Ellen G. White and Her Critics

11. Similarity of Her Language to That of Her Associates

Mrs. White is said to describe sinners and the sinful world, in the years just following 1844, in language so strangely like that used by men who were teaching that probation had closed that her words should be understood in the same sense. EGWC 234.1

We should remember that even prophets are confined to the language of the times in which they live and the people among whom they move. It is because of this fact that religious modernists have made some remarkable interpretations of the statements of Bible prophets. They are sure, for example, that those prophets thought that the world was flat. Did not the prophets speak of the four corners of the earth? Now those who lived in their day believed that the world was flat, and presumably had four corners. Therefore, the prophets simply reflected the ideas of their day. Orthodox Christians protest this kind of reasoning, and rightly so. We believe we may as properly protest this kind of reasoning when it is employed against Mrs. White. The true meaning of specific statements by Mrs. White may much more safely be determined by comparing those statements with her other writings rather than with the writings of others. EGWC 234.2