Ellen G. White and Her Critics

4. Letter to Brother Bates (“Subsequent Visions”)

FIRST PRINTING

On the broadside A Vision, April 7, 1847. Bates printed this broadside and added “Remarks,” in which he offered reasons why he accepted Mrs. White’s visions as of God. EGWC 626.3

SECOND PRINTING

In A Word to the “Little Flock,” pages 18-20. EGWC 626.4

THIRD PRINTING

In Review and Herald Extra, July 21, 1851, pages 2, 3, with deletions, as follows: EGWC 626.5

Deletions

(1) “And if one believed, and kept the Sabbath, and received the blessing attending it, and then gave it up, and broke the holy commandment, they would shut the gates of the Holy City against themselves, as sure as there was a God that rules in heaven above.” EGWC 626.6

(2) “I saw all that ‘would not receive the mark of the Beast, and of his Image, in their foreheads or in their hands,’ could not buy or sell. (o) I saw that the number (666) of the Image Beast was made up; (p) and that it was the beast that changed the Sabbath, and the Image Beast had followed on after, and kept the Pope’s, and not God’s Sabbath. And all we were required to do, was to give up God’s Sabbath, and keep the Pope’s, and then we should have the mark of the Beast, and of his Image.” EGWC 626.7

Comments on Deletions

(1) This is not cited, we believe, by current critics as an exhibit of a passage “suppressed” to conceal an abandoned teaching. In 1883 Mrs. White, in meeting charges of “suppression,” wrote thus regarding this deletion: EGWC 627.1

“Those who have clearly seen and fully accepted the truth upon the fourth commandment and have received the blessing attending obedience, but have since renounced their faith, and dared to violate the law of God, will find if they persist in this path of disobedience, the gates of the city of God closed against them.” See Appendix F, pp. 591, 592. EGWC 627.2

This is in harmony with the Scriptural principle enunciated by Christ: “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.” John 15:22. Also with the words of James: “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” James 4:17. And with the further words of James: “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.” James 2:10-12. Finally, this deleted passage squares with the words of John: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” Revelation 22:14. EGWC 627.3

A reading of Mrs. White’s current writings will reveal that she has more than once set forth the substance of deletion number 1. EGWC 627.4

(2) This is discussed in chapter 18, “The Image Beast and 666.” EGWC 627.5

In Experience and Views, pages 15-19. (Early Writings, 32-35.) The text of the third printing is used. EGWC 627.6