Summary of
Six Papers on the History of the Church of God
by Richard C. Nickels

Sabbatarian Baptists in England traces the origins and development of Sabbath-keeping in England from the late sixteenth century, through its high point in the mid-seventeenth century with the establishment of Sabbath-keeping churches in America, to the decline of English Sabbatarians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Sabbatarian Baptists in America continues with the establishment of the first Sabbath-keeping church in America in 1671 by Stephen Mumford, and the progression of westerly migration which led to establishment of additional churches in Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, western Virginia, Ohio, and Wisconsin. It relates the organization of the Seventh Day Baptist Conference in 1802 and shows how lethargy and decline set in during the latter half of the nineteenth century, despite prolific writing on the Sabbath question by Abraham Herbert Lewis from 1870-1908.

The Adventist Movement: Its Relationship to the Seventh Day Church of God covers the period of William Miller, the Great Disappointment of 1844, and the church groups which sprang from the Adventist Movement — four major Sunday-keeping Adventist church groups, the Seventh-Day Adventists, and the Church of God (Seventh Day). It recounts how the Sabbath was brought to the attention of Adventists who were disappointed that Christ did not come in 1844, and shows how the "Age to Come" and "conditionalist" (soul sleeping) ideas of Sunday-keeping Adventists greatly influenced the development of the Church of God (Seventh Day).

Sabbath Adventists, 1844-1863 concentrates on Sabbath-keeping Adventists during the formative period, explaining how Ellen G. White’s party gained a strangle hold over Sabbath-keeping Adventists and organized the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in 1860. It reveals how those who rejected the visions of Ellen G. White, and held to the name "Church of God" were persecuted by SDA’s.

The Remnant of Israel: An Analysis of G. G. Rupert and His Independent Church of God (Seventh Day) Movement, 1915-1929 shows the striking parallels between Rupert’s followers, who observed the Biblical Holy Days, and Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. For Rupert book and article reprints, see next page.

History of the Church of God (Seventh Day), by John Kiesz, traces the origin of the church to anti-Ellen G. White Sabbath-keepers, describes the organization of the Michigan Church of God by Gilbert Cranmer in 1863, and relates its rocky history through 1963. This work contains numerous quotations from Church of God publications, including The Bible Advocate magazine. W