Ellen G. White and Her Critics

A Parallel Passage

Compare this statement with a similar one made by Mrs. White in January, 1863, in connection with a further discussion of the question of the Civil War: EGWC 128.3

“Everything is preparing for the great day of God. Time will last a little longer, until the inhabitants of the earth have filled up the cup of their iniquity, and then the wrath of God, which has so long slumbered, will awake, and this land of light will drink the cup of his unmingled wrath. The desolating power of God is upon the earth to rend and destroy. The inhabitants of the earth are appointed to the sword, to famine, and to pestilence.”—Testimonies for the Church 1:363. EGWC 128.4

We believe that when the passage under discussion is seen in its larger context, it takes on the appearance, not so much of a description of events in connection with the Civil War, as of events of some time subsequent to that, the time when, as she says, “I was shown the inhabitants of the earth in the utmost confusion.” This would seem to indicate that she was surveying something larger than the United States, and a condition even more grievous than the Civil War. The phrase, “the inhabitants of the earth,” is one that she uses in both passages we have quoted. In the first she says, “I was shown the inhabitants of the earth in the utmost confusion.” In the second passage she uses the expression twice: “Time will last a little longer, until the inhabitants of the earth have filled up the cup of their iniquity.” “The inhabitants of the earth are appointed to the sword, to famine, and to pestilence.” EGWC 128.5