Ellen G. White and Her Critics

Third Argument Against Dorchester Vision

3. In the Dorchester vision, as can be seen from Bates’s text of “the entire vision,” Mrs. White declared that “the time of trouble has commenced,” in other words, that probation has ended. Hence, how could she be seeing, in that vision, the expansion of a message to the whole world? EGWC 250.3

We might dismiss this argument simply by declaring that the uncertainty of context—what she might have said just before or just after the passage under discussion—prevents any possibility of knowing just what she referred to. Fortunately, we have Mrs. White’s own words in another connection that enable us to see conclusively that when she uses the phrase, “the time of trouble,” she does not necessarily mean the close of probation. Here is what she wrote after a vision in 1847: EGWC 250.4

“I saw that God had children, who do not see and keep the Sabbath. They had not rejected the light on it. And at the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth, and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully. This enraged the church, and nominal Adventists, as they could not refute the Sabbath truth. And at this time, God’s chosen all saw clearly that we had the truth, and they came out and endured the persecution with us.”—Broadside, A Vision, April 7, 1847. ^* EGWC 250.5

It is evident that Mrs. White is here speaking of a time of trouble preceding the close of probation, for honest souls are making decisions for eternity. EGWC 251.1

However, she herself, a little later, removed all possible uncertainty on this point by a comment on this “time of trouble” phrase in 1851. After quoting the passage that contains the phrase, she declares: EGWC 251.2

“The commencement of the time of trouble,’ here mentioned does not refer to the time when the plagues shall begin to be poured out; but to a short period just before they are poured out, while Christ is in the Sanctuary. At that time, while the work of salvation is closing, trouble will be coming on the earth, the nations will be angry, yet held in check, so as not to prevent the work of the third angel.”—Supplement to Experience and Views (1854), 3, 4. EGWC 251.3

This harmonizes with the words of her vision of January 5, 1849, from which we earlier quoted: “I saw that ... Michael had not stood up, and that the time of trouble, such as never was, had not yet commenced.” EGWC 251.4