The Use of Another's Language

As her heart overflowed with the sense of the goodness of God to her and to His church, she chose to express her feelings in phrases from God's Word and also in the wording of a book she had recently read, The Great Teacher, by John Harris, published in 1836. Such a procedure was not uncommon in her work. She found the language choice and the truth well expressed. [In his introduction to the volume from which Ellen White drew some expressions, harris wrote: “Suppose, for example, an inspired prophet were now to appear in the Church, to add a supplement to the canonical books—what a babel of opinions would he find existing on almost every theological subject! And how highly probable it is that his ministry would consist, or seem to consist, in a mere selection and ratification of such of these opinions as accorded with the mind of God. Absolute originality would seem to be almost impossible. The inventive mind of man has already bodied forth speculative opinions in almost every conceivable form, forestalling and robbing the future of its fair proportion of novelties and leaving little more, even to a divine messenger, than the office of taking some of these opinions and impressing them with the seal of heaven.”—John harris, The Great Teacher, pp. XXXIII, XXXIV.] Speaking of God's tender care for His church, Ellen White wrote:4BIO 62.6

I have had a most precious experience, and I testify to my fellow laborers in the cause of God, “The Lord is good, and greatly to be praised.” I testify to my brethren and sisters that the church of Christ, enfeebled and defective as it may be, is the only object on earth on which He bestows His supreme regard. While He extends to all the world His invitation to come to Him and be saved, He commissions His angels to render divine help to every soul that cometh to Him in repentance and contrition, and He comes personally by His Holy Spirit into the midst of His church....4BIO 63.1

Consider, my brethren and sisters, that the Lord has a people, a chosen people, His church, to be His own, His own fortress, which He holds in a sin-stricken, revolted world; and He intended that no authority should be known in it, no laws be acknowledged by it, but His own.4BIO 63.2

After writing at some length of the church, its authority, and its resources and facilities, she penned the following, again couching her message in part in the words of Harris:4BIO 63.3

The Lord Jesus is making experiments on human hearts through the exhibition of His mercy and abundant grace. He is effecting transformations so amazing that Satan, with all his triumphant boasting, with all his confederacy of evil united against God and the laws of His government, stands viewing them as a fortress impregnable to his sophistries and delusions. They are to him an incomprehensible mystery.4BIO 63.4

The angels of God, seraphim and cherubim, the powers commissioned to cooperate with human agencies, look on with astonishment and joy that fallen men, once children of wrath, are through the training of Christ developing characters after the divine similitude, to be sons and daughters of God, to act an important part in the occupations and pleasures of heaven.—Letter 2d, 1892 (The General Conference Bulletin, 1893, 407-409; see also Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 15-19).4BIO 63.5