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Messenger of the Lord - Contents
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    Dramatic Healings

    Ellen and James White participated in many dramatic healings within their own family. But they did not consider the use of natural remedies to indicate lack of faith. From her early years to her last, Mrs. White clearly warned against fanaticism: “We believe in the prayer of faith; but some have carried this matter too far .... Some have taken the strong ground that it was wrong to use simple remedies. We have never taken this position, but have opposed it. We believe it to be perfectly right to use the remedies God has placed in our reach, and if these fail, apply to the great Physician, and in some cases the counsel of an earthly physician is very necessary. This position we have always held.” 23Spiritual Gifts 2:135 (1860). In The Ministry of Healing (1905), Ellen White wrote: “Those who seek healing by prayer should not neglect to make use of the remedial agencies within their reach. It is not a denial of faith to use such remedies as God has provided to alleviate pain and to aid nature in her work of restoration.” Pages 231, 232.MOL 280.1

    In 1854 she visited a “celebrated physician in Rochester” for a painful swelling on her left eyelid that was diagnosed as cancer. But the physician told her that she would die of apoplexy before the cancer would kill her! About a month later, after much trust and prayer, she suddenly was healed of both the cancerous eyelid and the oppressive heart condition that had made breathing difficult. 24Bio., vol. 1, p. 292. Some people are puzzled by a statement Ellen White made in a January 31, 1849 broadside (a one-sheet publication) that said: “If any among us are sick, let us not dishonor God by applying to earthly physicians, but apply to the God of Israel. If we follow His directions (James 5:14, 15), the sick will be healed.” This broadside was edited and reproduced in Experience and Views and again in Early Writings, 56-58. This particular reference to physicians was one of the sentences deleted in later printings. Ellen White often edited her own material, sometimes several times, before publication and before reprints. Any wise author does the same for the sake of clearer communication and to avoid misunderstanding. As time passed for this material to be republished, Mrs. White could see how it could be misunderstood in view of her own practice of consulting physicians when it seemed appropriate. When we think of the limited medical knowledge of the mid-nineteenth century, we can understand well her agreement with Oliver Wendell Holmes’s assessment of contemporary medicine (see p. 279) when she wrote in the early 1860s: “I was shown that more deaths have been caused by drug-taking than from all other causes combined. If there was in the land one physician in the place of thousands, a vast amount of premature mortality would be prevented” Spiritual Gifts 4a:133. But there was more behind that 1849 statement. Adventists in the late 1840s experienced many dramatic divine healings (see Life Sketches of Ellen G. White, 121-124, and Bio., vol. 1, pp. 88, 89, 115, 158, 159, 232, 371), from illnesses that often defied medical knowledge at that time. They threw themselves on James 5:14, 15 and rejoiced with the promise fulfilled, over and over again. They saw too many of their contemporaries being bled, purged, and drugged to an early death. In later writings, Mrs. White made very plain the proper balance between faith and working with God in employing the best of medical knowledge.MOL 280.2

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