CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: The Rise of Sabbatarian Adventism

The seventeenth-century revival of the seventh-day Sabbath centered chiefly in England, touched Continental Europe slightly, and was projected into the New World. And we have seen how, in North America, agitation over the seventh-day Sabbath appeared first in the Colonial Era, and then in the early National period, and this among men of British as well as German background. And now, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, simultaneously in Argentina and Scotland, new Sabbatarian voices break forth early in the great revival of prophetic exposition, which appeared at the same time in the different countries of Christendom. Thus the Sabbath message was brought out in the connection with the Old World Advent Awakening (traced in Prophetic Faith, Volume III, Part 2), and in the New World Second Advent Movement which has just been compassed in this present volume.PFF4 941.1

These two doctrines combined—the second advent and the Sabbath—were proclaimed, as we have noted at length, by two widely separated pioneer advent heralds—Francisco Ramos Mexia, prominent Argentine patriot (with a Scottish Protestant background on his mother’s side), and Presbyterian James A. Begg, substantial bookseller, printer, and author of Glasgow, Scotland. Within a few years of each other they began to combine emphasis on the binding obligation of an unchanged seventh-day Sabbath with the heralding of the imminent second advent, planting both doctrines squarely on the foundation of Bible prophecy. At the same time there was a distinct stirring among the now long-established Seventh Day Baptists, with designated days of fasting and prayer in 1843 and 1844, that God would raise up friends in behalf of His downtrodden Sabbath.PFF4 941.2

Meantime, Methodist Rachel Oakes began the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath and joined the Seventh Day Baptists. She then brought the Sabbath to Washington, New Hampshire, center of a devout Adventist group, where it was accepted by two clergymen. The first was the Methodist-Adventist circuit rider, Frederick Wheeler, in the spring of 1844. He, in turn, brought it in August of that year to Free-will Baptist-Adventist Thomas M. Preble.PFF4 942.1

With this setting we are now prepared to trace the beginning of a new combination and emphasis, destined to grow to surprising proportions-Sabbatarian Adventism, of which Ramos Mexia and Begg were clearly nineteenth-century forerunners. Again the international aspect of the new prophetic emphasis on the Sabbath revival appears, just as it has been the case all the way along on other points through the centuries. Note first the Seventh Day Baptist endeavors and Protestant reactions around 1843-1844.PFF4 942.2