"Still another fabrication was needed to enable Rome to profit by the fears and the vices of her adherents. This was supplied by the doctrine of indulgences. Full remission of sins, past, present, and future, and release from all the pains and penalties incurred, were promised to all who would enlist in the pontiff's wars to extend his temporal dominion, to punish his enemies, or to exterminate those who dared deny his spiritual supremacy. The people were also taught that by the payment of money to the church they might free themselves from sin, and also release the souls of their deceased friends who were confined in the tormenting flames. By such means did Rome fill her coffers and sustain the magnificence, luxury, and vice of the pretended representatives of Him who had not where to lay His head. (See Appendix .) GC 59.1"
"But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money."
Both passages condemn the idea of purchasing spiritual benefits with money. Acts 8:20 is a direct condemnation of Simon's attempt to buy the Holy Spirit, while the EGW quote describes the practice of indulgences. The thematic parallel is strong.
"The Scriptural ordinance of the Lord's Supper had been supplanted by the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass. Papal priests pretended, by their senseless mummery, to convert the simple bread and wine into the actual “body and blood of Christ.”—Cardinal Wiseman, The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist, Proved From Scripture, lecture 8, sec. 3, par. 26. With blasphemous presumption, they openly claimed the power of creating God, the Creator of all things. Christians were required, on pain of death, to avow their faith in this horrible, Heaven-insulting heresy. Multitudes who refused were given to the flames. (See Appendix .) GC 59.2"
"But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
Both passages address the issue of traditions and doctrines of men replacing true worship. Matthew 15:9 speaks generally about vain worship through human commandments, while the EGW quote specifically criticizes the Catholic mass as a replacement for the Lord's Supper. The connection is thematic and relevant.
"In the thirteenth century was established that most terrible of all the engines of the papacy—the Inquisition. The prince of darkness wrought with the leaders of the papal hierarchy. In their secret councils Satan and his angels controlled the minds of evil men, while unseen in the midst stood an angel of God, taking the fearful record of their iniquitous decrees and writing the history of deeds too horrible to appear to human eyes. “Babylon the great” was “drunken with the blood of the saints.” The mangled forms of millions of martyrs cried to God for vengeance upon that apostate power. GC 59.3"
"And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration."
The EGW passage directly quotes Revelation 17:6, making it an explicit allusion. The context in both passages refers to a persecuting power that is 'drunken with the blood of the saints.'