Christ gave to His Church when He said, “Whatso-

ever you bind upon earth shall be bound also in

Heaven; and whatsoever you loose upon earth shall

be loosed also in Heaven” (Matt., xviii, 18)

.

ADVENTIST POSITION

What does all this mean? It means that the Sev-

enth Day Adventists are wrong in saying that the

Jewish Sabbath still obliges, for there is clear au-

thority in the Bible for its abrogation.

Seventh Day Adventists are right, however, in

23



accusing other Protestants of inconsistency who

speak of any obligation of Sunday observance whilst

rejecting the authority of the Catholic Church. It is

not that there is no authority in the Bible for Sun-

day observance. But there is no direct authority

for it as an obligation. The only direct authority for

the obligation of Sunday, is that of the Catholic

Church
;
but that involves the authority of the Bible

at least indirectly in so far as the Bible itself teaches

clearly that the Catholic Church is directly author-

ized by Christ to legislate in His name.

Seventh Day Adventists, however, rather than

accept the authority of the Catholic Church, prefer

to accept that of Mrs. Ellen G. White.

Christ had said, “I will build my Church, and

the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt.,

xvi, 18). To His Church He had made the promise,

“I will be with you all days even till the end of the

world” (Matt., xxviii, 20). Yet George Burnside, an

Adventist evangelist, in his lecture, “Who claims to

have changed the Sabbath?” says, “The Apostles

were scarcely cold in their graves ere apostacy be-

gan to sweep into the Church.” According to Mrs.

White, the gates of hell did prevail against the

Church, Christ did not fulfill His promise of protec-

tion, and all Christendom fell into error. After over

1800 years, Mrs. Ellen G. White had to be called

upon in America to rectify the work of Christ, and

upon her the true Church has at last been built, that

of the Seventh Day Adventists ! Who can believe it ?

HATRED OF ROME

From all that has been said, it can easily be

24



guessed that prejudice against the Catholic Church

and a consuming hatred of the Pope are part of the

religion of the Seventh Day Adventists. Side by side

with their efforts to restore the Sabbath observance

of the ancient Jewish Law go fierce denunciations

of the Papacy for having, as they say, changed the

Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the

week.

All of the colorful epithets used of Antichrist

and of his pagan kingdom which Adventists can find

in the Book of Revelation are applied to the Catholic

Church. She is the “Scarlet Woman,” the “Harlot,”

and “Babylon the Great.” To her they apply the

words of St. John, “Upon her forehead was a name

written : Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of

Harlots and abominations of the earth” (Rev., xvii,

5). And to her members they address the appeal,

“Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par-
takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her

plagues” (Rev., xviii, 4).

This is not an exaggeration of the Adventist at-

titude towards the Catholic Church. In 1929 Alonzo

L. Baker, associate editor of the “Signs of the

Times” in California, published a book entitled “The

Pope King Again,” and sub-titled “Is the Deadly

Wound Healing?” In it he uses these gentle expres-

sions : “The papal system is the very antithesis of

Christianity, and the Pope is indeed the Antichrist”

(p. 83). “The Pope of Rome opposeth and exalteth

himself above all that is called God” (p. 87). “The

Roman Catholic Mass is nothing more than idolatry

of a wafer, and a means of obscuring the true place

25



of Christ” (p. 96). “Rome attempts to destroy the

very essence of Christianity” (p. 98). “The vital

question at issue,” he writes, “is one of loyalty to

Jesus Christ, or to the man on the Tiber who de-

clares he holds the place of God on earth” (p. 109).

And again, “In the Day of Judgment there will be

two classes only on the earth—those who have wor-
shipped the beast, and those who have gotten the

victory over the beast. The first will go to eternal

destruction with the beast; the others will receive

eternal salvation at the hands of Jesus Christ”

(p. 109).

It seems incredible that there are people who can

think and speak in such a way in these days. Yet

these are not isolated utterances. Mr. George Burn-

side, an American Seventh Day Adventist evangel-

ist, lecturing in New Zealand in 1949, said in an ap-

peal to Protestants to cease observing Sunday and

to become Seventh Day Adventists, “You can see it

is more than a question of days; it is a matter of

obedience to Christ or obedience to Antichrist.

Christ says the Sabbath is His ‘Sign.’ It is the Union

Jack of Jesus Christ. Flags mean a great deal to-

day. It is time you stepped out from underneath the

Babylonian flag of apostasy, and stood for Christ

under His bloodstained banner.”

Nowhere did Christ ever say that the Sabbath is

His “Sign.” And to become a Seventh Day Adven-

tist would not be obedience to Him but to Mrs. Ellen

G. White! Understanding of Scripture, however,

and knowledge of history, and the demands of rea-

son seem utterly foreign to Seventh Day Adventists.

26



“THE PAPAL BEAST”

One of their most treasured “proofs” that the

Pope is the “Beast” is drawn from the words of St.

John: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath under-

standing count the number of the. beast; for it is the

number of a man; and his number is Six Hundred

Three Score and Six.” (Rev., xiii, 18).

Overlooking the warning that wisdom and under-

standing are required, Seventh Day Adventists rush

in where angels fear to tread. “The Pope,” they

say, “has engraved on his Tiara his official title,

“Vicarius Filii Dei,” Latin for “Vicar of the Son of

God.” Now some of the letters of the Latin alphabet

have numerical equivalents. Taking the title

“Vicarius Filii Dei,” this is what we get

:

Adventist Reckoning

VICarIVs fILII Del
5 1 100 1 5 1 50 1 1 500 1

“ 666

Correct Reckoning

VICarIVs fILII Del
94 4 4911 500 1 = 650

U = V, 5, in Roman numerals.

The ingenious numeral system by which the Sev-

enth Day Adventists endeavor to prove that the

Pope is the “beast,” the 666 in the Book of Revela-

tion, is a boomerang, for it recoils on to the “Seer,”

the “Inspired Prophetess,” upon whose “visions,”

“revelations,” and “testimonies” Seventh Day Ad-

ventism is based. The Mother of that Sabbatarian

sect is Ellen Gould White, and the numerical value

27



of her name is exactly 666 according to Seventh Day

Adventist mode of reckoning:

U = V, 5; W = two V’s = 10 in Roman numerals.
St. John wrote in Greek, and certainly had not

the numerical equivalents of the Latin alphabet in

mind. There is no justification whatever for the

transition to Latin lettering. Also, there is no in-

scription at all on the Papal Tiara. Furthermore, the

title “Vicarius Filii Dei” is not, never has been, and

never will be a title, official or otherwise, of the

Pope. That title was invented by some Protestant

genius because it worked out in the way required

for the sake of the argument he thought he could

base upon it. But what is the use of an argument

which starts off from a bit of fantastic guesswork

which happens to be quite wrong? Not a reputable

scholar in the world would dream of incorporating

such rubbish in a commentary on Sacred Scripture.

Most of such scholars interpret the number of

the beast, 666, as a cryptic reference to the pagan

Emperor Nero. It certainly cannot refer to the Pope.

For whatever be the true interpretation of this

mystical number, it is the number of “a man,” and

undoubtedly indicates some one individual person.

If it referred to a particular Pope, it could refer to

none of the others. To which Pope will people refer

it ? To a past Pope ? Then he is dead and gone
;
and

we need not worry about him.

However, the number does not refer to any of

Ellen

e L L e n

50 50

Gould

g o V L D
5 50 500

White

white
10 1 = 666

28



the Popes at all. In his Commentary on the Book

of Revelation in the Cambridge Bible Series, an

Anglican scholar, the Rev. W. H. Simcox, M.A.,

says, “It is most unjust and unreasonable, in fact,

hardly less than blasphemy, to treat the Papacy as

the champion and representative of Antichrist. In

fact, the identification of the Papacy with Anti-

christ admits of direct refutation. ‘He is Antichrist,’

says St. John, ‘who denieth the Father and the Son.’

He defines the spirit of Antichrist as the ‘spirit that

confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the

flesh.’ Now, whatever the errors of the Papacy and

of the Roman Church, it is certain that no Pope has

ever denied the truth of the doctrines of the Trinity

and of the Incarnation” (p. 57).

Those words of a Cambridge scholar who ob-

viously had no leanings towards Rome, yet who

rejects absolutely charges prompted by ignorance

and prejudice, should suffice for any thinking person.

BEHIND THE TIMES

Seventh Day Adventists speak much of the

“Signs of the Times”; but more than almost any

other non-Catholic denomination they are behind the

times.

It is wonderful, of course, what people can find

in the Bible, if they decide beforehand what they

want to find there. One doesn’t need training and

scholarship for that. One needs only unlimited

credulity. But this much is certain. All who have

training and scholarship unanimously declare that

what the Seventh Day Adventists claim to find in

the Bible is not really there, whilst an immense

29



amount of teaching that is there they ignore and

contradict.

Their efforts to reimpose Jewish observances are

but a reflection of the Judaizing tendencies among

a few of the early Jewish converts to the Church

which earned the reproach from St. Paul, “0 sense-

less Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you

should not obey the truth?” (Gal., iii, I). St. Paul

would certainly rank the followers of Mrs. Ellen G.

White amongst the “bewitched.” Their attitude

towards the Papacy, with all their “Beast” nonsense,

is evidence enough for that.

It has been no pleasure, in writing this booklet,

to dwell upon the bitterly anti-Catholic position the

Seventh Day Adventists have been led by their re-

ligion to adopt. Charity begets charity, whilst hatred

engenders hatred. To read of their prejudice and

animosity can only make it more difficult for Catho-

lics to be patient with them, though all Catholics

realize that it is still their duty to manifest nothing

but charity towards the persons even of the pro-

fessed enemies of their religion. Positive support of

the business enterprises established by the Seventh

Day Adventists, the profits of which are devoted to

the further propagation of attacks upon the Catholic

Church, is, however, another matter. That Seventh

Day Adventists cannot reasonably expect of Catho-

lics, even though they seek it.

But why do they feel impelled to continue their

campaign against the Catholic Church, and their

vilification of the Catholic religion? If they them-

selves wish to observe Saturday instead of Sunday,

30



even though they are mistaken, they give others no

cause for complaint. If they preach the love of God,

ideals of Christian virtue, and goodwill and charity

towards their neighbors, no one will object. But

surely it is not too much to ask that they should

cease to vilify the religion of others, spreading the

poison of prejudice and fostering bigotry and anti-

Catholic bitterness.

As a matter of fact, no sane and balanced person

speaks of the Catholic Church today as do the Sev-

enth Day Adventists. Prejudice and bigotry are

dying. A wiser outlook is beginning to prevail.
Thus, writing in the London “Times,” of November

10, 1949, the Anglican Bishop Cecil J. Wood, of Mal-

vern, Worcestershire, said:

“The primacy of the Roman Church is readily

acknowledged as a matter of history. First in the

early centuries and then in these later days the

Roman Church has maintained the ‘faith once de-

livered to the saints’ without compromise with

changing thought. . . . Also it has maintained stan-

dards of morality in face of attempts to lower them.

Most Christians are sincerely thankful for this

whether they are members of the Roman Catholic

Communion or not. The disastrous effect of the

lowering of moral standards and of the manifold

private judgments has become clear. There is a

widespread desire, and a new sincerity in the desire,

that the way may be opened for renewal of com-

munion between Rome and England.”

Those words indicate a new and better tendency.

But if, as Bishop Wood declares, the Catholic Church

31



has maintained through all the centuries the “faith

once delivered to the saints,” the implication is sure-

ly that the road to the full Christian truth is an ac-

tual return to the Catholic Church which the Protes-

tant reformers should never have left in the first

place. That suggestion, however—which non-Catho-
lic readers should not dismiss too easily—leads be-
yond the scope of this booklet. Its purpose has been

to show that the full Christian truth is not to be

found in Seventh Day Adventism, and that one can-

not be both a follower of Mrs. Ellen G. White and at

the same time a genuine follower of Christ.

32



KNIGHT OF OUR LADY QUEEN OF THE SKIES 15c

SPIRITUAL LESSONS FROM THE PASSION 25c

SHADE OF HIS HAND The Why Of Suffering 15c

QUIZZES ON SECRET SOCIETIES 15c

QUIZZES ON EPISCOPALIAN AND ANGLICAN CHURCHES 15c

QUIZZES ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 15c

SEVENTH DAY ADVENTISTS 15c THE LUTHERANS 15c

THE BAPTISTS 15c THE PRESBYTERIANS 15c

THE METHODISTS 15c THE CONGREGATIONALISTS 15c

MSGR. SALLAWAY’S 1st EPISTLE TO THE UNITARIANS 10c

MSGR. SALLAWAY’S 2nd EPISTLE TO THE UNITARIANS 10c

WHY ANGLICAN (EPISCOPALIAN) ORDERS ARE INVALID 15c

THE EPISCOPALIANS 15c the ADVENTISTS 15c

NON-CATHOLIC DENOMINATIONS 15c

NEW LIGHT ON MARTIN LUTHER 15c

THE JEHOVAH WITNESSES 15c

THE ROSICRUCIANS 15c THE MORMONS 15c

COMPLETE EXPOSURE OF RUSSIAN COMMUNISM 50c

JEWISH PROBLEMS 15c ANTI-SEMITISM 15c

THE MOSAIC MANIFESTO 50c

FRANK YOUTH QUIZZES ON SEX 15c WAR QUIZZES 15c

CLEAN LOVE IN COURTSHIP 25c

WHY SQUANDER ILLNESS 20c DELUXE $2.00

THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND THE JEWS 10c

GUIDE POST TO INDUSTRIAL PEACE 10c

WHY A TEACHING SISTER 15c WHY A HOSPITAL SISTER 15c

WHY A MISSION SISTER 15c

TO BE A PRIEST 15c WHY A RELIGIOUS BROTHER 15c

VAN-STORY OF AN AMERICAN SEMINARIAN 15c

SIX PRE-MARRIAGE INSTRUCTIONS 15c

CATHOLIC AND NON-CATHOLIC INSTRUCTION
CARD SERIES 25c, BOUND FORM $1.00

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOD 10c

SIX COMMANDMENTS OF CHURCH 5c

INSTRUCTOR S MANUAL, BOUND $1.50



OUR LADY AND DAYLIGHT SAVING 15c

THEY & GOD—S. HEART RADIO PROGRAM CHATS 15c

GOD BLESS OUR HOME—S. HEART RADIO PROGRAM
CHATS 15c

WHAT IS THE CATHOLIC FAITH ANYWAY 20c

QUIZZES ON HOSPITAL ETHICS 25c

R.N. MEANS REAL NURSE 15c

MAKING MARRIAGE CLICK 10c

MUSIC OF IRELAND 20c MUSIC OF THE MASS 25c

THREE HOURS AND ALL FRIDAYS OF THE YEAR 25c

DEVOTIONS TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN 15c. DELUXE $2.00

JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 15c

FIRST FRIDAY AND JUNE DEVOTIONS 15c

THE SACRED HEART AND SAINT MARGARET MARY 15c

WAY OF THE CROSS FOR ADULTS 10c

WAY OF THE CROSS FOR CHILDREN 15c

FORTY HOURS FOR PRIEST AND PEOPLE 25c

FUNERAL MASS AND BURIAL SERVICE 35c

THE MARRIAGE SERVICE and NUPTIAL MASS 15c

THE PARACLETE. TWO NOVENAS TO THE HOLY GHOST 15c

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BAPTIZING INFANTS 5c

THIS WAY TO THE TRUE CHURCH 15c

WHY YOU SHOULD BE A CATHOLIC 15c

I MUST OBEY THE CHURCH 15c

CHATS WITH LITTLE CHILDREN 15c

OUR LADY OF FATIMA 15c

A BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF THE FIVE KINDS OF LAWS 15c

WHAT PARENTS SHOULD TELL THEIR LITTLE
ONES ON SEX 15c

COMMUNION CRUSADE 35c

CHARTS 34x22 INCHES

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH $1.00

RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF CHRISTENDOM. $1.00

For copies address

FATHERS RUMBLE & CARTY

Radio Replies Press

Saint Paul 1, Minn., U.S.A.