Ellen G. White and Her Critics

3. Mrs. White’s Statements Allegedly Supporting Bates

What, specifically, is the evidence presented to prove that the Whites accepted Bates’s seven-year theory? Two statements by Mrs. White are presented. The first is this: EGWC 256.1

“I saw some, looking too far off for the coming of the Lord. Time has continued on a few years longer than they expected, therefore they think it may continue a few years more, and in this way their minds are being led from present truth, out after the world. In these things I saw great danger; for if the mind is filled with other things, present truth is shut out, and there is no place in our foreheads for the seal of the living God. This seal is the Sabbath. I saw that the time for Jesus to be in the most holy place was nearly finished, and that time can last but a very little longer; and what leisure time we have should be spent in searching the Bible, which is to judge us in the last days.” EGWC 256.2

The critic comments thus on Mrs. White’s words: “Here is a ‘vision’ given September, 1850, about one year before the seven years were to end.” Obviously the date of this quotation is important. Bates set forth his seven-year view in 1850. If Mrs. White is to be quoted to show that she had accepted Bates’s View, her statement could not be earlier than 1850. EGWC 256.3