D. M. CANRIGHT

Foremost among those who polemicized against the church’s position on the sanctuary in the 19th century was Dudley M. Canright, who vacillated in and out of the Adventist community for years. In his bitter Seventh-day Adventism Renounced he wrote:

Seventh-day Adventists make everything turn upon their view of the sanctuary. It is vital with them. If they are wrong on this, their whole theory breaks down. The reader should, therefore, study this subject carefully. They dwell upon it constantly, and affirm that they are the only ones in all Christendom who have the light on the subject. 1. Do the Adventists know that they are right about this question?

No. 2. If this subject is as plain and as important as they say it is, it is strange that nobody ever found it out before.

3. After being perfectly familiar with their view of it, and knowing all their arguments, I feel sure they are mistaken about it. [p. 117]

1. God sent the Adventists with a last solemn message to earth upon which the destiny of the church and the world depended. The very first thing they did was to get the wrong year, ’43 instead of ’44. Then, when they got that fixed up, instead of announcing the real event to take place, the change in Christ’s work in the sanctuary in heaven, 31 they said He was to come to earth, raise the dead, and burn the world, when nothing of the kind was to occur!

2. Not one in fifty of the original Adventists ever found out the real mistake they had made. Not even one of the leading Adventists, like Miller, Himes, Litch, etc., ever accepted this sanctuary explanation. Only a mere handful out of the great mass of 1844 Adventists found out the truth about the sanctuary, and these were men of no note in Miller’s work.

3. Miller himself opposed the Seventh-day Adventists’ move, rejecting. the idea of the sanctuary, the Sabbath, and the third angel’s message. What a hopeless tangle that Advent work was! No wonder people rejected it. What if Moses had opposed Joshua, and John the Baptist had opposed Christ? Miller was sent to do a work, got it wrong, and then opposed those who did finally get it right!

4. Instead of receiving the “light” on the sanctuary question from Mrs. White’s visions, or from heaven, they got it from O. R. L. Crosier. But he soon gave it all up as an error, and has opposed the Seventh-day Adventists for many years. It looks badly for a theory when its very authors renounce it.

5. Seventh-day Adventists at first adopted the sanctuary theory to prove that the door of mercy was shut in 1844, a theory which Mrs. White and all of them held at that time. Here is my proof on this point: Ann Arbor, Mich., Dec. 1,1887 Elder D. M. Canright: “I kept the seventh day nearly a year, about 1848. In 1846,1 explained the idea of the sanctuary in an article in an extra double number of the Day Star, Cincinnati, O. The object of that article was to support the theory that the door of mercy was shut, a theory which I and nearly all Adventists who had adopted William Miller’s views, held from 1844 to 1848. Yes, I know that Ellen G. Harmon now Mrs. White held the hut door theory at that time.”

Truly yours, O. R. L. Crosier

Now listen to Mrs. White: “Topsham, Me., April 21, 1847.

. . . The Lord showed me in vision more than one year ago, that BrotherCrosier had the truelight on the cleansing of the sanctuary, etc., and that it was His will that Bro C. should write out the view which he gave us in the Day Star (extra), Feb. 7,1846. I feel fully authorized by the Lord to recommend that extra to every saint. E. G. White in “A Word to the Little Flock,” pages 11, 12. Here you have the origin and object of that sanctuary theory. Before me lies “The Present Truth,” Vol. I, No. 5, Dec. 1849, by James White. “The Shut Door Explained,” is the leading article, In which it is argued from the type Leviticus. 16:17, that when the high priest entered the Most Holy there could be no more pardon for sin. “On this day of atonement He is a high priest for those only whose names are inscribed on the breast plate of judgment,” p. 44. No more salvation for sinners, Is what their sanctuary theory was then used to prove. The whole volume is full of this idea.

6. Their argument from the type on this point was right; in the type no sin could be confessed and conveyed into the sanctuary after the high priest entered theMost Holy. Leviticus. 4:1-7; 16:17, 23, 24. So if this was a type of the entrance of Christ into the Most Holy in heaven in 1844, then truly the door of mercy did close there, and all sinners are lost.

7. No work whatever was to be done on the Day of Atonement, or day when the sanctuary was cleansed. Leviticus. 23:27-32. The law was very strict. If the Advent argument on the sanctuary is correct and the Day of Atonement began in 1844, then they ought not to have worked a day since. Hence, many Adventists after 1844 held that it was a sin to work; but time starved them out, and they had to go at it again.

8. Finally, being compelled to abandon the position that the door of mercy was entirely shut against sinners in 1844, they next taught that only those could be saved who knew of the change which Christ made in the sanctuary in Heaven in 1844. [pp. 118-120] After thoroughly investigating the whole subject of the sanctuary, I feel sure that they are in a great error on that point.

1. God’s throne was always in the Most Holy place of the sanctuary,between the cherubim, over the ark, never once in the Holy place. For proof on this point see Leviticus. 16:2; Numbers. 7:89; I Sam. 4:4; 2 Kings 19:15. Smith argues that God’s throne was sometimes in the holy place, and refers to Ex. 33:9. But here the Lord appeared outside the tabernacle, and not in the Holy place at all. So his text fails him.

2. When Jesus ascended to Heaven, eighteen hundred years ago, He went directly to the right hand of God and sat down on His throne. Heb. 8:1. Hence, He must have entered the most Holy then, instead of in 1844.

3. “Within the veil” is in the most Holy place. “And thou shalt hang up the veil under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony: and the veil shall divide unto you between the Holy place and the most Holy.” Ex. 26:33. Also see Leviticus. 16:2, 12, 13. None can fail to see that “within the veil” is in the most Holy place where the ark was. This is just where Jesus went eighteen hundred years ago. Proof: “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus made a high priest for ever.” Heb. 6:19, 20. As the high priest went “within the veil,” so Jesus, our high priest, went “within the veil,” into the most Holy place, to the right hand of God and sat down on His throne. Nothing could be more plainly stated. This upsets the whole Advent theory of 1844. For further proof see Ex. 27:21; 30:6; 40:22-26; Leviticus. 4:16, 17; 16:15; 24:3; Numbers. 18:7; Matt. 27:51.

4. “Before the throne,” Rev. 8:3. Elder Smith asserts that “the throne of God was in the first apartment of the sanctuary,” because it is said that the seven lamps and the golden altar were “before the throne,” Rev. 4:5; 8:3. It is a desperate cause which seizes upon such proof. The same argument would prove that the ark and God’s throne were always in the first apartment of the earthly sanctuary, which we know to be false. As there was only a veil which divided the holy from the most holy, where God’s throne was, things in the holy place were said to be “before the Lord,” as they were so near to the throne, which was just behind the curtain. Proof: Ex. 27:20, 21; 30:6-8; 40:23-25; Leviticus. 4:6, 15-18. Even outside of the tabernacle entirely, where the beasts were killed, was “before the Lord,” as Leviticus. 4:15 shows. Abraham walked “before the Lord,” Genesis. 24:40, yet he was on earth, and the Lord was in heaven.

5. Not a single text can be found in all the Bible where the ark and cherubim and throne were in the holy place of the earthly sanctuary, the type; yet in the antitype they have the throne of God in the holy place, not on some special occasion, but all the time for 1800 years, just contrary to the type! [pp. 121-123] (13)

In his later Life of Mrs. E. G. White, Canright’s chief protest against the Adventist position was the charge that “in this theory the atonement did not take place until over eighteen hundred years after Jesus died on the cross!” (p. 101) He then led into the shut door thus:

In Crosier’s theory it was held that the work in the first apartment of the earthly sanctuary was for “forgiveness of sins” only; hence, when the work in the first apartment of the heavenly sanctuary closed (Oct. 22, 1844), there ended forgiveness of sins for all the world! Probation for sinners ended there! So, after 1844, Christ’s work of atonement in the Most Holy Place was for saints only!

Mr. Crosier states that the object of this article on the sanctuary was to prove that probation ended in 1844, and Mrs. White endorsed it for that reason . (14) It should be pointed out that while Crosier in the 19th century affirmed that his historic article was written to support the shut door concept, he later denied that it supported that idea. James White agreed with the latter claim. (15)