Cook, John Ball (1803–1888)

John Ball Cook was a Baptist turned Millerite minister from Middletown, Connecticut. Later he moved west and was the most well-known and most widely traveled Advent lecturer from 1843 to 1846 in the midwestern (the central region that includes Missouri, Iowa, Michigan, and Illinois) United States. He preached the Second Advent as far west as St. Louis, Missouri. Cook was instrumental in popularizing the practice of foot washing among Millerites. By early 1846 he and T. M. Preble (1810-1907) were the first two Millerite ministers who for a time accepted the seventh-day Sabbath.

Background and Millerite Beliefs

John was born December 17, 1803, in Newark, New Jersey, to Peter (1767-1841) and Lydia née Ball (1773-1832) Cook.¹ While not much is not known about his early life, he claimed that he had a conversion experience in 1826. He attended Brown University for two years but then dropped out due to poor health. Four years later he was ordained as a Baptist minister. After this he “made a missionary tour through the west, which resulted in a revival in about every place visited.”² Upon his return, he attended the Newton Theological Institution in Massachusetts. He graduated from there in 1833. Later that year, on October 21, 1833, he married Susan Lyman Huntington (1798-1885) in Hartford, Connecticut.³ Initially they were supposed to go as missionaries to Siam (now Thailand), but due to his wife’s poor health, they were unable to go. Instead, they went west to Cincinnati, Ohio. While there, their daughter, Susan Kent was born on December 26, 1837. Later they moved across the river to nearby Covington, Kentucky. By 1842 they had returned east to Middletown, Connecticut.⁴ In early 1843 he became a Millerite.⁵ He detailed his conversion to the Second Advent as a “flood of light” from Scripture in which he learned more in “the past few weeks, than during all my former life.” This new experience changed his life. John recounted that “They [Adventists] feel, speak, pray, and sing with unwonted energy. They are more like the first Christians than any whom I have known.”⁶

Soon after John’s conversion to Adventism, he traveled west to Ohio and Indiana where he proclaimed the message of Christ’s soon return. By December 20, 1843, he was noted as “laboring” in Warren, Ohio.⁷ From Cincinnati he went on several tours across the Midwest. At one point he famously tried to convert the revivalist Charles Finney (1792-1875) at Oberlin “upon the subject of the Advent.” John pushed Finney that “surely” it did not “take a philosopher to understand this.” Finney reportedly responded: “I do not know—O that I did know.”⁸

By March 1844 John returned to encourage the Second Advent believers in Cincinnati where there was a Second Advent Depot on Third Street. Here he preached first at the College Hall and then at Lawrence Street Church during the evenings. He baptized two people and announced plans to go on another westward preaching tour to St. Louis, Missouri.⁹ By April 8, 1844, he reported on his travels. He had stopped at Jeffersonville and used the 1843 "Great Chart” while traveling on a steamboat down the Mississippi River. Scoffers opposed him, creating “perfect bedlam.”¹⁰ They finally arrived in the middle of the night at Cape Girardeau where they spent the next Sunday. Here he “lectured to the people on the hill in the open air, and also in the School House. The people had never heard upon the subject of the Advent, and were eager to learn.”¹¹ From here he took another steamboat, the “Alexander Scott” completing the trek to St. Louis where he once again lectured on board, he said, to “a large company . . . to whom, by request, I lectured in the evening till near eleven o’clock.”¹² By April 20 John was on his way back arriving in Springfield, Illinois, where he met his family and reported that he had contracted malaria.¹³ Once sufficiently better, he baptized 13 people but was still struggling with his health.¹⁴ John and the Advent believers expected that Christ would return during the Passover, which they dated as occurring between May 2-4, although John expressed caution:

I confess my confidence was strong that the 2300 prophetic days would have ended, and some marked events relative to “the end” would have been witnessed ere now. I do confess that I have both “looked for” and loved the appearing of my blessed Saviour; and as my belief that the times for that longed for event was revealed in the 2300 days, I have been disappointed. My mistake in that particular is manifest, yet so far as my knowledge now extends, it is confined to that particular…. but the events which not a few of our opponents have looked for as marking “the end” of prophetic time have not transpired. My disappointment, therefore, should be shared by all who have seen that the time would end ere this period, and who expected some marked development of the Divine plan for human salvation. As no event has occurred which can be regarded as “the end” of indignation, I conclude that the period has not past, though I have no light to detect the mistake, if any, in the dates.¹⁵

Bridegroom Adventism

In late 1844, John reaffirmed his continued conviction in the Second Advent and asserted a belief in the “shut door” that salvation would not be granted those who rejected the Millerite message.¹⁶ He believed that there was a little more prophetic time in which the sanctuary was to be cleansed and the 50^th Jubilee year would begin. He wrote, “We are close upon the Jubilee, but have not reached it. Having started out to meet the Bridegroom, I want to keep on till I meet him.”¹⁷ In order to share his views, in December 1844, John along with J. D. Pickands published a broadside titled the Voice of the Fourth Angel. In it they argued that the Millerites had fulfilled the mission of the three angels of Revelation 14. “We are now living under the fourth [angel], where it becomes the imperative duty of God’s children to pray for his coming.”¹⁸ The popular Protestant churches, he believed, had effectively joined the ranks of the papists. Until then, all “creation groans” as they agonize “How long, Oh Lord, how long?”¹⁹ John was one of the earliest Millerite preachers to apply the three angels of Revelation 14 to their own experiences. Later James White would object to this specific claim by Cook, noting that he did not believe Cook had given the third angel’s message (Rev. 14:6-18) after the warning messages of the first two angels. Yet James White expressed appreciation for this broadside and shared John’s conviction about God’s providential guidance through their shared history and experience.²⁰

In early January 1845 John preached at the Adventist²¹ “Tabernacle” in Cincinnati, Ohio. On January 5 he preached, affirming Christ’s literal return, but sickness prevent him from sharing his views further until January 15^th. At that point he applied the story of Lot and Abraham to their own Adventist experience. When Sodom was destroyed, he wrote:

And here let me enquire, if the soul that has been cut loose from every Sodomitish lust—the soul that has learned to love nothing but with reference to the speedy coming and Kingdom of his Lord,—does not enjoy the secure eminence of Abraham? Yes, verily! The true Second Advent believer is planted upon an eminence that overlooks the world. The breezes of the morning cheer, and the sun’s declining rays smile with approbation;—Like Abraham above the plains of Sodom, they’l [sic] see a burning world. Like Abraham, they will know when it is coming…²²

By January 25, 1845, Cook was in Indianapolis, Indiana. He met with stiff resistance to his message of “consolation” to “wait, and watch, and expect their King so near as the coming spring.” This opposition, he believed, was emblematic of the Laodicean church.²³ Then, in February, Cook preached in Kingsbury, Indiana, where he “exhorted the brethren to continue in the faith.” He baptized nine and set apart to ministry “by laying on of hands,” N. M. and Joseph Catlin.²⁴ As Millerites were cast out of their churches, they met separately and began conducting their own ordination ceremonies.

From March through June 1845, John visited churches across Ohio.²⁵ He reported his own bitter disappointment when Christ did not return as expected around the time of the Passover (early May 1845). “For a few days after the anniversary of the Passover,” he wrote, “I felt as the disciples of John; after they buried him, they went (sorrowing mingled with hope) ‘and told Jesus.’ . . . We have light enough to cheer us on and lead us straight on; yet our mistakes are sufficient to humble us.”²⁶ Similarly Enoch Jacobs shared John’s anticipation that Christ might return about the time of the Passover. He had written about this time that some readers of The Day-Star might not receive their copy until after “the Passover day will have passed” and would “be again tried to the utmost.” They needed to cling to their faith. He added “It seems to me our work is done, but if God has any thing more for us to perform, He will open the way.”²⁷

John continued to travel extensively visiting groups of Advent believers in Akron, Cleveland, Oberlin, Norwalk, Lower Sandusky, and Marysville.²⁸ Some suggested during this time that Cook had begun to teach that Christ had already “come.” William Miller commented that “Bro. Cook’s head is in the fog” because of his tenacious holding on to the 7^th month and shut door convictions.²⁹ John returned to Cincinnati to visit Enoch Jacobs where he believed that, if time lasted, by June 22 they would conduct a conference “on the old plan” (like the earlier Advent conferences that included conference resolutions). John added that the late “severe frosts” had destroyed much of the crops along with destroying “the prospect of harvest.”³⁰

Foot Washing and the Shut Door

At this conference Cook published his views about church ordinances: “I refer to the law of loving, and submitting, to one another, as Christians.”³¹ He specifically connected the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper together:

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper embody in the impressive section which they involve, the great doctrines of Christianity—the death and resurrection of Jesus. They call to mind His Second coming and our resurrection. The Saviour’s example and command, which are employed to enforce these ordinances, enjoins another ordinance or appointment, which embody the great Gospel doctrine of love and subjection one to another is the Lord. Now, as the practical duties of Christianity are no less essential than the doctrines,—as the doctrines have no saving efficacy, only in so far as they sanctify the heart and influence the life—as faith without works is dead, then it would seem that the ordinance which bodies forth the doctrine of mutual affection and submission, is no less binding than others. If I, your LORD AND MASTER, have WASHED YOUR FEET, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.³²

Cook then offered a biblical defense for including foot washing with the Lord’s Supper. He observed that the recent Millerite Albany Conference (April 29-May 1, 1845) “condemned” by “formal resolution” this teaching.³³ He regretted that they had done this. After all, such a resolution did “away [with] the triple command [and] example of the Coming One.” It would be far better for them not to capitulate to what he perceived as popular opinion “rather than the plain word of the Lord.”³⁴ At the conclusion of their meeting at the Tabernacle, 60 men and 38 women separated by gender into two apartments where they “attended to this commandment” to wash one another’s feet.³⁵

At this June 1845 conference John articulated his conviction in the Bible as “unadulterated truth” that affirmed Christ’s soon return, the fulfillment of prophecy, and the shut door.³⁶ Using the parable of the ten virgins, John argued that they were now in the tarrying time:

There has been a “going forth” just as predicted. It is fulfilled. Then followed a time of tarrying, beyond the period in which the Bridegroom was expected. During that period, as every one knows, our exercises were different from what they were before—We all “slumbered and slept”: Then came the “Midnight Cry,” as described in the Bible, so it came. There is the prediction;—in the history of last autumn you have an exact a copy of it, as the impression is, of the seal that made it; or as my right hand matches my left. Then the door was shut! But what door? If we had been a little more humble, and cooly [sic] looked this thing in the face in the room of taking umbrage at the expression, “The door was shut,” it would have been better for us. It is the great and effect door that God had opened for proclaiming the “Everlasting Gospel”—this door is shut, and none can intelligently deny it.³⁷

Cook also called for a recovery of the biblical doctrine on immortality and asserted that the resurrection at the Second Advent was the means through which Christ would restore the dead back to life.³⁸

As time continued, Cook was disappointed, yet he clung to his faith in Christ’s soon return. He also continued to search for biblical explanations noting that the resistance, or failure to maintain one’s hope in the Second Advent, was really the Laodicean Church. He continued to advocate for foot washing among Adventists and maintained a shut door theology that “’The door’ of access to the world to give invitations is closed.” He argued that spiritual blindness “hid” this truth from the eyes of those who rejected Millerism. He added: “We are to keep our garments—our lights burning, and act like those who are looking not for the re-opening of the door.”³⁹

In August 1845 Cook visited believers in Indiana. Some had already begun the practice of foot washing, but he defended himself against the charge that he had spread fanaticism from the east among believers in the west. He noted that when he participated in these ordinances that the men and women met separately avoiding any promiscuous appearances.⁴⁰ Cook responded to Samuel Snow who disagreed with him about foot washing affirming his belief that the biblical evidence for its practice was “impregnable.”⁴¹ Snow participated with several other Advent preachers in a conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, from September 10-14, 1845.

By late 1845 Cook returned to their old home in Middletown, where they were detained ten days due to their daughter’s contracting scarlet fever. His arrival was eagerly anticipated by his friend, Ezra L. H. Chamberlain (1798-1855), in whose home the Millerites gathered after the Great Disappointment. The Chamberlains were fellow Millerite believers who considered themselves friends and supporters of Cook.⁴² By December 13, 1845, Cook forayed to Philadelphia.⁴³ They stayed with Clorinda Minor (1809-1855), another Millerite preacher, who adopted Ball’s views about foot washing.⁴⁴

Cook adhered to his belief in Christ’s literal return. “No one can say that the prophetic description of the Second Advent is exhausted or fulfilled,” he wrote. “There is a difference between the events connected with the Second Advent having begun and being past.”⁴⁵ As time continued, he looked to the example of Caleb and Joshua, who, despite opposition, ultimately entered the promised land. One must “contend earnestly” for the faith “in order to enter the ‘better country, even the heavenly.’”⁴⁶ Believers in Christ’s near Advent must endure persecution, argued Cook.⁴⁷

Ultimately, in late 1845, Cook argued for a theology of divine providence. He attributed his view to reading and reflecting on William Miller’s Apology and Defense (published in August 1845).⁴⁸ Jesus pledged divine aid for those waiting, even as they were persecuted:

We can not [sic] in the future, pray, or study, or watch with more sincerity, or assiduity, than we have already done. If therefore they have failed us [Christ’s pledge to return], is to exclude the Advent people from the pale of Divine promise, or else to treat the promises as false. In either case it would be perdition to us, and ruin to the Advent cause. . . . but as God has fulfilled his word most perfectly in our history, the promises are seen to be more worthy of our trust…⁴⁹

Cook interpreted their Advent experience, and even disappointment, as part of God’s “Providence” similar to how God used Cyrus in the Old Testament, or more recently, as he believed, how Napoleon worked to “upheave the whole surface of Catholic Europe and take away the dominion of ‘the little horn.’”⁵⁰ Cook thereby came up with a spiritual justification for their disappointment that utilized a theology of divine providence as applied to their own Adventist experience. He wrote,

So with the 2^nd Advent people, God has led them in “His ways” at every turn, and in every trial they fulfill scripture. They conceived that Jesus would come in ’43 and again in ’44 on the 10^th day. This nerved them to do God’s will. Those who are willing to “do His will” despite all the shame incident to delay, “shall know of his doctrine.”⁵¹

Cook further affirmed that the “virgin band” or disappointed Adventists was also an example of how God used Cyrus to fulfill prophecy.⁵² Cook was one of the first Adventists to argue that God was leading in their disappointment. These ideas would be important for other disappointed Adventists, notably Joseph Bates, who would build on some of Cook’s ideas about prophecy and providence. Cook also continued to affirm the Shut Door or close of probation.

The world, the flesh, and the Devil will not consent to the door’s being shut, It brings JUDGMENT TOO NEAR, makes it too CERTAIN. Mark! None can deny that there is a shut door in Advent prophecy . . . None can deny that after the going forth, tarrying, Midnight Cry, and dispersion of the bands, there has been a clamor about the door . . . Can any but Infidels deny that they have occurred by the DIRECTION of Providence? In view of God’s promised guidance, dare any but Infidels, deny that God has guided and aided his people while this portion of prophecy is being accomplished. . . . If so, then the Advent cause is the cause of God, and must be confessed before men—quite through the shut-door.⁵³

Cook continued to articulate a Shut Door theology as a form of the Elijah message that would “separate us finally and forever from the world, preparatory to ascension.” The disappointment was far from a mistake, but instead, a sign of God’s divine providence.⁵⁴ This article affirming their history as a fulfillment of divine providence would be so important that James White later reprinted it in his 1850 Advent Review in which he affirmed the validity of their Advent experience.⁵⁵

As Cook articulated his views during late 1845 through early 1846 he continued to travel. Stops included preaching appointments in Newark, New Jersey, and New York City.⁵⁶ By January 16, 1846, the Cooks returned to Middletown, Connecticut.⁵⁷ It was there that Cook began to discuss the seventh-day Sabbath. Cook rejected a “spiritual interpretation” (the notion that Christ had indeed come for those who were spiritually discerning) of the various Disappointments and Advent groups that contributed to the breaking up of families.⁵⁸ He argued that any references to “Christ’s having come” were in fact “true only of the first Advent” as Christ had not come a second time.⁵⁹

Sabbatarian Interlude

Cook became an enthusiastic advocate of the seventh-day Sabbath. His first reference in support of the seventh-day Sabbath appeared on February 16, 1846, in The Day-Star. He described how “quite a number have come into the belief that the 7^th day is the Sabbath of the Lord our God.” He added: “They hear the voice of God saying, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. God rested on the 7^th day and ‘hallowed it.’” He affirmed: “God’s law of Eden—God’s type of Paradise restored was not nailed to the cross.”⁶⁰

Cook attributed the change of the Sabbath to the pope:

Every enactment relative to the religious observance of the first day originated with the pope or potentates of Rome and those who in this matter sympathize with them; but every enactment that ever originated in heaven relative to the keeping of the Sabbath confines us to the seventh day. The seventh day is “the Sabbath of the Lord our God.”⁶¹

For Cook, the change of the Sabbath was due to papal allegiance, even if done so unknowingly, rather than the Bible.⁶² He published his views in two issues of his own publication, the Advent Testimony, during March and April 1846, because “events in Providence, desire of friends, and a solemn purpose to do my duty have called forth this testimony.”⁶³ The purpose of this periodical was to present “the scriptural evidence that the Advent Doctrine, as it has been believed and preached within a few years past has been under the direction of the Spirit of Providence of God.”⁶⁴ The Sabbath, foot washing, and God’s providence were all aspects of faithfully following God, despite persecution, as they waited for His appearing. Cook once again offered a rejoinder against those who wished to spiritualize away Christ’s return.⁶⁵ Furthermore, he noted that a “soul” did not “reside in the body, as a bird in a cage.” Instead, “MAN became a LIVING SOUL.”⁶⁶

Cook may have read Preble’s article about the seventh-day Sabbath. He shared a conviction that the change of the seventh-day Sabbath was due to the pope and, by contrast, that “every enactment that ever ORIGINATED IN HEAVEN, relative to the keeping of the Sabbath confines us to the SEVENTH day. The seventh day is ‘the Sabbath of the Lord our God.’” Cook concluded:

He [Jesus] thus recognizes the perpetuity of the Sabbath many years after having abolished the Jewish feasts, as really as the seasons of the year. . . . He did not abolish the Sabbath, which was “made for man”—for the good of man. From the dreadful wreck, occasioned by “the fall” in Eden, there have been two institutions preserved; the Sabbath and Marriage. Both were “made for man.”⁶⁷

Cook’s most extensive views about the seventh-day Sabbath appear in an exchange of articles with Joseph Turner in the Bible Advocate in December 1847 through January 1848. These articles were forceful arguments on behalf of the seventh-day Sabbath. Altogether, as Merlin Burt observes, Cook’s Sabbath writings “gave a new impetus to Sabbatarianism” and helped counter “spiritualizing views” about the Second Advent.⁶⁸

Nonetheless, by September 1848 Cook reversed his position. He believed “the Sabbath is not now enforced” even though the rest of the decalogue is. Cook believed that the Sabbath “was relaxed.” His further justification for this view came from Christ feeding his disciples on the Sabbath when they were hungry, and when Christ performed miracles on the Sabbath day.⁶⁹ Cook noted that all ten of the commandments were “expressed” and “expanded” in the gospels except the fourth commandment.⁷⁰ It is notable that Ellen White admonished Cook for his relaxing of the fourth commandment. “O thou foolish man!” she wrote, “thou shalt feel the weight of this commandment when you cannot keep it. That charge shall be held up to thee in the day of judgment, and you will feel it more.”⁷¹ This final step, in which Cook joined Preble and Crozier in reversing their Sabbatarian stance, contributed to a final abandonment of maintaining any affiliation with those such as James White, Joseph Bates, and E. L. H. Chamberlain, who adhered to the seventh-day Sabbath and developed their views into new trajectories, which ultimately, led to the creation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

White, Bates, J. N. Andrews, and others appreciated Cook’s writings that advocated the seventh-day Sabbath, and they cited them extensively between 1849 to 1853. At the same time, they also noted how Cook, in his articles in the Advent Harbinger, had given up his belief in the seventh-day Sabbath. Thus, they quoted from his extensive writings while also critiquing his views. When Bates published his own views on the topic, he cited Cook’s earlier teachings about the seventh-day Sabbath (along with the arguments of Preble) but believed that neither had gone far enough in developing their views.⁷² In The Present Truth, James White pointed to Cook for support, even though he admitted that Cook had “changed his views on the Sabbath.”⁷³

By early 1852 White, Bates, et. al., noticed that Cook had become the “champion of the Age to come theory.”⁷⁴ J. N. Andrews noted that Cook (and Preble) had adopted a theology in which the Sabbath was a “type” fulfilled by Christ.⁷⁵ In a public critique, Andrews appealed to Crozier and Cook to once again accept the seventh-day Sabbath:

Deeply have I regretted the course pursued by yourself [Crozier], yet that the blood of souls be not found upon me, I have deemed it duty to expose it. I know very well that such men as J. B. Cook, yourself and others, who have drawn back from obedience to the fourth commandment, can exert a greater influence against it than those who have never obeyed it. I have loved you both, for the testimony you once bore to the truth of God. My heart has bled to witness your strange course since. But I leave you to the mercy of that God, whose commandments you dare to fight.⁷⁶

By 1852 Cook had relocated to Rochester, New York, where he worked closely with Joseph Marsh. Under his influence Cook had accepted the “age to come” or the doctrine of the “Return of the Jews.” Marsh entrusted him to debate L. D. Mansfield in The Harbinger about that topic. When Dr. John Thomas interacted with Cook and Marsh, he began to teach the importance of rebaptism by immersion and the non-immortality of the soul. When Marsh refused to rebaptized, this teaching split the Advent congregation in Rochester, and the congregation became fractured. Cook sided with Thomas against Marsh.⁷⁷

Later Years and Significance

Altogether Cook was widely influential in Millerite circles, especially in the “west,” or what has since become known as the midwestern United States. Cook obviously traveled in circles with other Sabbatarian Adventists, especially those such as the Chamberlains in Middletown, Connecticut, and his articles appeared alongside some of the earliest published writings of Ellen Harmon and James White in 1845. His views about the seventh-day Sabbath, his promulgation of foot washing, his arguments about the significance of church ordinances to the Second Advent, and teachings about man’s nature or conditionalism, all had an influence on Seventh-day Adventism. While he did reject his former Sabbatarian views, he would remain a firm believer in the literal Second Advent.

In subsequent years Cook pastored in several places as an Advent Christian minister. By 1850 John and Susan were living in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The 1860 and 1865 census records show that the couple along with their daughter also named Susan, who was a teacher in Binghamton, New York.⁷⁸ Unlike Preble, Cook never engaged in any significant way with Seventh-day Adventists, which may contribute to his being largely overlooked in Seventh-day Adventist historiography. A notable exception was in 1869 when J. H. Waggoner noticed that Cook continued to promulgate the age-to-come theory.⁷⁹ That same year, Cook moved his family to Brooklyn, New York. A few early chroniclers, such as J. N. Loughborough and W. A. Spicer, described Cook’s primary contribution alongside that of Preble in sharing his Sabbatarian views.

From 1880 onward John and Susan lived with their daughter, Susan, who taught by then in Brooklyn, New York. The mother, Susan, died there on April 29, 1885.⁸⁰ John died from heart failure on October 14, 1888, in Connecticut.⁸¹ They are buried next to one another, with their daughter, in a family plot in Hartford, Connecticut.

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Stilson, J. Turner. Biographical Encyclopedia: Chronicling the History of the Church of God Abrahamic Faith 19^th and 20^th Centuries. Stillman Valley, IL: Word Edge, 2011.

Waggoner, J. H. “Age-to-Come Vagaries.” ARH, March 16, 1869.

Wellcome, Isaac C. History of the Second Advent Message and Mission, Doctrine and People. Yarmouth, ME: I. C. Wellcome, 1874.

Notes

1. While there are varying dates, his tombstone states that he was born December 17, 1803. Most genealogical accounts reference an approximation that would date his date of birth to 1803 or 1804. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146127222/john-ball-cook [accessed 1/5/23].↩

2. Isaac C. Wellcome, History of the Second Advent Message and Mission, Doctrine and People (Yarmouth, ME: I. C. Wellcome, 1874), 275.↩

3. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/147172430/susan-lyman-cook.↩

4. Wellcome, History of the Second Advent Message and Mission, 275, 276.↩

5. “The Boston Recorder Aghast!!!” The Signs of the Times, and Expositor of Prophecy, February 22, 1843, 184.↩

6. This comes from his tract published in April 1843 reprinted as “The Second Advent,” The Signs of the Times, January 27, 1876, 65.↩

7. See note, The Western Midnight Cry!!!, January 6, 1844, 29.↩

8. J. B. Cook, “Report of a Discourse Delivered by Bro. J. B. Cook, at the Tabernacle, on Sabbath Evening, Jan. 12^th—Text. Psa. 25:14,” Western Midnight Cry! January 30, 1845, 45.↩

9. See “Lecture” and “The Meetings,” The Western Midnight Cry, March 23, 1844, 23.↩

10. J. B. Cook, “Extracts from a Private Letter from Bro. J. B. Cook, dated St. Louis, April 8^th, 1844,” The Western Midnight Cry!!!, April 20, 1844, 42.↩

11. Ibid.↩

12. Ibid.↩

13. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. J. B. Cook,” [May 8, 1844], The Western Midnight Cry!!! May 18, 1844, 75.↩

14. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [May 20, 1844], The Western Midnight Cry!!! June 1, 1844, 82.↩

15. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. J. B. Cook,” [May 8, 1844], The Western Midnight Cry!!! May 18, 1844, 75.↩

16. J. B. Cook, “Report of a Discourse Delivered by Bro. J. B. Cook, at the Tabernacle, on Sabbath Evening, Jan. 12^th—Text. Psa. 25:14,” Western Midnight Cry! January 30, 1845, 46.↩

17. J. B. Cook, “Report of a Discourse Delivered by Bro. J. B. Cook, at the Tabernacle, on Sabbath Evening, Jan. 12^th—Text. Psa. 25:14,” Western Midnight Cry! January 30, 1845, 46.↩

18. The text of the broadside appears as an article. See J. B. Cook and J. D. Pickands, “Voice of the Fourth Angel,” Western Midnight Cry, December 21, 1844, 28.↩

19. Ibid.↩

20. “Voice of the Fourth Angel,” The Advent Review (Auburn, NY: Henry Oliphant, 1850), 17.↩

21. The term “Adventist” throughout this article refers to the Second Advent or Millerite movement of the late 1830s through the 1840s. The term “Adventist” would not refer to the emerging Sabbatarian Adventist movement until considerably later, especially after the 1860s with the development of various aspects of church organization.↩

22. J. B. Cook, “Sabbath Evening, Jan. 5^th,” Western Midnight Cry!, January 23, 1845, 42-43.↩

23. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [January 25, 1845] The Day-Star, February 18, 1845, 1.↩

24. N. M. Catlin, “Letter from Bro. N. M. Catlin,” [April 4, 1845] The Day-Star, April 15, 1845, 40.↩

25. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [May 5, 1845] The Day-Star, 6.↩

26. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [May 5, 1845] The Day-Star, May 20, 1845, 6.↩

27. See note to readers, The Day-Star, April 22, 1845, 42.↩

28. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [June 20, 1845] The Day-Star, June 24, 1845, 26.↩

29. See J. Turner Stilson, Biographical Encyclopedia: Chronicling the History of the Church of God Abrahamic Faith 19^th and 20^th Centuries (Stillman Valley, IL: Word Edge, 2011), s.v “Cook, John B.” 71.↩

30. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [June 5, 1845] The Day Star, June 17, 1845, 24; “Our Conference,” The Day-Star, July 1, 1845, 30.↩

31. J. B. Cook, “To Be Christians, We Must Do the Works of Christ,” The Day-Star, July 1, 1845, 31.↩

32. Ibid.↩

33. Ibid., 32.↩

34. Ibid.↩

35. “The Meetings,” The Day-Star, July 15, 1845, 40.↩

36. J. B. Cook, “Extracts from a Discourse by J. B. Cook at the Tabernacle, June 22d, 1845,” The Day-Star, July 3, 1845, 36.↩

37. Ibid.↩

38. J. B. Cook, “The Dispensation of the Fulness of Times,” The Day-Star, July 22, 1845, 41-44.↩

39. J. B. Cook, “Bro. Cook,” The Day Star, July 3, 1845, 35, 36.↩

40. J. B. Cook, “Letters from Bro. Cook,” [August 14, 1845] The Day-Star, September 6, 1845, 18.↩

41. Ibid., 19.↩

42. E. L. H. Chamberlain, “Letter from Bro. Chamberlain,” [October 30, 1845] The Day-Star, November 15, 1845, 23; idem., “Letter from Bro. Chamberlain,” [December 26, 1845] The Day-Star, January 10, 1846, 17.↩

43. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [December 13, 1845] The Day-Star, December 27, 1845, 4.↩

44. S[usan] L. Cook, “Letter from Sister Cook,” [December 23, 1845] The Day-Star, January 3, 1846, 9.↩

45. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [December 13, 1845] The Day-Star, December 27, 1845, 4.↩

46. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [December 23, 1845] The Day-Star, January 3, 1846, 5.↩

47. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [January 28, 1846] The Day Star, February 21, 1846, 54, 55.↩

48. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [January 16, 1846] The Day Star, January 31, 1846, 35.↩

49. J. B. Cook, “The Necessity and Certainty of Divine Guidance,” The Day Star, February 28, 1846, 58.↩

50. Ibid.↩

51. Ibid., 59.↩

52. Ibid.↩

53. Ibid.↩

54. Ibid., 60.↩

55. J. B. Cook, “The Doctrine of Divine Providence,” The Advent Review (Auburn, NY: Henry Oliphant, 1850), 19-27.↩

56. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [January 8, 1846] The Day-Star, January 24, 1846, 32.↩

57. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [January 16, 1846] The Day Star, January 31, 1846, 35.↩

58. J. B. Cook, “Limitations to Divine Precept—Extremes,” Advent Testimony, April 1846, 14.↩

59. J. B. Cook, “We Know the Son of Man is Coming—‘In the Flesh’,” Advent Testimony, April 1846, 16.↩

60. J. B. Cook, “Letter from Bro. Cook,” [February 16, 1846] The Day-Star, March 7, 1846, 3.↩

61. Advent Herald, 1, No. 2, 15, quoted in ARH, May 2, 1935, 5.↩

62. Quoted in J. N. Loughborough, “Early Experiences,” General Conference Daily Bulletin, March 18, 1891, 144.↩

63. J. B. Cook, “Events in Providence…,” Advent Testimony, April 1846, 16.↩

64. J. B. Cook, “The Advent Testimony,” Advent Testimony, March 1846, 1.↩

65. Merlin D. Burt, “The Historical Background, Interconnected Development and Integration of the Doctrines of the Sanctuary, the Sabbath, and Ellen G. White’s Roel in Sabbatarian Adventism from 1844 to 1849,” (Ph.D. diss., Andrews University, 2002), 255.↩

66. J. B. Cook, “The Soul,” Advent Testimony, April 1846, 16.↩

67. J. B. Cook, “The Sabbath,” Advent Testimony, April 1846, 12.↩

68. Burt, “The Historical Background,” 232.↩

69. “Repairing the Breach,” ARH, June 2, 1851, 95.↩

70. Citing article by Cook in the Harbinger, see “Conversation on the Sabbath Question,” ARH, November 25, 1852, 107.↩

71. See Manuscript 1, 1848, paragraphs 1-2, accessible at: https://egwwritings.org/read?panels=p13961.2811004&index=0 [accessed 5/14/23]↩

72. George R. Knight, Joseph Bates: The Real Founder of Seventh-day Adventism (Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2004), 108.↩

73. [James White], “Scripture Usually Quoted to Prove the Abolition of the Sabbath, examined. Concluded,” The Present Truth, August 1849, 10.↩

74. Citing Harbinger, January 3, 1852, in M. E. Cornell, “Joseph Marsh’s Misrepresentations,” ARH, September 16, 1852, 78.↩

75. J. N. Andrews, “The Sabbath: Letters to O. R. L. Crozier—No. II,” ARH, May 27, 1852, 10.↩

76. J. N. Andrews, “Letters to O. R. L. Crozier—No. VII,” ARH, August 5, 1852, 52.↩

77. J. Turner Stilson, Biographical Encyclopedia: Chronicling the History of the Church of God Abrahamic Faith 19^th and 20^th Centuries (Stillman Valley, IL: Word Edge, 2011), s.v “Cook, John B.” 72.↩

78. Huntington Family Memoir, 239-240, accessed from North America, Family Histories 1500-2000, Ancestry.com. Accessed January 7, 2023.↩

79. J. H. Waggoner, “Age-to-Come Vagaries,” ARH, March 16, 1869, 93.↩

80. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/147172430/susan-lyman-cook [accessed 1/7/23].↩

81. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/146127222/john-ball-cook [accessed 1/5/23].↩