Relation to Prophets of Old

What relation, then, may we conclude, does the work of Mrs. White bear to the work of the prophets of old? The Lord did not give to her long lines of symbolic prophecy, as He did to Daniel and to John the revelator; in these days, just before the coming of the Lord, these would not be indicated. He did not make her a judge and lawgiver as He did Moses, nor a ruler of state as He did David. Rather, she filled the position of a great teacher in Israel, as did Samuel; of a great reformer, as did Elijah; of a special messenger of God, as did John the Baptist.TOJ 56.2

She lived in an age of fulfilling prophecy, in a time of marked spiritual declension, when multitudes were turning from the Word and commandments of God to the traditions of men. She was commissioned as Heaven’s special messenger of warning and reproof to turn men back to God and to His Word. In visions and dreams she was instructed concerning the work of God, and was given the messages she was to bear.TOJ 56.3

Like God’s messengers of old, her work belongs to the prophetic order. As this movement answers to the fulfillment of prophecy, so does her work meet the divine prediction that the Spirit of prophecy would be connected with this movement. (Revelation 12:17; 19:10.) By the same Spirit by which the prophets and messengers of old were guided in their work, she was directed and guided in her work as God’s messenger to the church in this generation.TOJ 57.1

“In ancient times God spoke to men by the mouth of prophets and apostles. In these days He speaks to them by the Testimonies of His Spirit.”—Testimonies for the Church 5:661TOJ 57.2

Final judgment upon her work should not be determined by some detail, by the turn of a phrase or sentence, or by some seeming contradiction in her writings, but by the spirit which characterized her work through the years, by the fruit it has borne in connection with the great religious movement with which it was associated, and in the development of which it bore a prominent part and exerted a molding influence.TOJ 57.3