Why critics of Ellen G. White are "splitting hairs".

[Adventist Dissident]

NO LIGHT FOR THE CARLESS MULTITUDE AFTER 1844

In the vision, “End of the 2300 Days” two groups of people are described:

“Before the throne I saw the Advent people—the church and the world. I saw two companies, one bowed before the throne, deeply interested while the other stood uninterested and careless.34​

The company of Adventist believers is then represented as praying, and receiving light from the Father and the Son.

“Then I saw an exceeding light come from the Father to the Son, and from the Son it waved over the people before the throne. But few would receive this great light. Many came out from under it and immediately resisted it; others were careless and did not cherish the light, and it moved from them. Some cherished it, and went and bowed down with the little praying company. This company all received the light and rejoiced in it, and their countenances shone with its glory.”35​

This “exceeding bright light” was doubtless the “midnight cry”, for the first vision speaks of “a bright light set up behind them… which an angel told me was the midnight cry”, page 14. “But few [of the Adventists] would receive this great light. Many came from under it and immediately resisted it; others were careless and did not cherish the light, and it moved off from them [these would be the Adventists]. Some cherished it; and went and bowed down with the little praying company [the Seventh-day Adventists]. This company all received the light, and rejoiced in it, and their countenances shone with its glory.”
The further experience of the Adventists and other Christians who did not receive the advanced light is thus described:

“I turned to the look at the company who were still bowed before the throne; they did not know that Jesus had left it. Satan appeared to be by the throne, trying to carry on the work of God. I saw them look up to the throne, and pray, ‘Father give us thy Spirit’. Satan would then breathe upon them an unholy influence; in it there was light and much power, but not sweet love, joy, and peace.”36​

Thus much for the professed Christians. But what became of “the world”, those who from the first had “stood disinterested and careless”?

“ I did not see one ray of light pass from Jesus to the careless multitude after He arose, and they were left in perfect darkness.”37​

This is what one might describe (using one of the expressions of the pioneers) as “a shut door of the closest kind”.38 The door was shut so tightly and so effectively that there was neither chink, crack, nor crevice through which so much as “one ray of light” might pass “to the careless multitude”! Their darkness was complete!
In relating the Topsham vision (already referred to), Sister White said that she “was shown that the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ relating to the shut door, could not be separated.” The last part of that vision should read as follows:

“I saw that the mysterious signs, and wonders, and false reformations would increase, and spread. The reformations that were shown me, were not reformations from error to truth; but from bad to worse; for those who professed a change of heart, had only wrapped about them a religious garb, which covered up the iniquity of a wicked heart. Some appeared to have been really converted so as to deceive God’s people; but if their hearts could be seen, they would appear as black as ever. My accompanying angel bade me look for the travail of soul for sinners as used to be. I looked but could not see it; for the time for their salvation is past.”39​

The passage printed in red was contained in the vision as originally published; but has been omitted from Early Writings. See page 45 of the new edition, and page 37 of the old edition.
This paragraph plainly teaches that the time for the salvation of sinners was past. The antecedent of the pronoun “their” in the last sentence, is the noun “sinners” in the preceding sentence. This is made doubly clear when the eliminated sentence is restored. For many years, in the old edition of Early Writings, a note by the publishers sought to make out that the last sentence applied to false shepherds. “It is the false shepherds therefore, and not sinners in general, to whom this sentence applies”. (See page 37). This questionable explanation does not appear in the present edition of that book. Such an interpretation fails entirely to harmonize with the text. The “false shepherds”, or “ministers who have rejected the truth” are not referred to in the immediate context. It is the “sinners” of the last paragraph whose “salvation is past”. This passage does not speak of some sinners, who have passed the boundary line, and cannot be saved. The statement is a sweeping one, referring to sinners in general.
The publishers, in a footnote endeavoring to show that this passage does not really mean what it plainly says, claim that “at the very time when these things were written she herself was laboring for the salvation of sinners, as she has been doing ever since.”40 This is an unwarranted claim. The documentary evidence of the period shows unquestionably that Sister White was following no such course, “when these things were written.”
What would Joseph Bates have thought if at that time Sister White had gone out to work for the salvation of sinners? He was scandalized when the “Laodicean” Adventists did it. “Talk about searching out sinners”, he exclaimed in 1850, “that the work of the Midnight Cry left in outer darkness six years ago!”
What would James White have thought, if his wife had in 1849 [had] gone out “laboring for sinners”? He was willing to admit, in 1851, that “God had reserved to himself a multitude of precious souls, some even in the churches”, those who were “living up to what light they had when Jesus closed his mediation for the world”; “But,” he added, “we think we have no message for such now.” Did his wife, two years earlier, have a message for “the world”, for whom Christ’s mediation had “closed”, and fail to tell her husband of it, or convince him of it?
Speaking of “the autumn of 1844” James White says that at “that point all our sympathy, burden and prayers for sinners ceased”.41 Sister White says that they “lost their burden of soul for the salvation of sinners”.42 In March 1849, she wrote that her accompanying angel bade her “look for the travail of soul for sinners as used to be”. She “looked, but could not see it; for the time for their salvation” was “past”. Who had lost the “travail of soul for sinners” that they used to have? Mrs. White and her husband, and their associates according to their own testimony. For whose salvation, was “The time…past”? Was it past for those who had lost their burden, or for sinners for whom the burden was lost? It is obvious that when Sister White wrote that “the time for their salvation is past”, she had reference to sinners.
The assertion of the publishers that “at the very time when these things were written she [Sister White] herself was laboring for the salvation of sinners”, is one that is frequently repeated by those who seek to maintain the infallibility of the Testimonies. Let the reader take due note of the fact that not one scintilla of evidence from the documents of that early period is ever produced to justify this assertion. The reason for this is that there is none to produce. The early publications abound with evidence to the contrary, that from 1844 to 1851 all the pioneers regarded their “work for the world” as “finished forever”, and were giving their time to providing “meat in due season” for the “household” of faith.
In those early days the brethren regarded the first angel’s message as the last message to the world, fulfilled and closed in 1844; and the third angel’s message as the last message to the church, or “scattered flock” from 1844 to the end. Thus, in 1850, James White wrote of the first message, “This angel’s message represents the last message of mercy to the world; and it has been fulfilled.”43 In the same issue of the paper, speaking of the third message, he taught that “this angel declares the last message of mercy to the scattered flock; therefore it is the sealing message.”44
By “the scattered flock” the pioneers meant the Advent people. The Adventists were united up to 1844; but the great disappointment of that year threw them into confusion and “scattered” them. Sister White speaks of this as “the scattering time.” After discovering what they thought to be the true light on the sanctuary, the Seventh-day Adventists felt that they had a message that would once more unite the scattered flock, and spoke of this as “the gathering time”.

“During the scattering time we have passed through many heartrending trials, while we have seen the precious flock scattered, torn and driven; but, thank God, the time has come for the flock to be gathered into the ‘unity of the faith’”.45​

Sister White’s labors, and those of her associates, were all directed toward this on end, the gathering of the “scattered” flock.

“The brethren sent in more means that was necessary to sustain the paper, which I have since used in traveling to visit the scattered flock.”46​

“Brethren Holt and Rhodes returned to this city last week…. They felt that they cannot rest; but must go on as fast as possible, and hunt up the scattered ‘sheep’”… “I think he will go in search of the scattered sheep, for the Lord is showing him his light and truth very fast.”47
​

“We want to hear, especially, from the dear brethren that travel, how the cause prospers, and of their success in searching out the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Such letters give interest to the paper, and cheer the ‘little flock’”.48​

“I spent five days visiting from house to house; were I could find Advent believers.”49​

“I saw that the quick work that God was doing on earth would soon be cut short in righteousness, and that the swift messengers must speed on their way to search out the scattered flock.”50​

“We have but a little space of time in which to work for God. Nothing should be too dear to sacrifice for the…scattered and torn flock of Jesus.51​

“Speed the messengers on their way to feed the hungry sheep.”52​

“The Lord has often given me a view of the situation and wants of the scattered jewels who have not yet come to the light of the present truth, and has shown that the messengers should speed their way to them as fast as possible, to give them the light.”53​

On page 62 of Early Writings Sister White speaks of “the last message of mercy that is now being given to the scattered flock”. This agrees precisely with James White’s statement that the third angel’s message is “the last message of mercy to the scattered flock”, in contrast with the first angel’s message, which he taught was “the last message of mercy to the world”, closing in 1844.

“The Lord has shown me that the message of the third angel must go, and be proclaimed to the scattered children of the Lord but it must not be hung on time.”54​

“The Lord has shown me that precious souls are starving, and dying for want of the present, sealing truth, the meat in due season; and that the swift messengers should speed on their way, and feed the flock with the present truth. I heard an angel say, ‘Speed the swift messengers, speed the swift messengers; for the case of every soul will soon be decided either for life or for death.’”55​

About two years after the brethren had given up the shut-door view, we find Sister White writings as follows:

“Do we believe with all the that Christ is soon coming? And that we are now having the last message of mercy that is ever to be given to a guilty world?56​

But no such message as this from her pen is found in the records of the years 1844 to 1851.
How unwarranted then, and how misleading is the oft-repeated assertion that when Sister White wrote that “the time for their salvation is past” she herself “was laboring for the salvation of sinners”.
We must not leave the consideration of this passage in Early Writings (stating that “the time for their salvation is past”. E.W. p. 45) without noticing the significance of the eliminated sentences, reproduced (pp. 188-192) in bold-faced type. One of the sentences reads: “Some appeared to have been really converted, so as to deceive God’s people; but if their hearts could be seen, they would appear as black ever”. (See page 192.)
In what way would such seeming conversions be likely to “deceive God’s people”? The answer is that the believers might be deceived into thinking the door, must be open, and not shut.
Those sentences should never have been eliminated from the Early Writings. They help to fix the meaning of the context.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

ACCOUNTING FOR REVIVALS IN THE OTHER CHURCHES

Having fully received the view that in 1844 Christ “rose up and shut the door” of the first apartment, “where he had been Mediator for all the world”, the pioneers could not credit the genuineness of revivals or of the conversion of sinners reported by the “Sardis” or “fallen” churches, or by the “Laodicean” Adventists. These were ether denied, or explained away, or attributed to Satanic agencies.

“Can any impenitent sinners be converted if the door is shut? Of course they cannot, though changes that men would call conversions may take place.”57​

“The professed conversions, through the instrumentality of the various sects, are also urged as positive proof that the door is not shut. I cannot give up the clear fulfillment of prophecy, in our experience, which shows the shut door in the past, for the opinions, fancies and feelings of men, based upon human sympathy and superstitious reverence for early views.”58​

“Many will point us to one who is said to be converted, for positive proof that the door is not shut, thus yielding the word of God for the feelings of an individual.”59​

A favorite text with the pioneers, during those years, was Hosea 5:6,7. They regarded this passage as supporting their view of the shut door, and also as accounting for what they thought must be spurious conversion and revivals. Here is James White’s application of the text:

“The professed church, who rejected the truth, was also rejected, smitten with blindness, and now, ‘with their flocks and their herds’ they go ‘to seek the Lord’ as still an advocate for sinners; but, says the prophet, Hosea v. 6,7 ‘they shall not find him; he hath WITHDRAWN HIMSELF from them. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord; for they have begotten strange children.’ “The reason why they do not find the Lord is simply this, they seek him where he is not; ‘He hath withdrawn himself’ to the Most Holy Place. The prophet of God calls their man-made converts, ‘STRANGE CHILDREN’; now shall a month devour them, and their portions’.”60
​

Joseph Bates gives this text the same application:

“But it is said they have converts. Yes, but they are strange ones because they come after the house of Israel have their names borne into the Holiest. Hence says the prophet, ‘He hath withdrawn himself from them, now shall a month devour them with their portions’.”61​

David Arnold applies the passages in the same way, in the Present Truth for December, 1849.
Did Sister White share with the brethren this view of the meaning of Hosea 5:6,7, involving as it did the shut door teaching? She speaks thus for herself:

“The excitements and false reformations of this day do not move us, for we know that the Master of the house rose up in 1844, and shut the door of the first apartment of the heavenly tabernacle; and now we certainly expect that they will ‘go with their flocks’, ‘to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him; he halt withdrawn himself (within the second veil) from them’. The Lord has shown me that the power which is with them is a mere human influence, and not the power of God”.62​

“I saw false reformations everywhere. The churches were elated, and considered that God was marvelously working for them, when it was another spirit.”63​

 

[Adventist Dissident]

EFFORTS TO DENY THE FACTS OF THE “SHUT-DOOR” TEACHING, OR TO EVADE THEIR SIGNIFICANCE

It is exceedingly regrettable that these facts should have been covered up for many years, denied, or explained away so that our people generally, and the great body of our workers have not been acquainted with them. The present writer finds no pleasure in reviewing such items of past history, nor in discussing what he believes to be the mistaken course of those who have subscribed to the policy of preventing them from becoming generally known. This unpleasant task becomes a duty, however, in the present circumstances. Thousands have been taught to regard the sanctuary teaching as now held as having the authority of a divine revelation; whereas it has no such authority. The shut door teaching was the aftermath of William Miller’s mistake in preaching that Christ’s second advent would take place in 1844. The present sanctuary teaching is the aftermath of the mistaken shut door doctrine of 1844 to 1851. The mistakes of the past have led on to the mistaken teaching of the present. The present erroneous views regarding the sanctuary are being assiduously taught to our children and young people, and thus passed on to another generation. It becomes the duty of Christ’s ministers, when they become aware of these things, to speaks out and let the facts be known.
The darkest page in our denominational history is not that which records the mistakes of the Miller movement; nor that which records the shut door teaching of subsequent years; but that which records an effort to cover up the facts of the past.
Most of the early Adventists (not the Seventh-day Adventists) frankly acknowledged that they had taken mistaken positions. Joseph Bates refers disapprovingly to this in an article contributed to the Review and Herald in December, 1850. He quotes J.V. Himes as saying, “We are free to confess that we have been twice disappointed in our expectations in the time of our Lord’s advent”. Joseph Bates then says, “After this, hundreds of others followed in confessions, in the two leading papers; and in their confessions….acknowledged that they were mistaken about the shut door view.”
It is to be deeply regretted that our own pioneers did not follow the same commendable course, when, late in 1851, or thereabout, they in turn gave up the shut door teaching.
In the Review for March 17, 1853, the editor, James White, quotes form the “Harbinger” a statement in which O.R.L. Crozier said that he understood the Seventh-day Adventists now disclaimed the doctrine of the shut door. Brother White then makes the curt rejoinder, “On the above we will first remark, that as C. has informed the readers of the Harbinger that we disclaim the doctrine of the shut door, that paper should no longer reproachfully call us ‘shut door Sabbatarians’”.
Seeing that the pioneers taught the shut door so long and so emphatically, and so unsparingly reproached the other Adventists for giving up that doctrine, the editor of the Review should have voluntarily and frankly acknowledged the mistake, and should not have left it to “C”, or anyone else, to “inform the readers of the Harbinger”, and other interested persons, of the change of convictions.
There is one outstanding reason for this reluctance to acknowledge openly the mistakes of the past. Sister White had participated in the shut door teaching, and had related and published visions which supported it. When these visions were re-published in the form of “Experience and Views”, in 1851, and again in 1854, some statements teaching the shut door were omitted entirely. Had they been retained, the conclusion would have been inevitable that they taught the shut door. In their “Preface to the second edition”, after referring to the addition of several dates, and two dreams, the publishers went on to say:

“Aside from these, no changes from the original work have been made in the present edition, except for the occasional employment of a new word, or a change in the construction of a sentence, to better express the idea, and no portion of the work had been omitted. No shadow of change has been made in any idea or sentiment of the original work, and the verbal changes have been made under the author’s own eye, and with her full approval.”64​

It was not true that no portion of the original work had been omitted. The writer of the preface (if he knew of the omissions) may have satisfied his conscience by thinking of the publication of 1851 as the “original work”; but he must have known that the readers of his preface would understand him as referring to the visions as originally published. There were considerable omissions from the contents of the original documents when the visions were first re-published in 1851, and among them statements that undoubtedly taught the shut door. Even after the omissions were made, there still remained passages that could lead to no other conclusion than that the visions taught the shut door. Instances of these have already been given in preceding pages.
For many years Elder J.N. Loughborough occupied a position tantamount to that of historian to the denomination. Brother Loughborough went farther than to deny that Sister White taught the shut door: he stoutly maintained that it was not taught by Seventh-day Adventists at all.
After quoting Sister White’s statement that “Adventists were for a time united in the belief that the door of mercy was shut”, he says, “In this quotation Mrs. White states the position taken by First-day Adventists. She does not even intimate that she believed it.”65
On page 230 of the same book he writes:

“Even as late as the year 1848, there remained here and there an individual who held that there was no more mercy for sinners. These, however, were not Seventh-day Adventists.”66​

Sufficient evidence has already been presented in preceding pages to demonstrate the utter falsity of these statements. The reverse is the truth, that the First-day Adventists early gave up the doctrine, and the Seventh-day Adventists doggedly maintained it.
Joseph Bates, referring to Sister White’s visions, wrote, in 1847:

“I believe the work is of God, and is given to comfort and strengthen his ‘scattered’, ‘torn’, and ‘peeled people’, since the closing up of our work for the world, in October, 1844."67​

How does Brother Loughborough deal with a passage like this? He simply drops out the words “for the world”, and makes the passage read,

“since the closing up of our work…in October, 1844”.68​

How does Brother Loughborough deal with James White’s statement that the Lord showed Sister White in vision that she and all the band in Portland had fallen into error in having “given up the midnight cry and shut door as being in the past”? He simply omits the words, “and shut door”, and makes the sentence read, “had given up the ‘midnight cry’ as being in the past.”69 Here he gives no indication that any words have been omitted.
This is a serious offence, for the clauses omitted from both the quotation above referred to are key phrases, the omission of which is calculated to keep the reader in ignorance of the fact that the pioneers taught that doctrine; facts that Brother Loughborough categorically denies in the book in which he makes these mangled quotations.
In the Review and Herald for June 11, 1861, there was published a conference address signed by a number of the leading brethren. The address read as follows:

“If we go back to a period of from six to nine years ago, we find the believers in the third angel’s message few in number, very much scattered, and in no place assuming to take the name of a church. Our views of the work before us were then mostly vague and indefinite, some still retaining the idea adopted by the body of Advent believers in 1844, with William Miller at their head, that our work for ‘the world’ was finished, and that the message was confined to those of the original Advent faith. So firmly was this believed that one of our number was nearly refused the message, the individual presenting it having doubts of the possibility of his salvation because he has not in ‘the ’44 move’. Such things may seem strange to most of our readers, but they serve well to illustrate our proposition that many crude and erroneous views ware entertained … “And according to our views of the work we had to do, was our method of labor. As individuals would go scores and even hundreds of miles to present the truth to one or two who had been believers in the first message, so would the laborers go long distances to visit, to comfort, and to strengthen the scattered ones who had embraced the faith.”70
​

This conference address was signed by J.H. Waggoner, James White, J,N. Loughborough, E.W. Shortridge, Joseph Bates, J.B. Frisbie, M.E. Cornell, Moses Hull, and John Byington.
Brother Loughborough, then, was a signatory of this address and was indeed himself the ‘one of their number” referred to who was “nearly refused the message” because of doubts entertained as to the possibility of his salvation, seeing he was “not in the ’44 move”. And yet, knowing all this, Brother Loughborough has dared to deny in his book that Seventh-day Adventists taught the shut door during the early years of their history!
It is a thousand pities that the degree of candor exhibited in this 1861 conference was not maintained and extended during subsequent years. It is an honor to a people as well as to an individual frankly to acknowledge mistakes, and to retract them. But this degree of candor was not maintained, the said conference address being apparently only a sporadic manifestation of that quality. And the chief reason for this reticence with reference to the early mistakes is that Sister White is involved in them, and the authority of the Testimonies is at stake.
This effort to clear the pioneers, and especially Sister White of the responsibility of teaching the shut door has been continued by denominational leaders right up to the present time. In the Review and Herald, during April, 1926, Elder W. A. Spicer, then president of the general conference, and associate editor of the Review, published a series of articles with that end in view. The following passages are extracted from the articles referred to:

“So far from the shut door meaning to those believers that probation closed in 1844, the new view of the shut door and the Sabbath truth was an incentive to got out and work for the salvation of others.”71​

 

[Adventist Dissident]

David Arnold applies the passages in the same way, in the Present Truth for December, 1849.
Did Sister White share with the brethren this view of the meaning of Hosea 5:6,7, involving as it did the shut door teaching? She speaks thus for herself:

“The excitements and false reformations of this day do not move us, for we know that the Master of the house rose up in 1844, and shut the door of the first apartment of the heavenly tabernacle; and now we certainly expect that they will ‘go with their flocks’, ‘to seek the Lord; but they shall not find him; he halt withdrawn himself (within the second veil) from them’. The Lord has shown me that the power which is with them is a mere human influence, and not the power of God”.62​

“I saw false reformations everywhere. The churches were elated, and considered that God was marvelously working for them, when it was another spirit.”63​

EFFORTS TO DENY THE FACTS OF THE “SHUT-DOOR” TEACHING, OR TO EVADE THEIR SIGNIFICANCE

It is exceedingly regrettable that these facts should have been covered up for many years, denied, or explained away so that our people generally, and the great body of our workers have not been acquainted with them. The present writer finds no pleasure in reviewing such items of past history, nor in discussing what he believes to be the mistaken course of those who have subscribed to the policy of preventing them from becoming generally known. This unpleasant task becomes a duty, however, in the present circumstances. Thousands have been taught to regard the sanctuary teaching as now held as having the authority of a divine revelation; whereas it has no such authority. The shut door teaching was the aftermath of William Miller’s mistake in preaching that Christ’s second advent would take place in 1844. The present sanctuary teaching is the aftermath of the mistaken shut door doctrine of 1844 to 1851. The mistakes of the past have led on to the mistaken teaching of the present. The present erroneous views regarding the sanctuary are being assiduously taught to our children and young people, and thus passed on to another generation. It becomes the duty of Christ’s ministers, when they become aware of these things, to speaks out and let the facts be known.
The darkest page in our denominational history is not that which records the mistakes of the Miller movement; nor that which records the shut door teaching of subsequent years; but that which records an effort to cover up the facts of the past.
Most of the early Adventists (not the Seventh-day Adventists) frankly acknowledged that they had taken mistaken positions. Joseph Bates refers disapprovingly to this in an article contributed to the Review and Herald in December, 1850. He quotes J.V. Himes as saying, “We are free to confess that we have been twice disappointed in our expectations in the time of our Lord’s advent”. Joseph Bates then says, “After this, hundreds of others followed in confessions, in the two leading papers; and in their confessions….acknowledged that they were mistaken about the shut door view.”
It is to be deeply regretted that our own pioneers did not follow the same commendable course, when, late in 1851, or thereabout, they in turn gave up the shut door teaching.
In the Review for March 17, 1853, the editor, James White, quotes form the “Harbinger” a statement in which O.R.L. Crozier said that he understood the Seventh-day Adventists now disclaimed the doctrine of the shut door. Brother White then makes the curt rejoinder, “On the above we will first remark, that as C. has informed the readers of the Harbinger that we disclaim the doctrine of the shut door, that paper should no longer reproachfully call us ‘shut door Sabbatarians’”.
Seeing that the pioneers taught the shut door so long and so emphatically, and so unsparingly reproached the other Adventists for giving up that doctrine, the editor of the Review should have voluntarily and frankly acknowledged the mistake, and should not have left it to “C”, or anyone else, to “inform the readers of the Harbinger”, and other interested persons, of the change of convictions.
There is one outstanding reason for this reluctance to acknowledge openly the mistakes of the past. Sister White had participated in the shut door teaching, and had related and published visions which supported it. When these visions were re-published in the form of “Experience and Views”, in 1851, and again in 1854, some statements teaching the shut door were omitted entirely. Had they been retained, the conclusion would have been inevitable that they taught the shut door. In their “Preface to the second edition”, after referring to the addition of several dates, and two dreams, the publishers went on to say:

“Aside from these, no changes from the original work have been made in the present edition, except for the occasional employment of a new word, or a change in the construction of a sentence, to better express the idea, and no portion of the work had been omitted. No shadow of change has been made in any idea or sentiment of the original work, and the verbal changes have been made under the author’s own eye, and with her full approval.”64​

It was not true that no portion of the original work had been omitted. The writer of the preface (if he knew of the omissions) may have satisfied his conscience by thinking of the publication of 1851 as the “original work”; but he must have known that the readers of his preface would understand him as referring to the visions as originally published. There were considerable omissions from the contents of the original documents when the visions were first re-published in 1851, and among them statements that undoubtedly taught the shut door. Even after the omissions were made, there still remained passages that could lead to no other conclusion than that the visions taught the shut door. Instances of these have already been given in preceding pages.
For many years Elder J.N. Loughborough occupied a position tantamount to that of historian to the denomination. Brother Loughborough went farther than to deny that Sister White taught the shut door: he stoutly maintained that it was not taught by Seventh-day Adventists at all.
After quoting Sister White’s statement that “Adventists were for a time united in the belief that the door of mercy was shut”, he says, “In this quotation Mrs. White states the position taken by First-day Adventists. She does not even intimate that she believed it.”65
On page 230 of the same book he writes:

“Even as late as the year 1848, there remained here and there an individual who held that there was no more mercy for sinners. These, however, were not Seventh-day Adventists.”66​

Sufficient evidence has already been presented in preceding pages to demonstrate the utter falsity of these statements. The reverse is the truth, that the First-day Adventists early gave up the doctrine, and the Seventh-day Adventists doggedly maintained it.
Joseph Bates, referring to Sister White’s visions, wrote, in 1847:

“I believe the work is of God, and is given to comfort and strengthen his ‘scattered’, ‘torn’, and ‘peeled people’, since the closing up of our work for the world, in October, 1844."67​

How does Brother Loughborough deal with a passage like this? He simply drops out the words “for the world”, and makes the passage read,

“since the closing up of our work…in October, 1844”.68​

How does Brother Loughborough deal with James White’s statement that the Lord showed Sister White in vision that she and all the band in Portland had fallen into error in having “given up the midnight cry and shut door as being in the past”? He simply omits the words, “and shut door”, and makes the sentence read, “had given up the ‘midnight cry’ as being in the past.”69 Here he gives no indication that any words have been omitted.
This is a serious offence, for the clauses omitted from both the quotation above referred to are key phrases, the omission of which is calculated to keep the reader in ignorance of the fact that the pioneers taught that doctrine; facts that Brother Loughborough categorically denies in the book in which he makes these mangled quotations.
In the Review and Herald for June 11, 1861, there was published a conference address signed by a number of the leading brethren. The address read as follows:

“If we go back to a period of from six to nine years ago, we find the believers in the third angel’s message few in number, very much scattered, and in no place assuming to take the name of a church. Our views of the work before us were then mostly vague and indefinite, some still retaining the idea adopted by the body of Advent believers in 1844, with William Miller at their head, that our work for ‘the world’ was finished, and that the message was confined to those of the original Advent faith. So firmly was this believed that one of our number was nearly refused the message, the individual presenting it having doubts of the possibility of his salvation because he has not in ‘the ’44 move’. Such things may seem strange to most of our readers, but they serve well to illustrate our proposition that many crude and erroneous views ware entertained … “And according to our views of the work we had to do, was our method of labor. As individuals would go scores and even hundreds of miles to present the truth to one or two who had been believers in the first message, so would the laborers go long distances to visit, to comfort, and to strengthen the scattered ones who had embraced the faith.”70
​

This conference address was signed by J.H. Waggoner, James White, J,N. Loughborough, E.W. Shortridge, Joseph Bates, J.B. Frisbie, M.E. Cornell, Moses Hull, and John Byington.
Brother Loughborough, then, was a signatory of this address and was indeed himself the ‘one of their number” referred to who was “nearly refused the message” because of doubts entertained as to the possibility of his salvation, seeing he was “not in the ’44 move”. And yet, knowing all this, Brother Loughborough has dared to deny in his book that Seventh-day Adventists taught the shut door during the early years of their history!
It is a thousand pities that the degree of candor exhibited in this 1861 conference was not maintained and extended during subsequent years. It is an honor to a people as well as to an individual frankly to acknowledge mistakes, and to retract them. But this degree of candor was not maintained, the said conference address being apparently only a sporadic manifestation of that quality. And the chief reason for this reticence with reference to the early mistakes is that Sister White is involved in them, and the authority of the Testimonies is at stake.
This effort to clear the pioneers, and especially Sister White of the responsibility of teaching the shut door has been continued by denominational leaders right up to the present time. In the Review and Herald, during April, 1926, Elder W. A. Spicer, then president of the general conference, and associate editor of the Review, published a series of articles with that end in view. The following passages are extracted from the articles referred to:

“So far from the shut door meaning to those believers that probation closed in 1844, the new view of the shut door and the Sabbath truth was an incentive to got out and work for the salvation of others.”71​

“On the contrary, the record shows that the spirit of prophecy was ever calling the pioneers to shape their plans to carry the gospel message to sinners in every land. And all through those years Sister White herself was out preaching the gospel and seeking to save sinners.” “And mark this, all the time, from the very beginning, the spirit of prophecy was not only setting forth an open door, but was telling these pioneers of a great world-wide work of which they had little idea.”72
​

Brother Spicer does not bring any evidence from the early publications to warrant these statements. We have already seen that the records of the early years tell a very different story from that which our brother would have us believe. In the face of all this evidence, how can anyone conscientiously maintain that “all the time, form the very beginning, the spirit of prophecy was…setting forth an open door”, and telling the pioneers of the “great world-wide work of which they had little idea”?
Still more recently, in a pamphlet entitled “The Shut Door and the Close of Probation”, Elder A.G. Daniells reviews some of the early teaching of Sister White on this subject. Brother Daniells’ pamphlet is a welcome departure form the policy followed by our publishers in the past, in two respects; first, in that it acknowledges that our pioneers “continued for a period to believe that salvation for sinners was past; and second, in acknowledging the fact that certain important passages had been eliminated from Early Writings, and even in reproducing and discussing some of them. The object is kept in view throughout, however, of clearing Sister White of having taught the mistaken doctrine. We quote the following from Brother Daniells’ pamphlet:

“In the very nature of the case, as the time came, and for a short period thereafter, they [Seventh-day Adventists] believed that their work for sinners was at an end… But while, after the passing of the time in 1844, they continued for a period to believe that salvation for sinners was past and that Christ would quickly appear, there was no statement from Mrs. E. G. White to the effect that it had been revealed to her that probation for the world had closed and that there was no longer salvation for the unsaved. There is a vast difference between holding a personal belief regarding a question, and declaring that this belief had been obtained by a direct revelation for the Lord.”73​

 

[Adventist Dissident]

“And mark this, all the time, from the very beginning, the spirit of prophecy was not only setting forth an open door, but was telling these pioneers of a great world-wide work of which they had little idea.”72
Brother Spicer does not bring any evidence from the early publications to warrant these statements. We have already seen that the records of the early years tell a very different story from that which our brother would have us believe. In the face of all this evidence, how can anyone conscientiously maintain that “all the time, form the very beginning, the spirit of prophecy was…setting forth an open door”, and telling the pioneers of the “great world-wide work of which they had little idea”?
Still more recently, in a pamphlet entitled “The Shut Door and the Close of Probation”, Elder A.G. Daniells reviews some of the early teaching of Sister White on this subject. Brother Daniells’ pamphlet is a welcome departure form the policy followed by our publishers in the past, in two respects; first, in that it acknowledges that our pioneers “continued for a period to believe that salvation for sinners was past; and second, in acknowledging the fact that certain important passages had been eliminated from Early Writings, and even in reproducing and discussing some of them. The object is kept in view throughout, however, of clearing Sister White of having taught the mistaken doctrine. We quote the following from Brother Daniells’ pamphlet:

“In the very nature of the case, as the time came, and for a short period thereafter, they [Seventh-day Adventists] believed that their work for sinners was at an end… But while, after the passing of the time in 1844, they continued for a period to believe that salvation for sinners was past and that Christ would quickly appear, there was no statement from Mrs. E. G. White to the effect that it had been revealed to her that probation for the world had closed and that there was no longer salvation for the unsaved. There is a vast difference between holding a personal belief regarding a question, and declaring that this belief had been obtained by a direct revelation for the Lord.”73​

Proceeding to examine some of the eliminated passages, Brother Daniells writes: “The one sure and satisfactory way of arriving at the truth of the question under consideration is by a careful examination of the published utterances of Mrs. White during that period.”74
Concluding this review, Brother Daniells says that: “In all that was printed from the pen of Mrs. White during eight years—-1844-1851-—we find three statements so worded that two different and conflicting interpretations can be placed upon them. … The writer believes…that there is no evidence that Mrs. E. G. White ever taught this error.”75
In order to test the soundness of Brother Daniells’ conclusion let us consider briefly one of the three statements to which he refers,--“It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected.” Of this sentence Brother Daniells says that he sincerely believes that it “does not, taken apart from the context, express the view of the author as clearly as was intended.” “This opinion”, he continues, “is strengthened by the action of Mrs. White when, in revising the printed message, she eliminated this sentence”.76 No one suggests, however, that this sentence be “taken apart from its context”. We want it with its context, where it rightly belongs. It was “separated from its context” when Sister White eliminated it.
Brother Daniells asks,--“Is it exactly fair to take a single brief sentence from its context, and place a meaning upon it which makes it conflict with the document as a whole?”77 The sentence under consideration, whether taken apart from or with its context, does not at all conflict with the document as a whole. If it were in conflict with the message of the document as a whole, it would obviously never have been written in the first place. The statement is harmonious with its context, and with the general teaching of Sister White and the other pioneers of the time. It would be difficult to “place a meaning upon” the sentence other than that which stands out upon the very face of it. Let the reader read the passage once more, and see if this is not the case. “It was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected.”
Brother Daniells asks again, “Is it not more reasonable and consistent to conclude that the wording of the sentence is not clear—that it does not express fully, and without possibility of misunderstanding, just what the writer had in mind?”78 But the sentence is clear; uncompromisingly clear: it does express “without possibility of misunderstanding just what the writer had in mind.”
In seeking a way out of the difficulty, Brother Daniells pleads that this and other passages are “so worded that two different and conflicting interpretations can be places upon them.”79 No attempt is made to show how these conflicting constructions could be arrived at.
Speaking of Sister White’s first vision (of which the particular passage under discussion formed a part), Brother Daniells says,--“It is plainly evident that this view revealed a great evangelical movement in operation throughout the world until the coming of the Lord”.80 This claim is based on Sister White’s repeated reference to the 144,000, a number of believers which Brother Daniells affirms was nowhere in sight at the time. This argument loses its force, however, when one knows that the Adventists influenced by the Miller movement were estimated to exceed that number, and these were the ones that Sister White and her associates were so diligent in searching out. Moreover, Joseph Bates, discussing the question of the 144,000 at the time, declared that he believed them to be already in existence. He published a 70-page pamphlet, entitled, “The Seal of the Living God - A Hundred and Forty-four Thousand of the Servants of God being Sealed”, in 1849.
The editor of the Review and Herald, Elder F. M. Wilcox, in closing a series of articles on “The Shut Door and Close of Probation”, says, in speaking of Sister White’s writings:

“There are two or three statements which, because of their ambiguity of expression, some have charged taught the shut-door doctrine.”81​

Why does Brother Wilcox speak of “ambiguity of expression” in connection with these statements? Brother Daniells uses similar terms, as we have already seen. He says “the wording of the sentence is not clear”, --that it “does not express fully, and without possibility of misunderstanding”, etc., and that these things “might have been expressed more clearly”. He speaks again of “the obscurity of the phrase.”
The truth is that there is nothing either ambiguous or obscure about the statements referred to. Sister White said of the backsliding Adventists, “it was just as impossible for them to get on the path again and go to the City, as all the wicked world which God had rejected.” Where is “the obscurity of the phrase?”
She said again, that “if one believed, and kept the Sabbath, and received the blessing attending it, and then gave it up, and broke the holy commandment, they would shut the gates of the Holy City against themselves as sure as there was a God that rules in heaven above.” Where is the “ambiguity of expression” that Bother Wilcox speaks of?
In a chapter headed “The Open and the Shut Door”, Sister White wrote, “My accompanying angel bade me look for the travail of soul for sinners as used to be. I looked, but could not see it; for the time for their salvation is past.” Is “the wording of the sentence not clear”?

 

[Adventist Dissident]

Place this statement from Sister White parallel with a sentence from Brother Daniells’ book, thus: and note that one is a direct rebuttal of the other:
Brother Daniells’ pamphlet, p. 5 Early Writings, p. 45 “There was no statement from Mrs. E.G. White to the effect that it had been revealed to her that probation for the world had closed, and that there was no longer salvation for the unsaved.” “My accompanying angel bade me look for the travail of soul for sinners as used to be. I looked, but I could not see it; for the time for their salvation is past.” When Sister White wrote to Eli Curtis in April, 1847: “The Lord has shown me in vision, that Jesus rose up, and shut the door, and entered the Holy of Holies, at the 7th month, 1844”; and when she related another vision in 1850, in which she said, “I did not see one ray of light pass from Jesus to the careless multitude after He arose, and they were left in perfect darkness”; did she not express herself “fully, and without possibility of misunderstanding”?
Why do our leading brethren use their influence to persuade the church that such expressions as these; bold, clear, and uncompromising in their definiteness and outspokenness; are obscure and ambiguous? Sister White well knew how to say what she meant; and she certainly did not fail in these and other similar instances.
A LETTER RECENTLY PUBLISHED

In the Review and Herald for January the 14th, 1932, there was published a photographic reproduction of a letter written by Mrs. E.G. White to Elder J.N. Loughborough, relating to the shut-door teaching of the early years. The letter reads as follows:

Battle Creek Mich., Aug. 24, 1874. Dear Bro. Loughborough:
I hereby testify in the fear of God that the charges of Miles Grant, of Mrs. Burdick, and others, published in the CRISIS is not true. The statements in reference to my course in forty-four is false.
With my brethren and sisters, after the time passed in forty-four I did believe no more sinners would be converted. But I never had a vision that no more sinners would be converted. And am clear and free to state no one has ever heard me say or has read from my pen statements which will justify them in the charges they have made against me upon this point.
It was on my first journey east to relate my visions that the precious light in regard to the heavenly sanctuary was opened before me and I was shown the open and shut door. We believed that the Lord was soon to come in the clouds of heaven. I was shown that there was a great work to be done in the world for those who had not had the light and rejected it. Our brethren could not understand this with our faith in the immediate appearing of Christ. Some accused me of saying my Lord delayeth His coming, especially the fanatical ones. I saw that in ’44 God had opened a door and no man could shut it, and shut a door and no man could open it. Those who rejected the light which was brought to the world by the message of the second angel went into darkness, and how great was darkness.
I never have stated or written that the world was doomed or damned. I never have under any circumstances used this language to any one, however sinful. I have ever had messages of reproof for those who used these harsh expressions.82
​

The publication of this letter may be regarded as a very belated acknowledgment of the truth concerning certain matters referred to in this article. The acknowledgment, however, both on the part of the writer of the letter and of those who now publish it, is only partial, and is entirely inadequate. Let us consider first of all the significance of the acknowledgments made, and then review the evidence that something more far reaching is called for by the facts in the case.
Sister White states in this letter that “after the time passed in forty-four”, she, in common with the brethren and sisters of the time, “did believe that no more sinners would be converted”. This is an important admission, because the denomination has for many years sough to maintain the very opposite. Brother Loughborough declared that those who held such views “were not Seventh-day Adventist.” Speaking of Sister White he wrote that “she does not even intimate that she believed it.”83 It makes one blush for Brother Loughborough to reflect that when he published these statements he had in his possession the very letter now reproduced by the Review and Herald in which Sister White makes the solemn assertion (no mere “intimation&#8221 that she and the other pioneers did believe that doctrine. Provided of course that our brother actually received the letter. The Review speaks of it as being found among Sister White’s old letters and documents. In any case, however, Brother Loughborough had access to all the information it contains, and much more.
Brother Loughborough is not the only one to appear in an unfavorable light as a result of the publication of this letter. A grave reflection falls upon Sister White herself. She must have known that a false representation regarding these matters was being made to our people, not only in Brother Loughborough’s book, but also in other publications including notes and prefaces in her own Early Writings, and yet did nothing to prevent it. These things could not possibly have continued in the face of her direct and expressed disapproval. Her silence or inaction involves her deeply in responsibility for the course so long followed by the denomination in this connection.
More than eighty years have expired since the close of that early period of “shut-door” teaching. The letter under consideration was itself written almost fifty-eight years before its recent publication. During all this time a wrong impression has been given our people. A grave reflection falls not only upon Sister White and Brother Loughborough, but upon all who, closing their eyes to the very evident facts in the case, have persisted in maintaining that impression.
Now that we have Sister White’s own acknowledgment that she and the other pioneers “did believe that no more sinners would be converted”, what will the ex-president of the general conference say, who in 1926, writing professedly in review of the evidences contained in the early documents, maintained in our leading church paper that “so far from the shut door meaning to those believers that probation closed in 1844, the new view of the shut door and the Sabbath truth was an incentive to go out and work for the salvation of others”?84 How will the same writer justify his assertion that “all through those years Sister White herself was out preaching the gospel and seeking to save sinners”? (Ibid. April 15, 1926). For how could Sister White and the pioneers work for the salvation of sinners when it was their firm belief that “no more sinners would be converted”?
What will the editor of the Review and Herald say, who in the January 30, 1930, number of that paper wrote that “We have no evidence that Mrs. White had the same idea about the work to be done as her associates”, and that “her instruction to the church through all the years is definite and decided in presenting an open door of mercy to any and every penitent of every race and nation who would seek salvation in Christ Jesus”? For how could Sister White be so “definite and decided in presenting an open door of mercy” during the period in which according to her own admission she believed the door was shut, and “no more sinners would be converted”?
We turn now to consider the evidence that a more far-reaching acknowledgment is called for than is furnished by the letter under consideration. Sister White here affirms that she “never had a vision that no more sinners would be converted”. It seems that our sister must have written this sentence with certain mental reservations. She may not have related a vision in which it was said in so many words that “no more sinners would be converted”; but she did relate a vision in which it was declared that “the time for their salvation is past”, and that such so-called conversions or “reformations” as were then being seen were only “from bad to worse”; and another declaring that it was “impossible” for “all the wicked world which God had rejected”, or for Adventist backsliders to “get on the path” and “go to the City”; and another in which she was shown that “Jesus rose up and shut the door, and entered the Holy of Holies at the 7th month, 1844”; and another which she “did not see one ray of light pass from Jesus to the careless multitude after He arose, and they were left in perfect darkness”; and still other visions of the same purport and to the same effect. It is idle for Sister White and to the defenders of her inspiration to maintain that these visions did not teach that no more sinners would be converted.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

“YOU SHALL KNOW THEM BY THEIR FRUITS” (MATTHEW 7:16)

We must regretfully face the fact that Sister White was capable of writing very solemn statements with mental reservations such as that above suggested. She wrote:

“In these letters which I write, in the testimonies I bear, I am presenting to you that which the Lord has presented to me. I do not write one article in the paper expressing merely my own ideas. They are what God has opened before me in vision—the precious rays of light shining form the throne.”85​

How can one reconcile this bold claim with the fact that such a book as Sister White’s Sketches from the Life of Paul contained so much matter copied without acknowledgement from the well-known Life and Epistles of the Apostle Paul by Conybeare and Howson, that the representatives of the latter threatened to bring suit against the Review and Herald Publishing Company for the plagiarism? Sister White’s book had to be withdrawn from sale on that account. Who, in this instance, received “the light shining from the throne”? Sister White, or Messrs. Conybeare and Howson?
There are other and numerous instances in which our late sister incorporated in her books passages copied from various authors without giving credits. It is difficult to imagine how she could conscientiously reconcile this wholesale unacknowledged appropriation of the writings of others, with the solemn assurance that she never even “wrote one article in the paper” except to convey “what God opened before her in vision—-the precious rays of light shining from the throne.”
Sister White says, “With my brethren and sisters…I did believe no more sinners would be converted.” That is just what the early record shows. She believed what the brethren at the time believed. But the records also show that she taught what they taught, even in the relation of the visions. Take, for instance, the following statements:
Ellen White, Present Truth, December, 1849 Joseph Bates in tract published in 1850 Ellen White, Early Writings, p. 42, March 24, 1849 “I saw that in Brother Rhodes mouth there had been no guile in speaking against the present truth, relating to the Sabbath and the Shut Door.” “The ‘Present Truth’, then, of this third angel’s message is THE SABBATH AND THE SHUT DOOR.” “Then I was shown that the commandments of God, and the testimony of Jesus, relating to the shut door, could not be separated.” Nothing could be clearer than that in these statements Sister White agreed with Brother Bates in teaching that the Sabbath and the shut door were the present truth.
In the letter under consideration Sister White says further:

“It was on my first journey east to relate my visions that the precious light in regard to the heavenly sanctuary was opened before me and I was shown the open and shut door.”​

What light was this? The opening and shutting doors in heaven! Is that all? There is neither light, nor life, nor salvation in this theory of the pioneers relating to the doors of the sanctuary, either in the form in which they originally held it, or in the form in which they passed it in to us, and in which we are asked to pass it on to our children.
In his pamphlet, “The Shut Door and the Close of Probation”, Brother Daniells solemnly argues that “in not one of the five references to the shut door does Mrs. White state that the door of the second apartment of the sanctuary in which Christ ministers as High Priest or Mediator for a lost world was closed in 1844.”86 Why does Brother Daniells specify “the door of the second apartment”? Sister White taught that the door was shut, but she did not say that it was the door of the second apartment! Profound distinction! As though sinners could gain access to the inner door, when the outer door was closed against them!
William Miller made a grievous mistake in preaching that Christ would come in 1844. Our pioneers decided that Brother Miller was quite right in preaching the time, that God’s hand was in it, and that the mistake was only in the event that was expected to take the place.
From 1844 to 1851 the pioneers taught that the door was shut, and that probation for the world had closed. When it became evident that they were mistaken in this, instead of dropping the shut door theory altogether, they only modified it. They had not been mistaken in teaching that the door was shut; it was only a question as to which door was shut!

“While it was true that that door of hope and mercy by which men had for eighteen hundred years found access to God was closed another door was opened… There was still an ‘open door’ to the heavenly sanctuary”.87​

Sister White, in her letter to Brother Loughborough, protests further:

“I never stated or written that the world was doomed or damned. I never have under any circumstances used this language to any one, however sinful.”​

This may be quite true. Sister White may never have used these particular expressions. She has however made statements far more harsh, unwarranted statements, as following extracts from her writings will show:

“Said the angel…Satan has taken full possession of the churches as a body.”88​

“I saw that since Jesus left the holy place of the heavenly sanctuary, and entered within the second veil, the churches have been filing up with every unclean and hateful bird. I saw great iniquity and vileness in the churches; yet their members profess to be Christians. Their profession, their prayers, and their exhortations, are an abomination in the sight of God. Said the angel, ‘God will not smell in their assemblies’.”89​

There is sense in which the world in departure from God is a doomed, lost world. Sister White would not have erred from the truth had she spoken of it as such. That would be very different from saying that “the time for their salvation is past”. For although it is true that the world is a lost world, it is also true that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost”. It is not true, however, that “Satan has taken full possession of the churches as a body”, and our Sister (partly excusable no doubt because of the fanatical “shut door” viewpoint of her early years) erred greatly in attributing those words to the angel of God.
The admissions contained in the letter under consideration are therefore entirely inadequate. Let not the reader be deceived. The documentary evidence coming down to us from those early years, reviewed in this treatise is not so lightly to be set aside.
There has been an effort by some to maintain the old ground, that the pioneers did not teach the shut door; but that effort has entirely collapsed. The endeavor now is to show that Sister White did not participate in the shut door view or at least that she did not teach it on authority of her visions. To establish this, however, the brethren must account for the numerous statements of Sister White that have been reviewed in this treatise. How do they do this? They ask us to regard these passages as “ambiguous” and “obscure”! Is this the best the brethren can do?
Therefore some very unpleasant facts have been painfully pressed upon us. We have learned that vital passages teaching the shut door were eliminated from Sister White’s Early Writings; we have seen that despite this, the publishers for many years assured us in their “Preface” that “no changes from the original work had been made”, that “no portion of the work had been omitted”; and indeed that “no shadow of change had been made in any idea or sentiment of the original work”; we have learned that for a period of seven years after 1844 our Seventh-day Adventist pioneers were the dogged defenders of the shut door doctrine, and the stern denouncers of the Adventist who in 1845 renounced that theory; and yet for many years a large volume, purporting to be a historic account of the early days of our movement, has been circulated among our people, falsely accusing the First-day Adventists of being the propagators of that error, and just as culpably denying that our own pioneers taught it; we have been made painfully conscious of a weakness on the part of leading brethren over a long period of time, in relating only that which seemed favorable, and not telling us “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, concerning Sister White’s experiences, and the early days of the movement. But what can be said with regard to the “unpleasant facts” referred to above? It has been impossible to deny the charges so painfully pressed upon us!

 

[Adventist Dissident]

MAN’S MISTAKE--NOT GOD’S

There was a great stir in America, when William Miller and his associates preached that Christ would come on the 22nd of October 1844. So profound was the impression upon some, that even when the disappointment came, they still felt that the Lord was in the definite time preaching. They could not doubt the “experience” through which they passed in connection with that movement. One reads that over and over again in the early records. It was this every attitude of mind, in which they felt bound to justify their experience of the past, that led our pioneers to hold so tenaciously to the shut door theory.
Some took a wiser view, and followed a wiser course. One of them wrote thus to the “Voice of Truth”, some eighteen months after the disappointment:

“I believe it was a sincere, honest, human mistake, and it would have been an honor to anyone to confess it”, and “not lay it up to the Lord.”90​

Seventh-day Adventists are in danger today of holding on blindly to a misinterpretation of prophecy, because they feel that so much of their past experience in the things of God must stand or fall with it. In this we have received our impressions from Sister White and the pioneers, a relic of similar impressions that led them to persist in a mistaken position some eighty years ago. Let us beware of reaping the results of their error, and passing them on to perplex the minds of our children, and to make faith difficult for them.
We have not been mistaken in cherishing the blessed hope of Christ’s soon-coming. I would exhort the reader not to relinquish this hope, but to cherish it with increasing earnestness. God has light for us on the prophecies, light that is increasing more and more. And the light will continue to increase, unto the perfect day.
As for the sanctuary teaching that we have held for so many years, let us bid it an unregretful farewell. Let us not harshly judge any of the brethren, past or present, for the mistakes and wrongs that have led either to its inception or its perpetuation; but let us kindly say, with the brother who wrote to “The Voice of Truth” so many years ago, “I believe it was a sincere, honest, human mistake”; let us regard it as “an honor to anyone to confess it”, and “not lay it up to the Lord.”
DIRECT INSPIRATION FOUND ONLY IN THE BIBLE

What are God’s people to do in these circumstances? There is only one thing to do. Let us get back to the Bible, and the Bible only as the rule of our faith. In that word we are exhorted not to despise prophesying, but to prove them, and to hold fast only that which is good. God has given us in the Holy Scriptures the true norm, not only of Christian doctrine, but also of Christian experience. In her warfare in this world, the church is likely to be perplexed through the extravagances in experience of some of her children. It is not always possible to explain or account for the mistaken impressions and conviction of apparently fervent and spiritually-minded Christians. We do not have to do that. We do not need to do it. Our responsibility and our safety is to get back to the Bible, and rely upon that sure word, both for teaching and for experience, whether we can account for the experiences of the other Christians or not.
In declining to accept Sister White’s testimonies as a direct revelation from God, we do not have to account for all her exercises, and explain how an apparently earnest Christian could be mistaken in such claims as she made. It will be urged by some that the work must have been either wholly of God, or wholly of the devil. We are not bound to accept either alternative.
In the early publication referred to so frequently in these pages, A Word to the Little Flock, James White reproduced the statement of a friend concerning the visions, that is of interest to us today. The following is that statement:

“I cannot endorse Sister Ellen’s visions as being a divine inspiration, as you and she think them to be; yet I do not suspect the least shade of dishonesty in either of you in this matter. I may perhaps, express to you my belief in the matter, without harm--it will, doubtless, result either in your good or mine. At the same time, I admit the possibility of my being mistaken. I think that what she and you regard as visions from the Lord, are only religious reveries, in which her imagination runs without control upon themes in which she is most deeply interested. While so absorbed in these reveries, she is lost to everything around her. Reveries are of two kinds, sinful and religious. Hers is the latter. Rosseau’s, ‘a celebrated French infidel’, were the former. Infidelity was his theme, and his reveries were infidel. Religion is her theme; and her reveries are religious. In either case, the sentiments, in the main, are obtained from previous teaching, or study. I do not by any means think her visions are like some from the devil.”91​

Whether this Brother’s diagnosis of Sister White’s condition in vision was correct or not we do not need to decide. His was at any rate a kindly and merciful view to take. Let us be as kindly and just as merciful. There doubtless was, at any rate at that time, “no shade of dishonesty” in Brother and Sister White in this matter. It is not so easy to take that view, when, later on, passages were eliminated from the writings, and gross misrepresentations permitted such as has been reviewed in these pages. It is not so easy to overlook the part played by others in continuing these misrepresentations. The responsibility for the misrepresentations is a grave one, for by them the church has been prevented from obeying the injunction to “prove all things”. Nevertheless we are bound in this instance also to take the merciful view. One of the characteristics of fanaticism is blindness. Very questionable things may be done by otherwise pious man in support of a claim they have come to believe to be as fundamental and essential as that of the inspiration of the Bible. And there has certainly been a degree of fanaticism manifested in the course followed by some, in their efforts to bolster up Sister White’s claim to direct revelation. Let us leave it at that. And let us at the same time turn anew to the Bible, and to the God of the Bible, and his son, our blessed Savior, Jesus Christ. For my own part, I rejoice greatly in God my Savior. My faith in Him and in the promises of his world increases day by day. The blessed hope of Christ’s soon-coming is more precious to me than ever before.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

NOTES
1. J.N. Loughborough, Rise and Progress of the Advent Movement.
2. Author is referring to the publications of Ellen White critics A.G. Ballenger and F.E. Belden.
3. The Ministry, June 1926. Article “Easy Steps in Personal Work.”
4. Ellen White, Great Controversy, p. 429.
5. A. Hale, Review and Herald, September 16, 1851; editor, James White, husband of Ellen White.
6. James White, Editorial on the Sanctuary, 2300 days and “The Shut Door” in The Present Truth, for May, 1850.
7. James White in “A Word to the Little Flock”, p. 2, (1847).
8. Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 4, p. 271.
9. James White, article “Who Has Left the Sure Word?”
10. E.P. Butler, Review and Herald, January 1851. Emphasis his.
11. E.P. Butler, Review and Herald, February 1851.
12. Letter from “A Second Advent brother to his Son.” Review and Herald, February, 1851.
13. Ellen White, Present Truth, December, 1849.
14. Joseph Bates, unspecified tract, emphasis his.
15. George Needham, “The voice of Truth”, March 19, 1845, p. 12.
16. J.B. Cook, Advent Review, pp. 30-34.
17. Joseph Bates, “The Laodicean Church,” Review and Herald, November, 1850. Emphasis throughout by Joseph Bates.
18. Joseph Bates, “Midnight Cry in the Past”, Review and Herald, December 1850.
19. Joseph Bates, “The Sealing Message”, p. 56, (1849).
20. Joseph Bates, Review and Herald, August 19, 1851.
21. David Arnold , Present Truth, December 1849.
22. Ibid., p. 44.
23. Hiram Edson, “An Appeal to the Laodicean Church”, Advent Review extra, 1850.
24. James White, Review and Herald, April 7, 1851.
25. Joseph Bates, Review and Herald, January, 1851.
26. James White, A Word to the Little Flock, p. 22, (1847).
27. Ellen White, A Word to the Little Flock, p.14.
28. Ellen White, A word to the Little Flock, p. 19.
29. Ellen White, A Word to the Little Flock, pp. 11,12.
30. O.R.L. Crozier, quoted in Review and Herald, March 17, 1853.
31. James White, Review, March 17, 1853.
32. Ellen White, Early Writings, p. 42.
33. Ellen White, Present Truth December, 1849.
34. Ellen White, Early Writings, pp. 54.
35. Ibid., p. 55.
36. Ibid., p. 56
37. Ibid., p. 55.
38. Advent Review, p. 18.
39. Ellen White, Present Truth, August, 1849.
40. New edition of Early Writings, page 45.
41. James White, Present Truth, May, 1850.
42. Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, vol. 4, p. 271.
43. James White, Present Truth, April 1850.
44. Ibid.
45. Ellen White, Present Truth, December, 1849.
46. James White, Ibid.
47. S.W. Rhodes, Present Truth, November, 1850.
48. James White, Ibid.
49. Joseph Bates, Report of labors at Baltimore, Review and Herald, October 7, 1851.
50. Ellen White, Present Truth April, 1850, article entitled, “To the Little Flock”.
51. Ellen White, Early Writings, p.47, written in 1849.
52. Ibid. p. 50.
53. Ibid. p. 61.
54. Ibid. p. 75, written in September, 1850.
55. Ellen White, Present Truth, September, 1849.
56. Ellen White, Review and Herald, February 17, 1863.
57. A. Hale, Review and Herald, September 16, 1851.
58. David Arnold, Present Truth, December, 1849.
59. Ibid. Letter from Brother Holt.
60. James White, Present Truth, May, 1850.
61. Joseph Bates, Review and Herald, August 19,1851.
62. Ellen White, Present Truth, March,1850.
63. Ellen White, Spiritual Gifts, vol.4, p, 172.
64. Publishers, Early Writings, preface to the 2nd edition.
65. J.N. Loughborough, Great Second Advent Movement, p. 222.
66. Ibid., p. 230.
67. Joseph Bates, A World to the Little Flock, p. 21.
68. Loughborough, Great Second Advent Movement, p. 263.
69. Ibid. p. 264.
70. Review and Herald, June 11, 1861.
71. Review and Herald, April 1, 1926.
72. Ibid. April 15, 1926.
73. A.G. Daniells, The Shut Door and the Close of Probation, p. 5.
74. Ibid., p. 6.
75. Ibid., p. 26.
76. Ibid., p. 15.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid., p. 26.
80. Ibid., p. 12.
81. F.M. Wilcox, Review, Jan. 30, 1930.
82. Ellen White letter to J.N. Loughborough as printed in Review and Herald, January 14, 1932.
83. Loughborough, Great Second Advent Movement, pp. 234, 222, 223.
84. A.G. Daniells, Review and Herald, April 1, 1926.
85. Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, Vol. 5, p. 67.
86. A.G. Daniells, The Shut Door and the Close of Probation, p. 26.
87. Ellen White, Great Controversy, p. 430.
88. Ellen White, Early Writtings, p. 273.
89. Ibid., p. 274.
90. Quoted in Advent Review, p. 84.
91. A Word to the Little Flock, p. 22.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

Posts 50-51 one post

Extensive Overview of the Shut Door


By Maurice Barnett

The "Shut Door" Defined and then Re-Defined

Though Jesus had been expected to return on October 22, 1844, the failure did not deter the Millerites for long. They decided that the date was correct, just the event was wrong, a course the Jehovah's Witnesses would take concerning the failure of the Lord's return in 1914. The Millerites decided that on that date Jesus entered the second compartment of the heavenly sanctuary and began an "INVESTIGATIVE JUDGMENT" of His people. This period would be of very short duration, hence their expectation of His soon coming. In keeping with all of this, during that short period the opportunity for salvation for the world was over; there was no way anyone could be saved other than the small group of Adventists who had accepted the Millerite message and the "midnight cry." This was known as the SHUT DOOR. Upon this theorizing all other peculiarly SDA positions rest. Yet, even after the "shut door" was given up, the positions that came from it were kept. William Miller, who started the movement, had predicted the second coming of Jesus for sometime "about the year 1843," but set no exact day in that period of time. It was thought to be at some point between March 21st, 1843 and the same date in 1844. There was a great disappointment after the passing of the spring of '44 among the Millerites, but that wasn't the end of things for them. An erratic and unstable Millerite minister named Samuel S. Snow, along with George Storrs, who gave the group their "no soul in man" position, set a much later date. As early as February 16, 1844, Snow published an article setting forth that the "second coming" would occur on the tenth day of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar, the day of atonement. He later set the date of October 22, 1844, which was the tenth day of the seventh month in keeping with the Karaite Jewish calendar. This became known as "THE SEVENTH-MONTH MOVEMENT." It was in early August, 1844, at a five day campmeeting where Snow presented his views, that the "seventh-month movement" caught fire. Another phase enters the vocabulary at this point. Between the August campmeeting and October 22 was the period to be known as "THE MIDNIGHT CRY." This was also referred to as "the TRUE midnight cry," especially in this "seventh-month movement," though later SDA writers simply referred to it as "the midnight cry." It was only at the last moment that William Miller accepted this view of Snow's and held it for several months after that date, but then gave it up and preached against them.
All of their figuring was based on the parable of Matthew 25:1-13 concerning the wise and foolish virgins, the bridegroom, etc. So, "at midnight" the announcement came that "the bridegroom cometh." They reasoned that a "day" in prophetic reckoning was a "year." But, "midnight" amounted to "half a year." This six month period that stretched from the springtime disappointment of Miller's original reckoning, to the October 22 date, was further divided in the middle by "midnight." This gave them the time beginning with the August campmeeting, approximately, till October 22 as the time for the "midnight cry," the preaching of the message that the "bridegroom cometh." The "five wise virgins" were the people who accepted the Millerite message and the October 22 date. The "five foolish virgins" applied to ALL OTHERS. When the bridegroom came (October 22, 1844) the wise virgins (Millerites) entered with Him, and THE DOOR WAS SHUT. All others were left on the outside, cut off from the bridegroom. This was the basis for the "shut door" doctrine that would have such far reaching consequences.
The Millerite movement then divided into "shut door" Adventists and "open door" Adventists, with their own ministers, organizations, and publications. The Seventh-day Adventist Church developed from the "shut door" group and attained the prominence that the others did not. They were known in the early years as the "sabbath and shut door people." There were several warring factions among the Millerites, each having some distinctive test of faithfulness; "footwashing" and "greeting with a holy kiss" were two such tests. After the SABBATH was accepted, coming in via Joseph Bates, it became the distinctive mark, the "SEAL," of the righteous REMNANT.
But, for several years the "shut door" dominated a significant part of their thinking and actions, or non-action as the case was. After all, if the door was shut against the world, there would be no reason to preach to anyone to try to convert them; opportunity for salvation was past for them. To clearly establish just what "shut door" meant, let's look at some of the statements made by its advocates. First of all, William Miller himself, who at first was a "shut door" advocate. A letter from Miller dated November 18, 1844, just after the "great disappointment," was first printed in The Advent Herald for December 11, 1844. It was later reprinted in The Advent Review Special of September, 1850. Miller said:

"We have done our work in warning sinners, and in trying to awake a formal church. God in his providence has SHUT THE DOOR; we can only stir one another up to be patient; and be diligent to make our calling and election sure." (emphasis added)​

Miller also wrote in The Advent Herald for February 12, 1845 that "I did believe and must confess I do now, that I have done my work in warning sinners, and that in the seventh month." However, by the Summer of 1845 Miller had changed his mind. He published his Apology and Defence [sic] about the movement in August of that year. He said on page 28:

"I have no confidence in any of the new theories that have grown out of that [seventh-month] movement, viz., that Christ then came as the Bridegroom, that the door of mercy was closed, that there is no salvation for sinners, that the seventh trumpet then sounded, or that it was a fulfillment of prophecy in any sense." Quoted in Ellen G. White and Her Critics, by Francis D. Nichol, p. 168.​

Certainly Miller's testimony to what "shut door" meant should be accurate. Joseph Turner and Apollos Hale published only one issue of The Advent Mirror, that of January, 1845. The entire issue dealt with Matthew 25. Keep Joseph Turner in mind for future reference. On pages 3-4 of that one issue they say:

"But if the door is shut is there anything more to do for our fellowmen? There may be something, though, on any supposition there cannot be much more to be done. If we attempt to labor as we have done heretofore, it amounts to but little; if we should change our position and try to labor as others do, we could not expect to do any better than they do, and that is a little nearer to nothing than we are doing....But can any sinners be converted if the door is shut? Of course they cannot, though changes that may appear to be conversions may take place....But to think of laboring to convert the great mass of the world at such a time, would be as idle as it would have been for the Israelites, when they were down by the Red Sea, to have turned about to convert the Egyptians. It would be labor lost, to say nothing of the danger we might incur upon our own souls."​

Certainly that is clear enough as to the meaning of "shut door." James White also has a good deal to say about the subject. Note the following:

"The fall of Babylon commenced in the spring of '43 when the churches all around, began to fall into a cold state, and was complete on the 7th month '44, when the last faint ray of hope was taken up from a wicked world church." The Day-Star, September 20, 1845, p. 26. "From the ascension, to the shutting of the door, Oct., 1844, Jesus stood with widespread arms of love, and mercy; ready to receive and plead the cause of every sinner, who would come to God by him." A Word to the Little Flock, 1847, p.2.
​

It is clear from this last quotation that the shutting of the door in October, 1844 meant that Jesus NO LONGER "stood with widespread arms of love, and mercy; ready to receive and plead the cause of every sinner..." That is what James White considered to be the meaning of "shut door." In an extensive article in The Present Truth, May 1850, he dealt in great detail with the subject, especially on the shut door. In that article he says, page 79:

"From the best light we could then obtain from the autumnal types we were very confident that the days would end at the seventh month.... When we came up to that point of time, all our sympathy, burden and prayers for sinners ceased, and the unanimous feeling and testimony was, that our work for the world was finished for ever."​

The rest of the article establishes that he still believed that. His article was to establish that what they had been preaching for the previous five years was correct. Keep in mind the dates on these articles. They range from the Fall of 1844 up to 1850-51. Joseph Bates was one of the founders of the SDA Church. He convinced the others on the Sabbath. Here are three statements from him, 1847-1850:

"I believe the work is of God, and is given to comfort and strengthen his 'scattered,' 'torn,' and 'pealed people,' since the closing up of our work for the world in October, 1844." A Word to the Little Flock, printed by James White, 1847, p.21. "How many scores of writers could be called up here, if time and space would admit it, to prove how clearly this cry has been fulfilled, and that our work ended here for the world. I know it is called infidelity now and even blasphemy to say so." Second Advent Way Marks and High Heaps, 1847, p. 33.
"Here his work ceased: Ministering and Mediating for the whole world forever; and he like his pattern in the type, entered the Most Holy Place, bearing upon his breast plate of Judgement [sic] the twelve tribes of the House of Israel. We were disappointed in our, then explained, expectation. Jesus did not come to this earth then, but the Bridegroom did come, thus fulfilling the parable, and they that were ready went in with him to the Marriage and the door was shut. The present truth in this is: That the master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and now stands beside the Ark containing the commandments. The 'Present Truth,' then, of this third angel's message, is, The Sabbath and Shut Door." An Explanation of the Typical and Anti-Typical Sanctuary,1850, pp. 9, 16.
​

Finally, but not least, let's hear what Ellen White said in 1884 about what the "shut door" meant in those early years:

"After the passing of the time of expectation, in 1844, Adventists still believed the Saviour's coming to be very near; they held that they had reached an important crisis, and that the work of Christ as man's intercessor before God, had ceased. Having given the warning of the judgement [sic] near, they felt their work for the world was done, and they lost their burden of soul for the salvation of sinners, while the bold and blasphemous scoffing of the ungodly seemed to them another evidence that the Spirit of God had been withdrawn from the rejecters of his mercy. All this confirmed them in the belief that probation had ended, or, as they then expressed it, 'the door of mercy was shut.'" Spirit of Prophecy, Vol 4, p. 268.​

There should now be no misunderstanding about what "shut door" meant through the period of five or six years following October, 1844. This is the ONLY meaning that "shut door" had in that period. Indeed, the writings of the White/Bates group, as well as their opposers, abounded with shut door statements and allusions. But, the position on the shut door had to change. Time dragged on, the Lord did not return, and other people became interested in Adventism. The door began to crack a little, then to open wide so that the Adventist gospel was being preached far and wide. "Shut door" was REDEFINED to mean that it was just shut against those who had heard the Millerite message, and that of October, '44, and rejected it, as well as those who first believed and then fell away; those who had no opportunity to even hear the message to begin with were still subject to salvation, if they accepted the message.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

What Part Did Ellen White Play in The "Shut Door"?

This brings us to Ellen White. What part did she play, and did any of her "visions" teach the original shut door doctrine? Did she teach that theory herself through the late 1840's? Well, she claims the negative! In Selected Messages, Volume 1, page 63, she admits what "shut door" originally meant, and that she did believe that in common with the rest. But, she insists that this was BEFORE her first vision, and that her visions corrected the error:

"For a time after the disappointment in 1844, I did hold, in common with the advent body, that the door of mercy was then forever closed to the world. This position was taken before my first vision was given me. It was the light given me of God that corrected our error, and enabled us to see the true position."​

This statement is the worst kind of deception, but has been readily accepted by Adventist apologists. However, Robert Olson, of the White Estate, in his paper 'The "Shut Door" Documents', page 5, insists that the above quotation does not mean she "immediately" realized that the door was NOT shut against the world at the very time of her first vision. He claims that she gradually, over a period of time, came to see the "true" interpretation of her visions and the open door. Even if Olson is correct, it took Ellen White six years to finally wake up, as we shall see. If it is true that she NEVER had a vision that taught the classic "shut door" doctrine, it is strange that she never had a vision that condemned it as error either! She should have been condemning the error all those years, by inspiration, and straightening out her husband, Bates, and the rest. There is no doubt that she had to "reinterpret" her former statements. She DID teach by "vision" and otherwise the same "shut door" the others were preaching, and in later years had to cover that up. But that cover-up is readily exposed. When we consider that she is supposed to be the inspired interpreter of Scriptures, making them clear and plain, it is a little difficult to understand that she would have so hard a time getting the "shut door" straight in her visions. Further, when we look at the facts we find that her visions taught the classic "shut door" theory, and that she preached it as the truth. In a letter to J.N. Loughborough, on August 24, 1874, she said the following in defense of her past teaching:

"I hereby testify in the fear of God that the charges of Miles Grant, or Mrs. Burdick, and others published in the Crisis are not true. The statements in reference to my course in forty-four are false....With my brethren and sisters, after the time passed in forty-four I did believe no more sinners would be converted. But I never had a vision that no more sinners would be converted. And am clear and free to state that no one has ever heard me say or has read from my pen statements which will justify them in the charges they have made against me upon this point....I never have stated or written that the world was doomed or damned. I never have under any circumstances used this language to any one, however sinful. I have ever had messages of reproof for those who used these harsh expressions." Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p. 74.​

Nothing could be further from the truth, and there is no Adventist apologist that can cover this up. We shall see shortly that after the time passed in forty-four, Ellen White, along with the rest, abandoned the shut door theology, and it was her first vision that reestablished it with the others! That is contrary to her statement that she believed the whole thing before her first vision and it was revelation from God that corrected the error. Her first vision is claimed for December, 1844. It was not printed until it appeared in The Day Star, January 24, 1846. It was also printed in the broadside of April 6, 1846, and again in May, 1847 in James White's booklet, A Word to the Little Flock. In 1851, in Experience and Views, THE MOST POINTED SHUT DOOR STATEMENTS WERE DELETED, and were from that time on in all subsequent printings. In the quotation below, the deleted portion of this section has been emphasized. This is just a small part of the "vision" that deals with the Advent people, and the reestablishing of the positions taken concerning October 22, 1844:

"Others rashly denied the light behind them, and said that it was not God that had led them out so far. The light behind them went out leaving their feet in perfect darkness, and they stumbled and got their eyes off the mark and lost sight of Jesus, and fell off the path down in the dark and wicked world below. IT WAS JUST AS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO GET ON THE PATH AGAIN AND GO TO THE CITY, AS ALL THE WICKED WORLD WHICH GOD HAD REJECTED."​

Here apostates, or fainthearted Adventists, wound up with the rest of the world, and it was impossible for them to be saved. She attempted to deal with this deleted statement 1883. In Selected Messages, Volume 1, page 62, after noting the statement she says: "It is claimed that these expressions prove the shut-door doctrine, and that this is the reason for their omission in later editions. But in fact they teach only that which has been and is still held by us as a people, as I will show." Well, let's see what her husband, James, had to say about it:

"When she received her first vision, Dec. 1844, she and all the band in Portland, Maine, [where her parents then resided] had given up the midnight-cry, and shut door, as being in the past. It was then that the Lord shew her in vision, the error into which she and the band in Portland had fallen. She then related her vision to the band, and about sixty confessed their error, and acknowledged their 7th month experience to be the work of God" A Word to the Little Flock, 1847, p.22.​

Note what he says: After the failure of October 22, the group had given up the midnight-cry, and shut door; it was not in the past, but yet future. What turned them around to renew their faith in all of that, including the shut door, was Ellen White's vision! And, the "shut door" they had given up before the vision, and the one they preached following that vision, was that opportunity for salvation for the world was over! But, we have a statement about this vision from Ellen White herself, sot hat we can clearly see the purpose and intent of it. First, notice her attempt to deny having gotten her ideas from anyone, especially Joseph Turner. Remember from a previous quotation [above] that Joseph Turner was an avid "shut door" advocate, believing there was no hope for the world and no use wasting time preaching to them. Notice her joy in finding that her first vision was in perfect agreement with Turner's views. (We will not deal at this point with the apparent fact that she could very well have gotten her ideas from overhearing conversations going on around her in the house). Secondly, notice her second vision was also used to confirm others in the shut door doctrine:

"Brother Bates, you write in a letter to James something about the Bridegroom's coming, as stated in the first published visions. By the letter you would like to know whether I had light on the Bridegroom's coming before I saw it in vision. I can readily answer, No. The Lord showed me the travail of the Advent band and midnight cry in December, but did not show me the Bridegroom's coming until February following. "Perhaps you would like to have me give a statement in relation to both visions. At the time I had the vision of the midnight cry I had given it up in the past and thought it future, as also most of the band had. I know not what time J. Turner got out his paper. I knew he had one out and one was in the house, but I knew not what was in it, for I had not read a word in it. I had been, and still was very sick. I took no interest in reading, for it injured my head and made me nervous.
"After I had the vision and God gave me light, he bade me deliver it to the band, but I shrank from it. I was young, and I thought they would not receive it from me. I disobeyed the Lord, and instead of remaining at home, where the meeting was to be that night, I got in a sleigh in the morning and rode three or four miles and there I found Joseph Turner. He merely inquired how I was and if I was in the way of my duty. I said nothing, for I knew I was not.
"I passed up [to the] chamber and did not see him again for two hours, when he came up, asked if I was to be at meeting that night. I told him, no. He said he wanted to hear my vision and thought it duty for me to go home. I told him I should not. He said no more, but went away.
"I thought, and told those around me, if I went I would have to come out against his views, thinking he believed with the rest. I had not told any of them what God had shown me, and I did not tell them in what I should cross his track...
"Very early next morning Joseph Turner called, said he was in haste going out of the city in a short time, and wanted I should tell him all that God had shown me in vision. It was with fear and trembling I told him all. After I had got through he said he had told out the same last evening. I rejoiced, for I had expected he was coming out against me, for all the while I had not heard any one say what he believed. He said the Lord had sent him to talk the evening before, but as I would not, he meant his children should have the light in some way, so he took him.
"There were but few out when he talked, so the next meeting I told my vision, and the band, believing my visions from God, received what God bade me deliver to them.
"The view about the Bridegroom's coming I had about the middle of February, 1845, while in Exeter, Maine, in meeting with Israel Dammon, James, and many others. Many of them did not believe in a shut door. I suffered much at the commencement of the meeting. Unbelief seemed to be on every hand.
"There was one sister there that was called very spiritual. She had traveled and been a powerful preacher the most of the time for twenty years. She had been truly a mother in Israel. But a division had risen in the band on the shut door. She had great sympathy, and could not believe the door was shut. I had known nothing of their difference. Sister Durben got up to talk. I felt very, very sad.
"At length my soul seemed to be in agony, and while she was talking I fell from my chair to the floor. It was then I had a view of Jesus rising from His mediatorial throne and going to the holiest as Bridegroom to receive His kingdom. They were all deeply interested in the view. They all said it was entirely new to them. The Lord worked in mighty power, setting the truth home to their hearts.
"Sister Durben knew what the power of the Lord was, for she had felt it many times; and a short time after I fell she was struck down, and fell to the floor, crying to God to have mercy on her. When I came out of vision, my ears were saluted with Sister Durben's singing and shouting with a loud voice.
"Most of them received the vision, and were settled upon the shut door. Previous to this I had no light on the coming of the Bridegroom, but had expected him to this earth to deliver His people on the tenth day of the seventh month. I did not hear a lecture or a word in any relating to the Bridegroom's going to the holiest."
(Letter B-3-1847, Letter to Joseph Bates, July 13, 1847)
​

The letter speaks for itself. Israel Dammon, in whose home the second "vision" was received, was just as much an avid shut-door advocate as Joseph Turner. Though she does not relate her second vision in the letter to Bates, it appeared in the broadside of April 6, 1846. Note the following portion from it:

"Then Jesus rose up from the throne, and the most of those who were bowed down arose with Him; AND I DID NOT SEE ONE RAY OF LIGHT PASS FROM JESUS TO THE CARELESS MULTITUDE AFTER HE AROSE, AND THEY WERE IN PERFECT DARKNESS." (emphasis added)​

In her letter to Bates she says that this vision established the band on the shut door. That was in February, 1845. The "shut door" position that her first two visions confirmed was the exact position presented by Turner and Dammon, and the one believed by a

 

[Adventist Dissident]

James deletes 19% of original visions

By 1851, James and Ellen White had given up their former teaching that the door of salvation was shut for all except the Millerites. Now they faced a problem. What were they going to do with all of the statements Mrs. White made indicating she saw the door of salvation shut in her visions? James solved this dilemma by reprinting Mrs. White's visions in late 1851 in a pamphlet entitled Experiences and Views. In so doing, he removed all of the damaging portions regarding the shut door, including whole visions.
As you can imagine, some of the members of the tiny church were aghast over the exclusion of whole visions, which they believed had come directly from God. Mrs. White describes how James defused this crisis situation:

"At one time in the early days of the message, Father Butler and Elder Hart became confused in regard to the testimonies. In great distress they groaned and wept, but for some time they would not give the reasons for their perplexity. However, being pressed to give a reason for their faithless speech and manner, Elder Hart referred to a small pamphlet that had been published as the visions of Sister White, and said that to his certain knowledge, some visions were not included. Before a large audience, these brethren both talked strongly about their losing confidence in the work. "My husband handed the little pamphlet to Elder Hart, and requested him to read what was printed on the title page. 'A Sketch of the Christian Experience and Views of Mrs. E. G. White,' he read.
"For a moment there was silence, and then my husband explained that we had been very short of means, and were able to print at first only a small pamphlet, and he promised the brethren that when sufficient means was raised, the visions should be published more fully in book form.
"Elder Butler was deeply moved, and after the explanation had been made, he said, 'Let us bow before God.' Prayers, weeping, and confessions followed, such as we have seldom heard. Father Butler said: 'Brother White, forgive me; I was afraid you were concealing from us some of the light we ought to have. Forgive me, Sister White.' Then the power of God came into the meeting in a wonderful manner."
(Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p. 53)
​

Did James keep his promise?

Despite James White's greatly improved financial situation during the remaining 30 years of his life, he never did keep his promise to elders Butler and Hart. As the years passed and the church moved further away from its earlier shut door stance, its leaders began to even deny that such a view was ever held; and it became evident that the omissions and deletions in the 1851 printing were not coincidental.


http://www.ellenwhite.org/egw31.htm

 

[reddogs]

Icedragon, if you believe these things that you have posted, then you must go the next step and pray that God shows you the direction you must take. If you believe Ellen White inspiration is not from God, with false prophecies and doctrine, you need to ask God to help you understand and resolved this. But my testimoniy is I have read her writtings and God has led me back to this church for his purpose even when I turned against him, and has openned my eyes to that which is against Gods truth, his scriptures, the commandments and the testimonies of Jesus Christ. If they speak also against the Holy Spirit when it has opened their eyes to truth then it is a grievious error.....

Matthew 12:32

Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

Hebrews 3:7-10

7Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice,

8Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:
9When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. 10Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

You brother in Christ
Red

 

[djconklin]

>http://www.ellenwhite.org/egw31.htm

Did you actually check to see if these things were so?

We already know that some of what they say on the web site aren't true.

 

[djconklin]

>this is in the appendix of the link to the book you gave me. while it is true the "word" peg leg may not occur in the book, refrence to an amputation is. This would hold up the claim why people would be saying he had a peg leg

I just checked the appendix and there is nothing in there about an "amputat" or "leg"--perhaps you could be specific and tell us which page?

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Mrs White claimed to be a prophet with the use of foods when the science of Natural Hygeine was in full use of that knowledge at that time. The only reason it's not seen much today b/c the "blood letters" doctors deemed it not a science during the civil war and closed all the universities.
Her claims to Rev are faulty and that can be proved by Dan 7 with the law of interpretation.

 

[djconklin]

Nice avoidence tactactic. I could ask you the same. did you veriy that EGW was in line with all of scripture. YOu have assumed that EGW is a prophet and that her critics are false. you assume that the facts are false.

1) I'd sure like to know when in the world an attempt to verify what was claimed became and "avoidance tactic"!

2) I have never ever "assumed" that EGW was a prophet. I don't EVEN make the claim!

3) I do not assume that the critics are wrong. I have, however, proven them wrong on several points so far.

4) I have never "assumed" that facts are false. Facts are facts. Claims are claims, until and unless, they have been verified. Claims are not good enough for a conviction: "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men— not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular." Edward R. Murrow

 

[djconklin]

>i have hilighted the issues raide by DM canwirght. please pick an issue so we can discuss it.

Let's start with the claim that Canright's secretary had a peg leg.

 

[Adventist Dissident]

>i have hilighted the issues raide by DM canwirght. please pick an issue so we can discuss it.

Let's start with the claim that Canright's secretary had a peg leg.

BTW, what degree did you say you had? And from where, and when?

dude it is right in the post it is page 164 ,

 

[Adventist Dissident]

>i have hilighted the issues raide by DM canwirght. please pick an issue so we can discuss it.

Let's start with the claim that Canright's secretary had a peg leg.

BTW, what degree did you say you had? And from where, and when?

theology degree from Union college 1996. there are other in this forum who were with me when I went through the program. I cannot post there name here, it is against policy to do so, but if you PM me I can tell you who and you can verify for yourself.