I was reared a Seventh-day Adventist as was my mother before me. My mother's father,
Elder H. W. Lawrence, was a Millerite in 1844 and was later a Seventh-day Adventist
minister, ordained by Elder James White. A letter from him to Elder White relative
to the condition of the Cause in northern New York was printed in the Advent Review
& Sabbath Herald of March 23, 1842, published at Saratoga Springs, New York.
It was my grandfather who was largely instrumental in persuading the Whitney Brothers,
Buel and S.B. and Wilbur, to become Seventh-day Adventists. A. W. Spaulding's book, Pioneer
Stories of the Second Advent Message, presents chapter xxix, "The Health
Work," from the experience of my grandparents. Grandfather Lawrence knew both
Elder and Sister White very well and had great confidence in the gift of prophecy as
manifested through Sister White. One of his cherished possessions was a personal
testimony to him from Sister White. He believed however that there was possibly a
difference in degree of inspiration between statements prefaced by "I saw" and
statements not so introduced. Therefore he deplored the omission of such prefatory
statements in later revisions of Mrs. White's writings, as tending to obliterate existing
distinctions of inspiration.
At five years of age I memorized a portion of Matthew 28:18-20 as a
Sabbath School memory verse; and upon having it explained to me, I decided to fulfill that
commission when I grew up.
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Matthew 28:18-20 NKJV --
Then Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All
authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo,
I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
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In my eleventh year I was truly converted and was baptized. One day I said to my
mother, "Mamma, I want to read some of Sister White's visions." So she
gave me a copy of Early Writings, and how I did enjoy those marvelous descriptions
of the New Earth and the thrilling times ahead of God's people in the closing scenes of
this troubled old world! I read and re-read the book.
While I was still a boy at home I had access to numerous pamphlets written against
Sister White, some by "First Day Adventists" and some by A. T. Jones, with the
General Conference reply to the latter. I was impressed with the disingenuous and
unwarranted use made of her writings by some of her opponents. Their garbling of her
statements and their unfair deductions confirmed my faith in her as a true prophet of the
Lord.
While I was still in my early teens I entered the colporteur work and earned a
scholarship to South Lancaster Academy. With my order of books for the final
delivery I ordered for myself a new high-priced Oxford Bible and a set of the nine volumes
of the Testimonies for the Church in red leather. For such books the best
binding was none too good.
In my five years of study at South Lancester Academy and Atlantic Union College, I
looked upon Sister White's writings just about as I did upon the Bible. Apparently
all the teachers and ministers held that same attitude. In my course in
Denominational History and Spirit of Prophecy, my confidence was built up, and I was much
impressed with the memory selection: "It is Satan's plan to weaken the faith of God's
people in the Testimonies. Next follows skepticism in regard to the vital points of
our faith, the pillars of our position, then doubt as to the Holy Scriptures, and then the
downward march to perdition." 4T 211:2.
My First Doubt
In the winter of 1920, when, with my bride of a few months, I was holding an
evangelistic effort in Tupper Lake, New York, my father wrote me an urgent letter stating
his opinion that our whole denominational literature was wrong in explaining the text
"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark 9:48.
Book after book and article after article for fifty years had explained the
"worm" as a destroying agent like the "fire," and referred the
language for its literal illustration to the refuse incinerator in the Valley of
Hinnom. But Sister White in Early Writings, page 254, says:
They were punished according to the deeds done in the
body. Some were many days consuming, and just as long as there was a portion of them
unconsumed, all the sense of suffering remained. Said the angel,
"The worm of life shall not die; their fire shall not be quenched as long as there is
the least particle for it to prey upon."
This angelic quotation clearly refers the "worm" not to any destroying agent,
but to the life of the individual who is being destroyed. I believe it was a
statement from the pen of Elder F. C. Gilbert that attracted my father's attention to the
matter. Father had always interpreted Mark 9:48 in harmony with Early Writings,
p. 294. At least it was to Elder Gilbert that he wrote asking why our denominational
writers explained the "worm" as a destroying agent, contrary to the statement in
Early Writings. Elder Gilbert offered no explanation, but stated in a brief
reply that he saw no discrepancy between the two statements. Inasmuch as there was
nothing but discrepancy, this aroused my father greatly, and he wrote to me, sending an
outline of his explanation of Mark 9:48, in harmony with Early Writings but unlike
anything else in our denominational literature. Father wanted me to write it out
more fully if I saw best to do so. I started enthusiastically, certain that Early
Writings was correct. But as I studied and wrote I became more and more
convinced that in the Bible the "worm" is an agent of destruction along with the
fire. So the article is still unfinished --
still lying with other manuscripts in a desk drawer.
I tried to think that in Early Writings the expression "the worm of
life" might mean "the living worm" as an agent of destruction; but the
preceding sentence forbade such a meaning. The best that I could do was to note that
in Early Writings, page 294, no actual citation is made to any chapter and verse in
the Bible, and therefore the words of the angel might not refer to Mark 9:48 or Isaiah
66:24. Yet every time I would read Early Writings I realized that such an
attempt to make the angel's words independent of those Bible verses was not in harmony
with Sister White's intention when she wrote Early Writings. I knew that if a
Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness should use such an argument to save his system of teaching
from collapse, I would call it subterfuge, and should feel like laughing at the
shallowness of it. This remained an unsolved puzzle through the years. But as
I do not have to solve all puzzles, I laid the matter aside, so far as possible, and
filled my mind with other matters.
Doubt Becomes Certainty
About the year 1921 I was pastor of the Binghamton, New York, Seventh-day Adventist
church, and lived next door to Elder D. G. Turk, a former pastor, then retired.
While we were visiting together one day, some mention was made of 2 Thess. 2:9, and Elder
Turk produced an Emphatic Diaglott to show that in this verse the expression
"after the working of Satan" did not mean "after" in time, but
"after" in the sense of "according to." This interested me
greatly because it is a much used text, and that was a point I had not before got clear in
my mind. A few months later at a Union Conference session in Springfield,
Massachusetts, I heard Elder L. K. Dickson use 2 Thess. 2:9 in a sermon on
"Armageddon." He took pains to explain that "after" in this
verse refers to time, and that he "whose coming is after the working of
Satan" is Christ. Elder Orva Leo Ico was sitting at my left in the audience,
and I whispered to him, asking whether the Greek did not require the other interpretation
of that text. He nodded assent, and added that Elder Dickson was interpreting it
according to Patriarchs and Prophets. So when I reached home I looked this up
in Patriarchs and Prophets, and found on page 686 this statement:
Paul, in his second letter to the Thessalonians, points to the special
working of Satan in Spiritualism as an event to take place immediately before the second
advent of Christ. Speaking of Christ's second coming, he declares that it is
"after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders."
Then I went to Lidell and Scott's Greek Lexicon and found that the proposition here
translated "after" or "according to," while usually meaning the
latter, could in some instances be used of time, with the meaning of
"during." This discovery brought great relief to my mind, and impressed me
with the evident leading of the Lord in Sister White's interpretation in Patriarchs and
Prophets, inasmuch as she knew no Greek and yet explained the verse contrary to most
scholars but seemingly within the possibilities of the Greek language. Having two or
three other instances in mind where Sister White had seemed to make misstatements, but had
not really done so, I decided to write an article on the wonders of the Spirit of Prophecy
as illustrated by instances where Sister White had exhibited unstudied scholarship.
In preparing such an article I took occasion to examine every place where Sister White had
used or commented on 2 Thess. 2:9, and right away was surprised by the following:
Even at the time when the apostle was writing, the 'mystery of iniquity'
had already begun to work. The developments that were to take place in the future
were to be "after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders." AA 266.
Here the preposition "after" is evidently used with the meaning
"according to" as translated by the American Standard Version, and as quoted in
8T 226. Thus the one whose "coming" is described in this verse is
antichrist; whereas, in PP 686, it is Christ. This discovery ended my contemplated
article on the supernatural accuracy of Sister White.
Perplexity Number Three
In Early Writings, page 36, there is an explanation of Rev. 11:18, "and the
time of the dead that they should be judged," which made an early impression upon my
mind:
I saw that the anger of the nations, the wrath of God, and the time to
judge the dead, were separate and distinct, one following the other.
This would not allow the judging of the dead of Rev. 11:18 to apply to the hypothetical
"Investigative Judgment" of 1844, but would limit it to the Millennial judgment
of the wicked. I noted that Elder Uriah Smith was in agreement with this in his
comments in Thoughts on Revelation; and away back in 1918 I marked in the margin of
A. T. Jones' Great Nations of Today, page 116, my disagreement with his comment on
Rev. 11:18 --
This time of the dead that they should be judged, is the same
time referred to in Rev. 14:6,7 in which the threefold message carries still the
everlasting gospel to them that dwell on the earth...
Therefore, it was with great surprise that about the year 1924 I found this text quoted
in 6T 14 and applied not after the seven last plagues as in Early Writings
page 36, but to the present time, thus:
The nations are angry, and the time of the dead has come that they
should be judged.
I Seek Help
A short time later at a campmeeting at Union Springs, New York, I asked Elder A. G.
Daniells in a private conversation, whether he thought that Sister White's use of a text
of Scripture was always a sure guide to its meaning. He said that he generally
considered her use of a text as an inspired commentary on that text. I was aching
for help, and wanted to ask how to determine the true meaning when Sister White used or
explained the same text in contradictory ways; but I did not dare to mention specific
problems for fear I should be judged as "doubting the Testimonies." I
derived some comfort from Elder Daniells' use of the word "generally." It
left room for exceptions. Perhaps he too had been forced to accommodate his ideas of
inspiration to include a few contradictions.
Perplexity Number Four
In the summer of 1915 I was canvassing for Bible Readings in Schohario County,
New York. At one farm home where I boarded for a short time there was a large
"Family Bible" in the spare room which I occupied. In the Bible was the
Apocrypha. Having wished for some years to become acquainted with the Apocrypha, I
took this occasion to read largely in it. As I read in 2 Esdras I felt much as I
suppose Luther felt when he first discovered a Bible. There were the streams ceasing
to flow (2 Esdras 6:24; Early Writings 285); and the sun shining in the night (2
Esdras 5:4; Early Writings 285); and there was the Son of God taller than all the
saints, standing in the midst of them and putting crowns on their heads (2 Esdras 2:42-47;
Early Writings 288); and there were the seven mountains covered with roses and
lilies, "Whereby I will fill thy children with joy" (2 Esdras 2:19; Early
Writings 19). The conclusion seemed obvious that the writer of 2 Esdras must
have learned these details by divine revelation; for how else could he have known these
things which had only recently been revealed to Sister White?
My interest in 2 Esdras was intense. Surely every Seventh-day Adventist ought to
know about 2 Esdras. I studied the book diligently, trying to untangle the
symbolism. Some years later, when I started to write a little book of miscellaneous
prophetic expositions (Prophetic Essays, published in 1927), I planned to include a
chapter on 2 Esdras, showing that it must be, at least in part, a divine revelation,
because of its similarity to Early Writings.
I still have the unfinished manuscript for that chapter. More thorough study
revealed that chapters 1, 2, 15 and 16 of 2 Esdras are not in the Arabic nor in the
Ethiopic, and are probably interpolations by a later writer. But some of the choice
comparisons with Early Writings are in these chapters. Even those Christian
denominations which admit the canonicity or near-canonicity of the Apocrypha, do not
accept 2 Esdras. For fear that in the minds of some the ill-repute of 2 Esdras
should seem to adhere to Early Writings, I never finished the chapter. It
does seem that where the ideas and language are practically identical, 2 Esdras and Early
Writings must have come from the same source or else Early Writings is copied
from 2 Esdras in those portions. In those early days Elder James White sometimes
quoted the Apocrypha as Bible (A Word to the Little Flock, pp. 2, 3, 23), and it is
difficult to avoid the conviction that Mrs. White did not know the difference
either. It becomes difficult to think that these statements have any higher source
in Early Writings than they have in 2 Esdras.
In 1927, shortly after going to Union Springs to teach Bible, published the book Prophetic
Essays. In it I refer to passages from Sister White's writings as proof-texts
indiscriminately with Bible verses. Some of the studies in Prophetic Essays
were revisions of earlier studies written years before, and in this use of Sister White's
writings they reflect my earlier attitude. Though even at that time I hardly
admitted to myself that my attitude had materially changed. However, in the last
chapter, in a suggestive list of baptismal questions, number 20 has the expression:
"Do you believe Mrs. White's visions to be from the Lord?" I worded the
question purposely thus because one could conceivably assent to it while knowing that
there were inaccuracies and contradictions in some of Mrs. White's writings. It
seemed that whatever supernatural element there was in her work must have been from the
Lord; but it seemed just as certain that there were inaccuracies in her books.
Why I Believed in Her
in spite of 8 more
Discrepancies
About the time that I went to Union Spring Academy (1927) I secured an early (1887)
edition of Great Controversy, and volumes ii, iii, and iv of Spiritual Gifts.
In these books I encountered further problems and contradictions. Then, for my own
satisfaction, I wrote out, in 1928 or 1929, what seemed to me to be the truth regarding
Sister White's work. It repeats some points already mentioned, and is reproduced
here only in part and slightly revised. I prefaced the study with the four points
which seemed to me to authenticate Sister White's work to be from the Lord, and entitled
it
Intelligent Use of the
Testimonies
(That which follows, until notice is given otherwise, is essentially what I wrote in 1928
or 1929 in an attempt to clarify my own thinking.)
Mrs. E. G. White had visions and supernatural revelations. These manifestations were
from the Lord because:
1. The genuineness of Mrs. White's personal Christian experience cannot
be doubted.
2. Her gift has been closely connected with the
proclamation of Present Truth.
3. The effect of her work is to promote holiness and
practical godliness.
4. The gift of prophecy as scripturally promised to
the Remnant Church.
However, extreme views have sometimes been taken which
cannot be substantiated; for it is certain that:
1. Mrs. White was not incapable of speaking or
writing in an ordinary manner, without supernatural aid.
She did so write in Spiritual Gifts, vol. ii, in
giving an account of her life, labors, and travels. She says that in writing these
accounts she was liable to error in detailed statements of facts; and she evidently did
make such mistakes. In the preface of Spiritual Gifts, Vol. ii, it is stated:
In preparing the following pages, I have labored under
great disadvantages, as I have had to depend in many instances on memory, having kept no
journal till within a few years. In several instances I have sent the manuscripts to
friends who were present when the circumstances related occurred, for their examination
before they were put in print. I have taken great care, and have spent much time, in
endeavoring to state the simple facts as correctly as possible.
On page 295 of the same volume, Sister White makes this
request:
A special request is made that if any find incorrect
statements in this book they will immediately inform me. The edition will be
completed about the first of October; therefore send before that time.
2. All of Sister White's writings are not inspired
in the same way that the Scriptures are inspired.
She states that the Testimonies are not an addition to the
Word of God (4T 246). They would be an addition to the Bible were they similarly
inspired. That her writings are not equivalent to Scripture is implied also in the
fact that belief in her prophetic gift is not to be made a test of fellowship (5T 668).
That her writings are not all inspired in the same way that
the Holy Scriptures are inspired is evident further from the fact that large portions of
some of her books have been borrowed -- often verbatim -- from profane history. This was formerly done with no word of
credit, expressed or implied, but is now admitted in the Introduction to Great
Controversy thus:
In some cases where a historian has so grouped together
events as to afford in brief, a comprehensive view of the subject, or has summarized
details in a convenient manner, his words have been quoted; but in some instances no
specific credit has been given, since the quotations are not given for the purpose of
citing that writer as authority, but because his statement affords a ready and forcible
presentation of the subject.
In the Great Controversy printed in 1887 there is no
statement like the foregoing, no hint that any historian had been read or consulted, and
some readers, at least, naturally concluded that every detail given was directly revealed
in vision. On the following pages of that edition (the eighth edition of Great
Controversy) are uncredited statements of various historians which are given proper
credit in the edition of 1911:
pages 64, 68, 76, 83, 84, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 103,
104, 108, 109, 110, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127,
128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 154, 156,
157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 172, 173, 179, 204, 207,
217, 237.
Most of these quotations or near-quotations are from
D'Aubigne; a few are from others. Completeness is not claimed for this list.
Some of the points to follow also bear on this matter of
whether Sister White's writings are all inspired just as the Holy Scriptures are.
3. The fact that she had visions and special
revelations from the Lord for His people, did not enable her always to express her ideas
clearly in writings, especially in her earlier works -- neither did it make
her infallible on every subject mentioned in her writings.
This is evident from various corrections and revisions that
have been made in later editions to bring certain statements into harmony with the
facts. And in a few instances one statement seems to contradict another.
(a) In Great Controversy, edition of 1887,
page 55, we read:
A few years after the issue of Constantine's degree, the
bishop of Rome conferred on the Sunday the title of Lord's day.
The fact is that Sunday was called the Lord's Day long
before Constantine's degree (see Andrews' History of the Sabbath, pp. 342-379), and
accordingly this statement is omitted in the edition of 1911.
(b) In Great Controversy, edition of 1887, page 232, is this
comment on Rev. 14:8,
It cannot be the Romish Church which is here meant; for
that church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries.
In the 1911 edition, the Roman Church, which in 1887 was
excluded, is definitely included by the addition of one word thus:
Therefore it cannot refer to the Roman Church alone, for
that church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries.
It should be noted that the reason assigned: "for that
church has been in a fallen condition for many centuries," fits the earlier version,
but is absurdly incongruous in connection with the revision. A more basic error is
in assuming that what is intended in this prophecy is a moral fall.
(c) In Great Controversy, edition of 1911, at
the bottom of page 324, begins this sentence:
Miller accepted the generally received view, that in the
Christian age the earth is the sanctuary.
This is stated in explanation of how Miller arrived at his
views of prophecy, preparatory to preaching them. William Miller's published
lectures show he did not believe that the sanctuary was the earth, but rather he believed
that it was the church. He says:
"Then shall the sanctuary be cleansed or
justified," means the true sanctuary which God has built of lively stones to his own
acceptance, through Christ, of which the temple of Jerusalem was but a type, the shadows
having long since fled away. Miller's Lectures, edition 1842, p. 41.
Again on this and the following page he says:
There is not a word in the prophets or apostles, after
Zerubbabel built the second temple, that a third one would ever be built; except the one
which cometh down from heaven, which is a spiritual one, and which is the mother of us
all, (Jew and Gentile) and which is free, and when that New Jerusalem is perfected, then
shall we be cleansed and justified... We see by these texts ... that the spiritual
sanctuary will not be cleansed until Christ's second coming; and then all Israel shall be
raised, judged, and justified in his sight.
Similar references are to be found also on pages 156 and
281. Some weeks after the spring equinox, 1844, one of the times set for the Advent,
Miller seems once to have referred to the sanctuary as "the whole earth"
(Sylvester Bliss, Memoirs of William Miller, pp. 256-260); but this is not
consistent with his general teaching, and is too late to sustain Mrs. White's statement of
his early views.
(d) In Great Controversy, edition of 1887, page 70,
we read:
The Waldenses were the first of all the peoples of Europe
to obtain a translation of the Scriptures.
This occurred about the year 1180. According to I. M.
Price, The Ancestry of Our English Bible, there were at least two earlier European
versions: the Gothic in the fourth century, and the Slavonic. "Some of the
manuscripts of this version date from the tenth or eleventh century" (p. 104).
Accordingly in the Great Controversy, edition of 1911, we read:
The Waldenses were among the first of the peoples of Europe
to obtain a translation of the Holy Scriptures.
(e) In Spiritual Gifts, Vol. iii, page 75, is this
statement:
Every species of animal which God had created were
preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the
result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been
amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species
of animals, and in certain races of men.
The precise meaning of this statement is difficult to
ascertain. But if it means what it seems to state, it is that since the Flood there
has been an amalgamation of man and beast the offspring of which have been fertile and
have reproduced themselves, thus multiplying species. But all scientific evidence is
against this, and one of the main arguments used by Seventh-day Adventists against
evolutionists denies the possibility of such amalgamation. The idea was not repeated
in any later work by Mrs. White dealing with the same conditions.
(f) In Spiritual Gifts, Vol. iii, pp. 83-84, we
read:
At the end of one thousand years, Jesus the king of glory,
descends from the holy city, clothed with brightness like the lightning, upon the mount of
olives [sic] -- the same mount from whence he ascended after his resurrection. As his
feet touch the mountain, it parts asunder, and becomes a very great plain, and is prepared
for the reception of the holy city in which is the paradise of God, the garden of Eden,
which was taken up after man's transgression. Now it descends with the city, more
beautiful and gloriously adorned than when removed from the earth. The city of God
comes down and the city surrounded by the redeemed host, and is escorted on his way by the
angelic throng. In fearful majesty he calls forth the wicked dead. They are
wakened from their long sleep. What a dreadful waking. They behold the Son of
God in his stern majesty and resplendent glory.
From this it would seem that the wicked dead are not
raised until after Christ, the saints, and the City, descend to this earth. Compare
with this Early Writings, p. 53:
Then at the close of the one thousand years, Jesus, with
the angels and all the saints, leaves the holy city, and while he is descending to the
earth with them, the wicked dead are raised, and then the very men that "pierced
Him," being raised, will see Him afar off in all His glory, the angels and saints
with Him, and will wail because of Him.
4. Sister White's use of a certain version of the
scriptures, does not guarantee that version the best, nor certainly correct in the very
passage quoted.
She quotes [for example] Matt. 23:24 from an
erroneous translation in 1T 144, 4T 323, DA 617.
5. Her use of Scripture language to express
appropriate sentiments, does not mark that use as the only proper application of the
passage so used, nor bind herself nor us to such an application, exclusive of any
other.
For she has sometimes used the same Scripture language to
describe widely separated events. Compare EW 53, where Rev. 1:7 is applied after the
Millennium with GC 637 where the same verse is applied before the Millennium. Also
compare EW 36 with 6T 14 in their use of language from Rev. 11:18; and compare PP 686 with
AA 266 and 6T 226 in their use of language from 2 Thess. 2:9.
Thus ends that which I wrote in
1928 or 1929 on the subject:
"Intelligent Use of the Testimonies."
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Misery Likes Company
One year while I was at Union Spring Academy teaching Bible (1927 to 1930), one of the
teachers called at my home near the close of a camp meeting held on the Academy grounds,
and asked me whether I had not found some contradictions in Sister White's writings.
He admitted that he had, and that he had just asked Elder W. W. Prescott, who was
at the campmeeting, whether there were not some contradictions in the Testimonies and he
had said, "Yes, there are." Such a frank acknowledgement from so scholarly a
representative of the General Conference greatly helped Brother ------- and me to maintain
confidence in Sister White's prophetic gift in spite of the contradictions in her books.
Is This Contradiction Number 13 --
Or Have I Lost Count?
In 1930 I moved to Takoma Park to attend Washington Missionary College. There I
studied Greek. One day Professor M. E. Cady, who lived across the street from me,
asked me what I had found in my study of John the Baptist's diet, especially how it could
be "wholly vegetable" (3T 62 and Christian Temperance, p. 38). I
avoided expressing an opinion but found that Professor Cady delighted in maintaining the
purely vegetable nature of John's food. A careful study of the Greek shows beyond
the possibility of a doubt that John ate the regular insect locusts. The Greek word
has no other meaning. It is never used for a bean-like pod as the English word
"locust" is. It is true that many otherwise renowned commentators have
tried to "vegetablize" these locusts, but a squeamish stomach rather than their
intellect controls their exegesis. I have not found one of them who offers any valid
evidence that the locusts could have been vegetable. Thus we find a plain statement
in Mrs. White's Testimonies directly contradicting the Bible.
Error Number Fourteen
While I was attending Washington Missionary College one of my history courses (semester
ending Feb. 1, 1931) was about the French Revolution. I chose for the subject of my
term paper Religion and the French Revolution. This subject appealed to me
particularly because of my interest in the prophecy of Revelation 11 about the war on the
"two witnesses," especially the time prophecy of "three days and an
half" (verse 11) of which the statement is made in Great Controversy:
It was in 1793 that the decrees which abolished
the Christian religion and set aside the Bible, passed the French Assembly. Three
years and a half later a resolution rescinding these decrees, thus granting toleration to
the Scriptures, was adopted by the same body. (GC 287)
I found that the facts were not as stated in Great Controversy.
That which follows, until notice is given otherwise, is from my term paper.
There is a prophecy often applied to this period of
French history; therefore let us study it in this connection. I refer to Revelation
11:7-13, and particularly to verses 9 and 11. It is telling here of the war on the
two witnesses -- God's Word -- by the
beast from the bottomless pit. These two verses last mentioned read:
And they of the people and kindreds and
tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not
suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves.
And after three days and an half the spirit of life from
God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which
saw them.
Allowing these three days and a half to have their
symbolic significance of three years and a half, they are sometimes begun with the events
of November 1793. And truly the French government did make war on Christianity and
on the Bible. The problem from a historical standpoint is to find three and one half
years during which God's Word remained dead as a result of this government action,
and after which period of three years and a half, the Bible was unusually exalted.
Eschewing any detailed exegesis of the prophecy, and limiting our study to the strictly
historical, we shall find no such period of three and a half years in the events of
Revolutionary France. We shall find that the event usually suggested as terminating
the period, either did not occur at the time indicated, or else was an affair of minor
significance. Furthermore, we shall discover that the intense antagonism to God and
His Holy Book did not last nearly so long as three and a half years but ended after a few
months. A simple narration of the principal events of the Revolution, involving
religion and the church, will make this all very clear.
The worship of Reason ... began early in November 1793. It
was November 26 when the Council of the Commune outlawed all other religions.
Previous acts of the revolutionary government had assured nominal liberty to worship to
all; and just nine days after the Council of the Commune outlawed Christianity, the
Convention, a superior governmental body, forbade violence contrary to liberty of
worship. And on May 9, 1784, the Convention under the influence of Robespierre,
decreed the worship of the Supreme Being. The government support of any worship was
abolished September 20, 1794, without much discussion. This automatically brought a
considerable degree of religious liberty. It is true that the non-juring priests
still suffered some persecution, but this was far more from political than from religious
animosity.
On February 21, 1795, Biossy d'Anglas made a speech
and a motion for complete separation of Church and State. This was passed, allowing
any kind of religious worship throughout France, but with some restrictions as to place,
advertising, endowments, etc. The refractory clergy were still considered criminal,
but this was a political matter, and could hardly be considered the death of God's Two
Witnesses. In the provinces there was much delay and opposition by local officials
in permitting the liberty granted by the Convention.
A further attempt was made in late 1794 and early
1795 to revive interest in the tenth-day festivals in the hope of competing with
Christianity and its weekly Lord's Day; but this effort was a ludicrous and dismal
failure.
A new constitution was demanded to replace that of
1793. Its formation was in the hands of comparatively moderate men. Separation
of Church and State and freedom of worship were incorporated in this new
constitution. It was adopted August 17, 1795. Thus we see that in less than
six months the atheistic enactment of November 26, 1793, was abrogated; and in less than
two years there was actually greater religious freedom guaranteed on a fundamental legal
basis, than existed prior to the outbreak of atheism. The "Two Witnesses"
just simply did not stay "dead" three and a half years.
Moreover, we can discover no adequately significant
event coming even approximately three and a half years after the atheistic supremacy, to
mark the close of the period. Three and a half years from November 1793, would bring
us to the spring of 1797. It has been asserted that the Convention then repudiated
its atheistic pronouncement. History shows no such action. In the first place,
the Directory was in power, not the Convention, in 1797. Furthermore, the atheistic
intolerance had spent its force and had been repudiated by decree and by the new
constitution of 1795, so this work did not remain to be done in 1797.
Others take an earnest speech by Camille Jordan,
June 17, 1797, as the event closing the three and a half days. On the contrary, this
speech, instead of raising the "Two Witnesses," came at a time when they had
been much alive for over a year; it dealt with minor phases of religious liberty such as
the privilege of ringing church bells, and it failed in its object.
Aulard (Vol. 17, p. 12) summarizes the incident
thus:
Jordan, in a fulsomely sentimental and pseudo-pathetical
speech, depicts all France as desolated by the loss of her church bells. He earns
the nickname of Bell-Jordan (Jordan Carillon), and his campaign fails.
The Cambridge Modern History says:
During the period between May 20 and September 4 the Corps
Legislatif was again chiefly occupied with the questions of the émigrés and the
clergy. The clauses of the Law of October 25, 1795, relating to the relatives of
émigrés, were repealed; and several deputies who had been rendered by this law incapable
of sitting were allowed to take their seats. A commission was appointed to consider
the question of religious freedom. On June 17 Camille Jordan made his celebrated
report, which, with some modifications, formed the basis of a law passed on September 1 by
which such communes as desired the services of a priest were declared at liberty to choose
one, and the priest thus chooses was, after making a declaration of submission to the
Republic, to be secured from legal prosecution; churches not otherwise disposed of could
be appropriated to public worship; but no ecclesiastic might wear a distinctive costume,
no religious ceremonies might take place outside the churches and no endowments might be
given or bequeathed to any religious body. This law, which was repealed immediately
after the coup d'état of September, 1797, was put forward as one of the most obvious
proofs of a "royalist conspiracy." (Cambridge Modern History, Vol.
iii, p. 507)
THE CHURCH UNDER
THE DIRECTORY
The majority of the Directory were radical, and, of
course, clashed with the moderate party on religious questions. The government
desired the downfall of the papacy, and urged Napoleon to bring it about. But he
felt that the time was not ripe for such a stroke, and so tried first to treat with the
papacy. He seems to have thought of the papacy as something to use rather than
something to destroy.
About the middle of June 1797, Camille Jordan, as
has been mentioned, made his famous speech favoring the readmittance of transported
priests to the country, and freedom of all worships. On July 8, this matter was
defeated in the Council of the Five Hundred. It was not until September 1 that the
bill was passed, only to become at once inoperative after the coup d'état of September 4.
For a while the Directory went radical again.
Sieyes was given control until Bonaparte took charge, November 8. The directory
persecuted the refractory clergy, apparently from religious as well as political
motives. The celebration of the tenth-day was enforced by law, and various stringent
bills against Sunday observance were introduced but not passed. The people at this
time would hardly tolerate a renewal or an increase of the use of the guillotine.
They were so tired of the excesses of the Revolution that they welcomed the military
dictatorship established by the coup d'état of November 8.
(Here ends the extract from
my term paper.)
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Allow me to state that my teacher was in no way responsible for these conclusions, as he
had no idea what my theme was like until it was completed and handed in. It was the
result of my personal and independent study.
More recently Elder Jean Vuilleumier of France has had a series of articles in The
Ministry ("The Two Witnesses in Prophecy," The Ministry, May, June,
July, 1940), taking Jordan's speech of June 17, 1797 as the end of the prophetic
period. The articles in The Ministry led me to re-study the whole question,
as my term paper was based entirely on secondary works. Extensive research in the
sources -- French as well as
English -- as well as the study of
additional secondary works, has abundantly confirmed the position taken in my term paper
years ago, and has shown unmistakably the impossibility of Elder Vuilleumier's position.
I Dare to Speak
While living at Takoma Park (1930-34) I had a number of pleasant and profitable visits
with Elder L. E. Froom. One day while he was at my home he asked about my book, Prophetic
Essays, and seemed to want me to say that if I had it to do now, I would not publish
it. I could not honestly say that. But I did tell him that if I were to
publish it again, I should use Sister White's writings differently, not making them the
basis for deciding minute points of prophetic interpretation; for further study had led me
to conclude that they were never intended for that purpose. Elder Froom responded
that a scholarly attitude toward the matter would not permit using the Testimonies to
decide minute points of prophetic interpretation. I asked him whether he had noticed
the contradiction in Sister White's writings in the interpretation of 2 Thess. 2:9.
He had not, but would like the references. So I wrote them out for him. We
have not discussed the matter since.
During these same years that I lived in Takoma Park (1930-34), I chanced to be one day
in the office of a General Conference worker, a minister of life-long Denominational
experience and service. We were talking about some phase of the Reformation and the
work of Luther. This minister remarked very casually that if Sister White had read
more widely concerning the Reformation and the life of Luther, not confining her reading
so much to D'Aubigne, the book Great Controversy would doubtless not have presented
so one-sided a viewpoint.
More and more it became clear to me that the more scholarly of the leading Seventh-day
Adventist ministers had been forced to the same conclusion that I had, that the writings
of Sister White are so permeated with human fallibility that they cannot be used
consistently to settle minute details of history or even of Biblical exegesis or prophetic
interpretation; but that they are as certainly so permeated with divine enlightenment as
to be of inestimable value for spiritual inspiration and for inculcating the great
principles of righteousness, and that she was a true prophet of God.
In 1934 I went to Southern Junior College to teach Bible. Three successive
summers, 1935, 1935, and 1937, I attended the Advanced Bible School of SDA Theological
Seminary, two summers at Angwin, California, and one summer at Takoma Park, DC.
The summer of 1936 at the Advanced Bible School we read 2 Thess. in the advanced Greek
class, translating verse 9 in accordance with Acts of the Apostles, p. 266, and
contrary to Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 686. After the class was dismissed, I
asked the teacher privately whether he had ever noticed the contradiction between PP and
AA on this verse. He had not. At first he tried to think that they could be
interpreted to mean the same thing, but a few hours later he told me he had been studying
on the matter and evidently I was correct in taking them to be contrary the one to the
other.
In the summer of 1935 in Elder Andreasen's class in Systematic Theology, as we studied
various ideas about "Inspiration," I found courage to ask in class whether
possibly there might be a difference in kind or in degree of inspiration between some of
Sister White's writings and other of her writings -- whether perhaps some parts were much like the Bible, and other
parts were the result of special "illumination" -- a lesser kind of inspiration. The
class was large, but no one fainted away at the question. Elder Andreasen in his
customary tactful but non-committal way, gave a ready answer susceptible of various
interpretations. He thought that if time were to last indefinitely, and Sister White
were to take her place with Isaiah and Jeremiah as prophets of permanent record, perhaps
not more than a hundredth part of what she had written would be preserved as Bible.
This answer was surprisingly close to the idea I had in mind when I asked the question.
Disadvantages
I was successful in adjusting my idea of Sister White's writings
to allow for the human element and the presence of inaccuracies, mistakes, and
contradictions; while still I firmly maintained my faith in her visions as being
from the Lord. This attitude, while seeming to harmonize most of the phenomena, has
two serious disadvantages.
First: In the practical use of Sister White's writings, it
leaves one with no sure guide as to what is accurate and what is not, and thus tends to
vitiate all her writings so that they cannot be any final authority or last court of
appeal. It makes them powerless to "confirm" anything.
Second: This attitude is not in harmony with the counsel in 5T
683-691, where such a distinction is criticized as "unwarranted." It
seemed, in view of the incontrovertible facts, that this counsel in 5T must be another
instance of inaccuracy!
Advantages
One considerable practical advantage this attitude seemed to have: It divested of all
interest the claims of opponents of Seventh-day Adventists that there are contradictions
in the Testimonies. When I heard some apostate trying to get Adventists to lose
faith in the Testimonies because they contain contradictions, I would think: "So
what? Probably I could show you some that you don't know, but I am not interested;
for the evidence that Sister White's visions were from the Lord are convincing enough
regardless of a few exhibitions of human fallibility in her writings."
For years I felt keenly the danger of those who supposed Sister White's writings to be
perfectly free from inaccuracies. I wondered what would happen when they stumbled
across a sure-enough contradiction. I wished that I dared to enlighten my
ministerial students on this matter, so they would not become the prey of designing
apostates; but I never dared to for fear of being misunderstood or misquoted. But I
taught them the basic reasons which kept me loyal to Sister White and her work, and which
I hoped would keep them even when they met the sudden shock of a contradiction in her
writings.
Why I Still Believed in
Sister White
As I try to analyze my own thoughts on the subject as they were in about the year 1936,
the points which outweighed all the contradictions and inaccuracies and kept me constant
in the belief that Sister White was used of God in an extraordinary manner and that her
visions were revelations of divine truth, were these.
That Sister White was controlled by a supernatural power seemed to be shown by her not
breathing in vision, not winking, holding a heavy Bible aloft a long time, her knowledge
of events taking place at a distance, etc. If supernatural, such a power could be
only from God or from Satan. I could not see any possibility of her life and work
being constantly and directly controlled by Satan. That seemed the most unthinkable
conclusion imaginable. Her earnest, sincere Christian life forbids such a
thought. Her relation to the SDA Message and Movement forbids it to anyone who
believes in that message and movement. So when about the year 1936, the Elmshaven
Estate sent a questionnaire asking how I presented the topic of Sister White's inspiration
to my students, I replied somewhat as follows:
Mrs. White had visions and supernatural revelations. Being supernatural, these
manifestations were either the work of the Lord or the work of Satan. They from the
Lord because:
1. The genuineness of Mrs. White's personal Christian experience cannot
be doubted.
2. The effect of her work is to promote
holiness and practical godliness.
3. Her gift has been so closely identified
with the rise and progress of the message and work of the Seventh-day Adventists that the
sources of her gift must be also the source of the Movement.
4. The gift of prophecy was Scripturally
promised to the Remnant Church.
In 1937 the President of Southern Junior College, after hearing me present this subject
to a Baptismal Class, asked me privately what I did with seeming contradictions. I
told him that they were regrettable but insufficient to over-balance the evidence for
Sister White's having received special light from heaven in visions and dreams, which
light we should disregard at our peril. He seemed pleased and satisfied with my
answer.
By the date last mentioned, 1937, it was clear to me from the evidence herein presented
that Sister White's writings are sufficiently inaccurate to be an unsafe guide in matters
of fact in history or science or even in Biblical exegesis and prophetic
interpretation. I could no longer feel sure that a thing was so just because she
said it was so. I felt that my attitude was not that of the average Seventh-day
Adventist, but that it was that of many, perhaps of most, of the more studious and
scholarly Seventh-day Adventists. My realization of the unrealiability of Sister
White's writings was so acute that I should not have been able to think of them as a
manifestation of the Prophetic Gift had not I been faced with the alternative of
attributing her work to Satan. That was, is yet, and I think will always be for me
utterly impossible.
This conclusion -- that Sister
White's visions were supernatural revelations from heaven, and that her voluminous
writings, though sometimes erroneous, benefits more or less from the light thus received,
left some problems unsolved, for example how an angel could speak words (EW 294)
misinterpreting the "worm" of Mark 9:48 and Isaiah 66:24. I just tried not
to think about that.
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