James White
“a certain class who deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. This class can be no other than those who spiritualize away the existence of the Father and the Son, as two distinct, literal, tangible persons, also a literal Holy city and throne of David… The way spiritualizers this way have disposed of or denied the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ is first using the old unscriptural trinitarian creed, viz, that Jesus Christ is the eternal God, though they have not one passage to support it, while we have plain scripture testimony in abundance that He is the Son of the eternal God” (James White, Day Star, Jan 24, 1846)
- often is being said how James White opposed version of the trinity where the Father and the Son make up one person. What people fail to see here, that he is advocating the Father and the Son as two distinct tangible and literal persons, and the One whom he addresses as God is the Father. The doctrine teaching that God is a tangible and literal person is called the personality of God.
- James White’s statement is in harmony with first point of The Fundamental Principles
James White, in the Review and Herald, listed “some of the popular fables of the age”, saying:
“Here we might mention the Trinity, which does away the personality of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ, and of sprinkling or pouring instead of being ‘buried with Christ in baptism,’ ‘planted in the likeness of his death:’ but we pass from these fables to notice one that is held sacred by nearly all professed Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. It is, the change of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment from the seventh to the first day of the week.” James S. White, Review & Herald, December 11, 1855, p. 85.15
- the reason why James White has rejected the trinity doctrine was because it cannot be harmonized with the doctrine on the presence and the personality of God
- Ellen G. White also followed the similar pattern
- Whenever she was dealing with the trinity doctrine she uplifted doctrine on the presence and the personality of God
In the Adventist Review and Sabbath Herald article from April 4, 1854, James White listed 10 points on “Catholic reasons for keeping Sunday”, where he said that the Sunday
“is a day dedicated by the apostles to the honor of the most Holy Trinity”. The Advent Review, and Sabbath Herald, vol. 5 April 4, 1854, p. 86
Here we also see the harmony between J. B. Frisbie (see J.B. Frisbie and the trinity) and James White in their view that the Sabbath is dedicated to the biblical God expressed in the first point of the Fundamental Principles, and Sunday is dedicated to the trinity God.
As fundamental errors, we might class with this counterfeit sabbath other errors which Protestants have brought away from the Catholic church, such as sprinkling for baptism, the trinity, the consciousness of the dead and eternal life in misery. The mass who have held these fundamental errors, have doubtless done it ignorantly; but can it be supposed that the church of Christ will carry along with her these errors till the judgment scenes burst upon the world? We think not. “Here are they [in the period of a message given just before the Son of man takes his place upon the white cloud, Revelation 14:14] that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” This class, who live just prior to the second advent, will not be keeping the traditions of men, neither will they be holding fundamental errors relative to the plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. And as the true light shines out upon these subjects, and is rejected by the mass, then condemnation will come upon them. When the true Sabbath is set before men, and the claims of the fourth commandment are urged upon them, and they reject this holy institution of the God of heaven, and choose in its place an institution of the beast, it can then be said, in the fullest sense, that such worship the beast. The warning message of the third angel is given in reference to that period, when the mark of the beast will be received, instead of the seal of the living God. Solemn dreadful, swiftly-approaching hour! {ARSH September 12, 1854, page 36.7}
John N. Andrews
The doctrine of the Trinity which was established in the church by the council of Nice, a. d. 325. This doctrine destroys the personality of God, and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. The infamous measures by which it was forced upon the church, which appear upon the pages of ecclesiastical history might well cause every believer in that doctrine to blush. {John N. Andrews; TAR 54.3; 1855}
Why did Early Pioneers rejected the trinity doctrine?
It was not in harmony with the doctrine on the personality of God
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