Book: General Conference Committee, A Statement Refuting Charges Made by A. T. Jones Against the Spirit of Prophecy and the Plan of Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination (Washington, DC: General Conference Committee, 1906). HTML, Scan.
Contents: Refutes charges made by A. T. Jones after he had united with J. H. Kellogg in undermining the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
Introductory
We have no desire for controversy with any one, and least of all with one who has in former days been a fellow-worker in the same cause. It would be much more agreeable to us to stand shoulder to shoulder laboring for the advancement of the truths for which this denomination has stood for more than half a century. But when representations are publicly made which will confuse and mislead our people if permitted to pass unchallenged, we deem it to be our duty, as those who are charged with a responsibility in preserving the integrity of this Advent movement, to make an equally public reply in order that all the people may be able to judge between mere assertions and actual facts, and that minds may not be filled with prejudice and distrust by accepting as reliable, charges of the most damaging nature, simply because made by one who has had a reputation in the past for clearness of perception and correctness of statement.
The publication of this pamphlet is made necessary by the recent appearance of a leaflet of seventy-six pages, with the title, “Some History, Some Experience, and Some Facts,” prepared by Elder A. T. Jones, an accredited minister of this denomination, who is the president of Battle Creek College, and instructor in the Bible at the Battle Creek Sanitarium. This leaflet contains “A Statement by Elder A. T. Jones at the Regular Monthly Meeting of the Sanitarium Family, in the Sanitarium Chapel, Battle Creek, Michigan, Sunday, March 4, 1906, 8:00 P. M.,” and is being widely circulated. The first eleven pages of this document are devoted to a statement of charges Made against the ministers who labored in Battle Creek during and after the week of prayer, of 1905, [p. 4] reading messages of instruction sent by Sister White to be presented to the people; and against nurses and helpers at the Sanitarium who decided to leave the institution in response to the counsel thus given. The larger portion of the remainder consists of a letter which Elder Jones wrote to Elder A. G. Daniells, the president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
Three general topics are considered in this letter: (1) The denominational organization, in the discussion of which it is stated that there has been such a departure from true principles that at least some of the present leaders in the administration of General Conference affairs are “usurpers of monarchical position and authority,” and that at the General Conference of 1903 “a czardom was enthroned which has since gone steadily onward in the same way, and has with perfect consistency built up a thoroughly bureaucratic government, by which it reaches and meddles with, and manipulates, the affairs of all, not only of union and local conferences, but of local churches, and even of individual persons.” (2) An alleged “campaign against Dr. Kellogg.” (3) “The Testimonies.”
In an address delivered in the same place just one month earlier, Elder Jones used as introductory to his remarks this quotation from the Testimonies: “In magnifying the Lord, be sure that you do not condemn and make charges against others.” But this instruction seems to have faded from his mind during the month, for in this “statement” are such charges against several prominent brethren in this denomination and against Sister White, that, if they were true, would render all these persons unworthy of the confidence of the people.
We have no disposition to make countercharges, but the logic of events forces us to the conclusion that, in this case at least, Elder Jones has departed from the principle which he announces in this leaflet as the one which he follows in his use of the Testimonies: “When [p. 5] a Testimony comes concerning another man, I will apply the principle to myself, and leave the Testimony with that other man.”
The different divisions of Elder Jones’s “statement” will be taken up in their proper order in this pamphlet, and the various assertions and conclusions will be examined in the light of unimpeachable testimony. It will then be left with the readers to decide whether his positions are tenable, when his arguments have been tested by some other history, some other experience, and some other facts.
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