A.T. Jones' Letter to A.G. Daniells, Jan.26, 1906.

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 9:31am

I know John but let other people free to read

and decide for themselves k?  :)

God bless.

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Permalink Reply by iamrobhualdjr on February 25, 2011 at 4:08am

sky

 

 

do you really know them? A.T. Jones and A.G. Wagoner?

Their message was totally put down of the conference..

They work for reformation inside the church..

But their message is now the present truth..

But there is a new face of the message and a new advocates.

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Permalink Reply by iamrobhualdjr on February 25, 2011 at 4:21am

john

 

are you willing to eat hard food or remain in milk?

When we are a child we speak as a child

act like a child, but when we are adult we put away childish things.

 

spiritual food is the word in the scripture..

If anybody cant understand the word it is because they cannot eat the food meant for adult in faith..

Jesus says "I am the bread of life"..

Did you proved that this message is the molten calf?

Discover more about this..

 

Godbless you.

 

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 9:28am

Mrs White adds:

"From the light that I have, as it was presented to me in figures. There was a narrow compass here; there within that narrow compass, is a king-like, a kingly ruling power. God means what he says and He says, 'I want a change here.' Will it be the same thing? going over and over the same ideas, the same committees--and here is the little throne--the king is in there, and these others are all secondary. God wants that those committees that have been handling things for so long should be relieved of their command and have a chance for their life and see if they can not get out of this rut that they are in--which I have no hope of their getting out of, because the Spirit of God has been working and working, and yet the king is in there still. Now the Lord wants His Spirit to come in. He wants the Holy Ghost King.

"From the light that I have had for some time, and has been expressed over and over again, not to all that are here, but has been expressed to individuals--the plan, that God would have all to work from, that never should one mind or two minds or three minds, nor four minds, or a few minds I should say, be considered of sufficient wisdom and power to control and mark out plans and let it rest upon the minds of one or two or three in regard to this broad, broad field that we have.

"And the work all over our field demands an entirely different course of action than we have had; that there needs the laying of a foundation that is different from what we have had... In all these countries, far and near, He wants to be an arousing, broadening, enlarging power. And a management which is getting confused in itself--not that any one is wrong or means to be wrong, but the principle is wrong; and the principles have become so mixed and so fallen from what God's principles are.

"These things have been told, and this standstill has got to come to an end. But yet every Conference has woven after the same pattern, it is the very same loom that carries it, and finally, it will come to naught."

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 9:42am

She declared that "God wants us to take hold of this work, every human agency. Each one is to act in their capacity in such a way that the confidence of the whole people will be established in them and that they will not be afraid, but see everything just as light as day until they are in connection with the work of God and the whole people. All the provision was made in Heaven, all the facilities, all the riches of the grace of God was imparted to every worker that was connected with the cause, and every one of these are wholly dependent upon God. And when we leave God out of the question, and allow hereditary and cultivated traits of character to come in, let me tell you, we are on very slippery ground.

"God has His servants--His Church, established in the earth, composed of many members, but of one body; that in every part of the work one part must work as connected with another part, and that with another part, and with another part, and these are joined together by the golden links of heaven, and there is to be no kings here in the midst at all. There is to be no man that has the right to put his hand out and say: No, you can not go there. We won't support you if you go there. Why, what have you to do with the supporting? Did you create the means? The means comes from the people. And those who are in destitute fields-- the voice of God has told me to instruct them to go to the people and tell them their necessities; and to draw all the people to work just where they can find a place to work, to build up the work in every place they can."

 

 

Upon that instruction and much more to the same effect in that talk, you and Brother Prescott and others took hold of the matters pertaining to the then pending General Conference, set aside entirely the old order of things, and started it new. At the opening of the General Conference, April 2, 1901, Sister White spoke briefly to the same effect as in the College Building the day before. Brother Irwin followed with a few words; and then you spoke a few words and introduced a motion that the usual rules and precedents for arranging and transacting the business of the Conference be suspended, and a General Committee be hereby appointed... to constitute a general or central committee, which shall do such work as necessarily must be done in providing the work of the Conference, and preparing the business to bring before the delegates. Thus the new order of things was started.

The night of that very first day of the Conference I was appointed to preach the sermon. Since I had been appointed to report the proceedings, I expected to have no preaching or other work to do. Therefore when I was called to preach, I supposed that it was designed to have me preach that one time during the conference, and have me do it at the beginning so that I could go on afterward unmolested with the reporting. I spoke on Church Organization. When that meeting was over, I supposed that my preaching during the Conference was done. Therefore I was surprised when only two days afterward--April 4, you, brother Daniells, came to me at the reporter's table and said, we want you to preach tonight. I said I supposed that my preaching was over, since I have the reporting to do. I can not do this and preach often. You said to me, "You have light for the people, and we want them to have it." I consented and preached again on the subject of Church Organization, developing the subject further, and on the same principles precisely as on the night of April 2.

 

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 9:55am

In that Conference (1901) the General Conference was started toward the called-for reorganization. All understood that the call was away from a centralized order of things in which "one man or two men or three or four men or a few men" held the ruling and directing power, to an organization in which "all the people" as individuals should have a part, with God, in Christ, by the Holy Spirit as the unifying, guiding, and directing power. Indeed, the day before my second sermon on organization, Sister White had said, April 3--"We want to understand that there are no gods in our Conference. There are to be no kings here, and no kings in any conference that is formed. 'All ye are brethren.'"

"The Lord wants to bind those at this Conference heart to heart. No man is to say, 'I am a god, and you must do as I say.' From the beginning to the end this is wrong. There is to be an individual work. God says, 'Let him take hold of my strength that he may make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me.'

"Remember that God can give wisdom to those who handle His work. It is not necessary to send thousands of miles to Battle Creek for advice, and then have to wait weeks before an answer can be received. Those who are right on the ground are to decide what shall be done. You know what you have to wrestle with, but those who are thousands of miles away do not know."-- Bulletin, 1901, pp. 69, 70.

And on the very day of my second sermon, April 4, she said in a talk at 9:00 a.m., "This meeting will determine the character of our work in the future. How important that every step shall be taken under the supervision of God. This work must be carried in a very different manner to what it has been in the past years." --1901 Bulletin, p. 83.

In this understanding an entire new Constitution was adopted; and that such was the understanding in adopting this Constitution is plainly shown in the discussions. Under this constitution the General Conference Committee was composed of a large number of men, with power to organize itself by choosing a chairman, etc. No president of the General Conference was chosen; nor was any provided for. The presidency of the General Conference was eliminated to escape a centralized power, a one-man power, a kingship, a monarchy. The Constitution was framed and adopted to that end in accordance with the whole guiding thought in the Conference from the beginning in that room in the College Building.

Shortly after the Conference ended, you suggested during the meeting at Indianapolis that my sermon on organization ought to be printed in a leaflet so that our people everywhere could have it for study in the work of reorganization. Your suggestion was agreed to and I was directed to prepare it for printing. I did so, and it was printed at General Conference direction, in "Words of Truth" Series, No. 31, extra, May, 1901."

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 10:09am

Brother Jone's letter to brother A.G. Daniells continues:

 

Now after all this, it was not long before this whole spirit and principle of General Conference organization and affairs began to be reversed again. This spirit of reaction became so rife and so rank that some time before the General Conference of 1903 at Oakland, Cal., two men, or three men, or four men, or a few men, I should say, being together in Battle Creek or somewhere else, and without any kind of authority, but directly against the plain words of the Constitution, took it absolutely upon themselves to elect you president, and Brother Prescott vice-president of the General Conference. And than that there never was in this universe a clearer piece of usurpation of position, power, and authority. You two were then, of right, just as much president and vice-president of Timbuktoo as you were of the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference.

But this spirit did not stop even there. The thing done was directly against the Constitution. This was too plain to be escaped. And it was just as plain that with that Constitution (of 1901) still perpetuated in the coming General Conference, this usurpation of position, power, and authority could not be perpetuated. What could be done to preserve the usurpation?-- Oh, that was just as easy as the other. A new Constitution was framed to fit and to uphold the usurpation. This Constitution was carried to the General Conference of 1903 at Oakland, Cal., and in every unconstitutional way was there jammed through. I say in every unconstitutional way, because in every truly constitutional government the Constitution comes in some way from the people, not from the monarch. Thus the people make and establish a Constitution. The monarch grants a Constitution. When the people make a Constitution the people govern. When a monarch grants a Constitution, he seeks to please the people with a toy and keeps the government himself. This difference is the sole difficulty in Russia today; and the difference is simply the difference between monarchy and government of the people; and between oppression and freedom. The people want to make a Constitution. The czar wants to grant them a Constitution and have them endorse anew his autocracy and bureaucracy by adopting the Constitution that he grants.

And this is just the difference between the General Conference and its Constitution of 1901, and the General Conference and its Constitution of 1903. In 1901 the monarchy was swept aside completely, and the Conference itself as such and as a whole made a new Constitution. In the General Conference of 1903, the usurpers of monarchical position and authority came with a Constitution that fitted and maintained their usurpation, and succeeded in getting it adopted. And how?--None of the people had asked for any new Constitution. The General Conference delegation had not asked for it. Not even the Committee on Constitution asked for it. In behalf of the usurpation it was brought before that committee and advocated there because, in very words, "The church must have a visible head." It was not, even then, nor was it ever, favored by that committee. It was put through the committee, and reported to the Conference, only by permanently dividing the committee--a minority of the committee opposing it all the time, and--a thing almost unheard of in Seventh-day Adventist Conference--bringing into the Conference a minority report against it.

And when at last it was adopted by the final vote, it was by the slim majority of just five. And it was only by the carelessness of some of the delegates that it got through even that way; for there were just then downstairs in the Oakland church enough delegates who were opposed to it, to have defeated it if they had been present. They told this themselves afterward. But they did not know that the vote was being taken, and by their not being in their places the usurpation was sanctioned; the reactionary spirit that had been so long working for absolute control had got it; the principles and intent of the General Conference of 1901 were reversed; and 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. So that some of the oldest men in active service today, and who by their life experience are best qualified to know, have freely said that in the whole history of the denomination there has never been such a one-man power, such a centralized despotism, so much of papacy as there has been since the Oakland Conference. And as a part of this bureaucracy there is, of all the incongruous things ever heard of, a "Religious Liberty Bureau," a contradiction in terms.

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 10:32am

Now when I was opposed to this thing before and in the General Conference of 1897, and before and in the General Conference of 1899, and before and in the General Conference of 1901, and before and in the General Conference of 1903, why should you be perplexed that I have not fallen in with it and helped to make it a success since 1903? Why should I, in 1903, abandon all the principles and teaching by which I was right in opposing it until and including 1903? When I was in the right all these years in opposing it, and in doing all that I could to keep it from succeeding, why and upon what principles should I have swung in and favored it just because at last in a most arbitrary, unconstitutional and usurping way it did at last succeed?

Again, in the General Conference of 1901 you yourself said that in the principles of organization that I preached I had "light for the people." Those principles were the ones that prevailed in that Conference; and at your own suggestion these principles as preached in my first sermon, were published for the help of the denomination in the work or reorganization. But the principles and the form of organization of 1903 are directly the opposite of those that in 1901 you said were "light for the people." If my second sermon in the General Conference of 1901 had been printed along with the first, the people would have been able to see more plainly how entirely the course of things in 1903 was the reverse of that of 1901. And any one can see it now by reading General Conference Bulletin of 1901, pages 37-42 and 101-105.

Now, brother, were those principles light in 1901? If so, then what did you do when you espoused the opposite of them in 1902-1903? Or, were those principles light in 1901, and darkness in 1903? Or were those principles really darkness in 1901, when you said that they were light? Or are they still light today as they were in 1901? And if in the General Conference of 1901 you were not able to distinguish between light and darkness, what surety has anybody that you were any more able to do so in 1902-3? Or is it possible that in 1902-3 you were not, and now are not, able to see that the principles and the course of action of 1902-3 are not the same as those of the General Conference of 1901? In other words, is it possible that you can think that certain principles with their course of action, and the reverse of them are one and the same? I know that the principles that in 1901 you said were "light for the people" were then really light, and that they are now light, and forevermore will be light. They are only plain principles of the word of God. I hold these principles today exactly as I did in 1901 and long before, and shall hold them forever. For this cause I was opposed to the usurpation and unconstitutional action of 1902-3 that were the opposite of these principles; and shall always be opposed to them.

In view of all these facts, again I ask, Why should you think that I should abandon all, just because you and some others did? I think that it was enough for me to keep still these three years. It is true that I have had no disposition to do anything but to keep still about it. For when the General Conference of 1903 made their choice that way, I have no objection their having what they have chosen. I have no disposition to oppose it in any other way than by preaching the gospel. Indeed, the strongest possible opposition that can be made to it is the plain, simple preaching of the plain gospel. There is this about that, however, that now the plain simple preaching of the plain gospel will be considered "disloyal to the General Conference," "disloyal to the organization," etc. Nevertheless, I am going to continue to preach the plain gospel, as that gospel is in the Word of God. For when the General Conference and the "organized work" put themselves in such a position that the plain preaching of the gospel as in the Word of God is disloyalty to the General Conference and the "organized work," then the thing to do is to preach the gospel as it is in the Word of God.

 

 

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 11:51am

Second, as to the campaign against Dr. Kellogg:

I told you in the very beginning of it, that I would never take any part in it. You can remember that in the month of November, 1902, in Battle Creek, in the same room where you and Brother Irwin met the Church Board and others of us when you were here last month --as you and I and several others of the General Conference Committee were sitting around a table, I told you all, that, admitting all to be the truth that was then being said about Dr. Kellogg, I would take no part in pursuing him, nor in making any kind of war upon him --not even with the Testimonies.

I told you of the experience of a previous General Conference Committee when I was a member of it --that Testimonies had come reproving Brother A. R. Henry; that the Committee had used the Testimonies in a way, and had taken such a course toward him, that he was offended: that then, Testimonies came reproving the Committee for treating him so, and telling the Committee to go and confess to Brother Henry. "Shall the soul of A. R. Henry be lost?"--And upon this I told you that I never would take any course toward Dr. Kellogg or any other man that would make it possible for any Testimony to tell me to go and confess to him the wrong way that I had treated him, even with the Testimonies; and, because of anything that I had done, appeal to me "shall the soul of" that man be lost?

I told you then that whatever Dr. Kellogg's wrong-doing might be, I never would treat him, nor take any part with others in treating him in any other way than the way that I would choose to be treated if I were in a like situation. All that, I told you then, and I tell it to you now. That is where I stood then, that is where I have stood ever since, and that is where I shall stand forever with respect to Dr. Kellogg and everybody else in the world.

I was at that time ready to stand with you, and did stand with you, in working for him, to get him to see where mistakes had been made, and to correct them. On the eighteenth day of that same month of November, 1902, in the General Conference Committee room in Battle Creek, with Dr. Kellogg and a number of other brethren present, I, on the part of the General Conference Committee, and at your request, read some Testimonies concerning kingship in the medical work and a "species" of bondage or slavery of minds in the matter of written contracts for the medical missionary workers. And even while I was reading it, Dr. Kellogg spoke out and said: "I see that. I see it now: I never saw it before. I could not see how that was; but I see it now. And I will stop it immediately. We will abolish all those contracts."

In the same meeting he also made other changes and concessions; so that the only thing that I expected to see, was that you would reach out your hand to him and say: All right, Brother, here is my hand. Let us go on together, working to find out whatever else may be wrong, and to put it away.

But lo! instead of that or anything of that nature, I was surprised and humiliated and hurt, at your standing up, and planting yourself on your heels, and, in a decisive tone, saying "I'm not satisfied. Dr. Kellogg has an imperious will, that's got to be broken--with God."

From that moment I have not had any sympathy with you, nor any support for you, in that campaign. The thing there said, and tone and manner of saying it, all showed that there was such an element of personal domination, of personal triumph, of a man ruling man, that I would have no part in it. I know that you have since explained that you meant only what is always meant when it is said that a man's will is to be surrendered to God, etc.

Whatever you meant, the words as given above are what you said. And said in the tone and manner in which you said it, and said openly in a company of men, in a time of tension; the only possible effect of the words was certain to be just what the words said. Surely the effect, or at least the danger of the effect, of such a statement would be bad enough if spoken only to a man in perfect privacy.

How much more when spoken about a man, openly to a company of other men, with the man himself present. To this day I feel the impression that the words made upon me. And I know that if in such circumstances such a thing were said about me, I have not the meekness to take it in any way near as quietly as Dr. Kellogg did at that moment. Surely, Brother Daniells, if you had thought only as far as a b c, you would have known that God never breaks any man's will; nor does he ask that any man's will shall be broken; and you would not have said what you did.

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 11:57am

I know that you (brother Daniells) and others with you are making much of "loyalty to the Testimonies" and are not slow to convey the impression that any who do not openly endorse your course in the use of some of the Testimonies is not loyal to the Testimonies, does not believe the Testimonies, etc., etc., but all of that proves nothing at all as to anybody's loyalty or disloyalty to the Testimonies.

Besides, facts within my personal knowledge demonstrate that the loyalty to the Testimonies that is just now being made so conspicuous, is a very uncertain thing; it is merely "loyalty to some of the Testimonies"-- that can be used to special advantage for a purpose.

For instance: During the General Conference council in Washington in October, 1903, a Testimony came concerning the Battle Creek College debt, and the Acre Fund to pay that debt. That Testimony said:

"How pleasing to God it would be for all our people--led and encouraged by the General Conference Committee--to share in lifting this obligation of the old Battle Creek College!"

"The creditors of Battle Creek College must be paid. The officers of the General Conference should lend a hand in this work."

I was in a position to know full well that the General Conference Committee neither led nor encouraged the people in that thing at all. Indeed, their leading and encouraging was against it rather than for it. Also I personally know that the officers of the General Conference did not lend any hand in that work. Indeed they were not at all ready even to print that Testimony in the Review.

They did by special request, if not persuasion, promise in the Review of October 29, to publish it next week; but in fact did not publish it till five weeks afterward, December 3; and then with changes, showing that it had either been sent to California for these changes and back again, or else another copy was received from California to be published in place of the one that they promised October 29 to publish next week; any or all of which shows that loyalty to that Testimony was not at all conspicuous (easily seen or noticed) on the part of the General Conference officers.

Again: At Berrien springs in May, 1904, a written testimony was given to you personally addressed,

"Dear Brethren Daniells and Prescott," in which were the following words:--

"Last night I saw a hand stretched out to clasp his [Dr. Kellogg's] hand, and the words were spoken: 'Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with Me, and he shall make peace with Me. Satan is striving for the victory. I will help Dr. Kellogg to stand on vantage ground, and every soul who loves Me must work with Me as he sees Me do, so he must do.'"

You received that Testimony on Friday. Yet as late as Monday following, Dr. Kellogg knew nothing of it--at least so far as you were concerned--and he was there the most of the time. And when on Monday morning I read the Testimony openly in the morning meeting, you said that you had received it on Friday, but did not know what to do with it.

It would seem that loyalty to the Testimonies would have given you plainly to know what to do yourself whether you knew what to do with it or not. It would seem that loyalty to the Testimonies would have caused you to go straight to Dr. Kellogg and stretch out your hand to him, as the Testimony told you to do. But you did not do it then: And when I asked you in Battle Creek last month whether you had ever done it, you were obliged to say "No." Is that loyalty to the Testimonies, or is it merely loyalty to some of the Testimonies?

to be continued

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Permalink Reply by sky on February 20, 2011 at 12:42pm

Again: Sister White says that in the time of the General Conference of 1905, at Takoma Park, Washington, she was shown in the night the needs of the South and that 5,000 dollars must be given immediately to the brethren--Butler and Haskell--for it. So plain was this and so urgent, that she said to Brother Haskell the next morning, "Have faith in God. You will carry five thousand dollars from this meeting for the work in the South."

Then the Testimony proceeds. But Willie said that Brother Daniells was very much perplexed with the conditions in Battle Creek, and the money could not be sent just then. And, I said no more about it. This Testimony you have there in Washington.

Now, did she see, that night, as she says that she did, the needs of the South, and so urgent that 5,000 dollars should be carried from that very meeting for it? If she did, then how much loyalty to the Testimonies was there in Willie, setting it all aside so effectually that for full two months nothing at all was done in that direction and when after full two months something was done, it was only because Testimonies were sent to the South as well as to Washington, that would brook no more delay. And one of these said:--

"This matter has been presented to me three times, and I was instructed that 5,000 dollars ought to have been placed in Elder Haskell's hands before he left the Conference grounds."

That is exactly the instruction that she says that she had on the Conference grounds, in the time of the Conference. She gave the instructions at least to Brother Haskell and to Willie, but Willie simply and promptly set it aside. Now was that instruction from the Lord, or was it not? If it was, how much did Willie care for it? Allowing what he said about conditions in Battle Creek, is it not possible that the Lord knew of this, and knew as much of it as Willie did? Or is it true that Willie is the supreme source of knowledge and understanding in the work of the Lord--even above and against the instruction of the Lord? Or did Willie believe a particle in the instructions having come from the Lord? If it was from the Lord, then how much loyalty to the Testimonies had Willie when he set it aside? If it was from the Lord, and yet he did not believe that it was from the Lord, then how much loyalty to the Testimonies was there in what he did? Or shall it be said that it was not from the Lord, and was not Testimony, till it came out in writing on July 19, 20, full two months afterward?

But if it was from the Lord when it was written out two months afterward, then was it not equally from the Lord when it was spoken to Willie at the time? And in any case where in Willie's course in that matter does there appear any faintest suggestion of any real loyalty to the Testimonies?

By the way, brother, why haven't you printed those two Testimonies of July 19, 20, 1905, in full, full names and all, in the Review and Herald or in some "Series A, B, or Z? Number something, for all the people to have those Testimonies, just as they are, would do a lot of good to the work in the South; why not print them?

Now please, brother Daniells, I am not involving you in Willie's course in the foregoing matter. I am perfectly willing to believe that he did not allow that word to get to you, as to the 5,000 dollars going with Brother Haskell from that General Conference. The point that I make upon it is this: That is the course which Willie took on that. The Testimony says so. Now since he can do such things as that, and at the same time is heartily and companionably fellowshipped by you as loyal to the Testimonies, how is it that you can not just as heartily fellowship men who have far more respect for the Testimonies than that; but who possibly can not near as loudly urge upon other people loyalty to the Testimonies?

to be continued

Permalink Reply by N Him on March 2, 2011 at 7:45am

They are "sky quotes".

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