Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Three Classes Who Have Hope

Two months later, in the Review, is printed a letter from a Marshall M. Truesdell to the editor, the main point of which is as follows: EGWC 605.8

“I am not ready to endorse your view of the shut door, but if it is truth I hope I shall see it. I would like to have you answer one question through your paper. Does the shut door exclude all conversions?”—The Review and Herald, April 7, 1851, p. 64. EGWC 605.9

Here is the editor’s reply: EGWC 606.1

“Conversion, in the strictest sense, signifies a change from sin to holiness. In this sense we readily answer that it does not ‘exclude ALL conversions,’ but we believe that those who heard the ‘everlasting gospel’ message and rejected it, or refused to hear it, are excluded by it. We have no message to such. They have no ears to hear us, unless we lower the standard of truth so low that there would be no salvation in it. But there are those who may be converted. EGWC 606.2

“1. Erring brethren. We believe there are many in the Laodicean ^* church, who will yet be converted as the Apostle directs in his epistle to the waiting brethren. ‘Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one CONVERT him; let him know, that he which converteth the SINNER from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.’—James 5, 19, 20. EGWC 606.3

“2. Children, who were not old enough to understandingly receive or reject the truth, when our Great High Priest closed his mediation in the Holy Place at the end of the 2300 days, are subjects of conversion from sin to holiness. Their names were borne in upon the breastplate of judgment, and they are subjects of the mediation of Jesus. God’s ways are equal. He will give every intelligent being a chance to be saved. EGWC 606.4

“3. When Elijah thought that he was alone, God said to him, ‘I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed to the image of Baal.’ We believe that God has reserved to himself a multitude of precious souls, some even in the churches. These he will manifest IN HIS OWN TIME. They were living up to what light they had when Jesus closed his mediation for the world, and when they hear the voice of the Shepherd in the message of the third angel they will gladly receive the whole truth. Such will be converted to the truth, and from their errors. But we think we have no message to such now, still ‘he that hath an ear to hear let him hear.’ Our message is to the Laodiceans, yet some of these hidden souls are being manifested.” (Emphasis his.) EGWC 606.5

The leaven of larger vision in spiritual labor for sinners is here seen working most clearly. “Even in the churches,” which constitute fallen Babylon, God has “precious souls.” They are to be made manifest in God’s own time, and so the editor feels that he and his associates can, for the present, direct their message “to the Laodiceans.” After all, there was only a tiny handful of poverty-stricken, Sabbathkeeping Adventists, and a very great number of “Laodiceans,” that they felt they must reach first. EGWC 606.6