Chapter 72—February, 1851

A Convert to the Sabbath and Shut Door Writes of His Experience. 

From “a letter written by a Second Advent brother to his son,” we quote: SDD 48.4

I have, from the presentation of truth, embraced the seventh-day Sabbath, and the shut door, as being my last refuge in this dark and gloomy day. I am well aware that this news may be astonishing to you, as you were well acquainted with my former views, and scriptural objections to this faith. But do not throw by the letter and refuse to read, and call your father a fanatic. Read a few of the many reasons that have led me to this change of views, with prayerful attention. 

The embracing these truths has opened a light upon the book of Revelation, and on the Types (so freely used in proclaiming the Midnight Cry), as I have never seen before. I now feel that I am on the track of prophecy, and that the coming of the Lord is near. This to me is no small source of comfort, to have evidence on which I can rest that this state of trial is soon to end. My time and your patience might be exhausted, were I to undertake to bring to your view the whole subject connected with the Shut Door. Suffice it to say, it does not in my opinion, exclude all conversion. But it does exclude those who have willfully rejected all these Messages. I believe that the names recorded in the Lamb’s Book of Life, were brought in at the tenth day of seventh month. That he then bore in their names before the Father, as the antitype of the “Breastplate of Judgment.” Exodus 28:15; Exodus 39:8. Read the passages in their connection, and if you will read from Ex. xxiv, to chap. xl, you will see with what exactness God has had his Sanctuary made, and all that pertains to it. Were these things recorded with such precision for the Jews only? Since I began this, I have got the small tract on the Sanctuary, and Shut Door, which I will send you. Read it with attention, it will give you much light on the cleansing of the Sanctuary.—Review and Herald, vol. 1, no. 6 (February, 1851), pp. 46-47.