Make Only Modest Claims

But if we claim that Miller and his associates had a perfect and complete knowledge of the truth regarding the correspondence of history with prophecy, or if we claim for the pioneers in the third angel's message that their knowledge was complete and infallible, if we say, “Never in the history of this cause have we been obliged to confess ourselves in error,” we shall unwisely and unnecessarily challenge criticism that will display to the world in a manifold and exaggerated light the imperfection and inaccuracies of some of our expositions which have been corrected by the results of faithful study in later years.3SM 449.1

It seems to me, Brother Eastman, that there is great possibility of our weakening our influence by closing our eyes to the fact that we are all as little children learning from day to day from the great Teacher, and that it is our privilege to advance in knowledge and understanding. It seems to me that it is much wiser for us to convince the world that God has been leading us, and that He is leading us by presenting from time to time, unanswerable evidences regarding the soundness of our position by a clear presentation of the correspondence of prophecy and history through the use of historical data which the world cannot question, than by any efforts that we shall make to prove that the positions we held last year or ten years ago or twenty years ago or thirty years ago were infallible and unchangeable.3SM 449.2

Regarding Mother's writings, I have overwhelming evidence and conviction that they are the description and delineation of what God has revealed to her in vision, and where she has followed the description of historians or the exposition of Adventist writers, I believe that God has given her discernment to use that which is correct and in harmony with truth regarding all matters essential to salvation. If it should be found by faithful study that she has followed some expositions of prophecy which in some detail regarding dates we cannot harmonize with our understanding of secular history, it does not influence my confidence in her writings as a whole any more than my confidence in the Bible is influenced by the fact that I cannot harmonize many of the statements regarding chronology.3SM 449.3