RC_NewProtestants
Senior Veteran
- May 2, 2006
- 2,766
- 63
- Faith
- Protestant
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Republican
It might be helpful to understand EGW's views when sections of Early writings were written. The book is supposed to represent her earliest visions. Her assumption at that time was that the door of salvation was shut. We even see that in 1882 they edited Early Writings to get rid of the more blatant Shut door views. See quote below.
Under the shut door assumption God could have given Miller the first angels message to prepare for the coming and since the door of salvation was shut it would still be consistent with God to tell this supposed truth to Miller as a way to prepare the sincere for the return of Christ.
The problem for Adventism is that Ellen White was wrong. The message of the shut door was wrong and that made the idea that Miller received the first angels message from God was also wrong. The Adventist church acknowledges the error of the shut door and even acknowledges Ellen White believed it. But they have never taken the time to correct the implications that are found in her early works which are based upon the shut door perspective.
There is no way either ignoring or correcting her false views will help EGW as a prophet. Thus the easiest course has been to ignore them and hope people don't look too close which is why the problems with EGW keep cropping up again and again. It is also why many don't use Ellen White much and why others will only take her in a pastoral way.
Under the shut door assumption God could have given Miller the first angels message to prepare for the coming and since the door of salvation was shut it would still be consistent with God to tell this supposed truth to Miller as a way to prepare the sincere for the return of Christ.
The problem for Adventism is that Ellen White was wrong. The message of the shut door was wrong and that made the idea that Miller received the first angels message from God was also wrong. The Adventist church acknowledges the error of the shut door and even acknowledges Ellen White believed it. But they have never taken the time to correct the implications that are found in her early works which are based upon the shut door perspective.
There is no way either ignoring or correcting her false views will help EGW as a prophet. Thus the easiest course has been to ignore them and hope people don't look too close which is why the problems with EGW keep cropping up again and again. It is also why many don't use Ellen White much and why others will only take her in a pastoral way.
We now present the evidence to show that the foregoing quotation, in which Elder Butler says that the work he speaks of contains ALL of Mrs. White's "early writings" is absolutely untrue and deceptive. The earliest writings of Mrs. White were published by Elder White in 1847, in a small pamphlet of only twenty-four pages, entitled "A Word to the Little Flock." The work to which Elder Butler refers, as containing all of her early writings, published in 1882, claims to be an exact reprint of all her early visions. Now note carefully, that, commencing at the beginning of her first vision, as published in 1847, we read down thirty-three lines and discover that the late republished work agrees with the old on nearly word for word, only a few slight changes without altering the sense. But at the end of the thirty-third line we find that four lines have been omitted or "suppressed." These read as follows:
"It was just as impossible for them [those who gave up their faith in the 1844 movement] to get on the path again and go to the city, AS ALL THE WICKED WORLD WHICH GOD HAD REJECTED. They fell all along the path, one after another."These lines are found on page 14 of the edition of 1847. They are not to be found in the later editions of the visions published in 1851 and in 1882. We have all three editions in our possession. Why were these few lines left out? Because at the 1847 date Mrs. White believed in the "shut door" theory, and claimed that by divine revelation God had shown her that "all the wicked world which God had rejected" was lost forever. In the autumn of 1851 and in 1882 she no longer believed that theory; hence these lines had to be omitted. Here God's professed prophetic messenger dared to tamper with an alleged divine revelation.
http://www.ellenwhite.org/canright/can8.htm
Upvote
0