How the Three Messages Were Regarded in 1847

The following from Elder James White, written in April, 1847, will show how the three messages were then regarded:—GSAM 264.1

“All classes of second advent believers agree that the angel brought to view in the sixth and seventh verses of this chapter (Revelation 14), represents the advent message to the church and world.... The work of the second angel was to show to the advent host that Babylon had fallen. And as a large portion of them did not learn this fact until the power of the ‘midnight cry’ waked them up just in time for them to make their escape from the churches before the tenth day came, it follows that since the seventh month, 1844, the third angel’s message was, and still is, a warning to the saints to ‘hold fast,’ and not go back, and ‘receive’ the marks which the virgin band got rid of during the second angel’s cry.GSAM 264.2

“And has not the true message for God’s people, since the seventh month, 1844, been just such a warning?-It certainly has.... The twelfth verse reads, ‘Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus’ Where did you see them, John?-Why, ‘here,’ during the third angel’s message. As the patient, waiting time has been since the seventh month, 1844, and as the class that keep the Sabbath, etc., have appeared since that time, it is plain that we live in the time of the third angel’s message.” ^{12Idem, 10, 11, Brunswick, Maine, May 1847.}GSAM 264.3