Early Arguments for the Spirit of Prophecy

Nichols then turns to arguments for the acceptance of the messages of Ellen Harmon:1BIO 76.3

Sister Ellen has been a resident of my family much of the time for about eight months. I have never seen the least impropriety of conduct in her since our first acquaintance. God has blessed our family abundantly with spiritual things as well as temporal since we received her into our family.1BIO 76.4

The Spirit of God is with her and has been in a remarkable manner in healing the sick through the answer to her prayers; some cases are as remarkable as any that are recorded in the New Testament.1BIO 76.5

But prejudiced and unbelieving persons find it just as convenient to call it mesmerism and ascribe the power to the devil, as the unbelieving Pharisees did. Matthew 10:25; 12:24. Is not this the sin against the Holy Ghost? See Mark 3:22, 29, 30. That power which is manifested in her, as far exceeds the power of mesmerism as Moses did the magicians of Egypt. The devil has as much power to imitate and counterfeit the work of God as he did in Moses’ time, and the people can be deceived if they will.1BIO 77.1

“Try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” 1 John 4:1. “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isaiah 8:20. “If the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken.” Deuteronomy 18:22.— Ibid.1BIO 77.2

There is no record of a response from Miller.1BIO 77.3