The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 13

in the history of patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, of martyrs and
reformers.
In the great final conflict, Satan will employ the same policy,
manifest the same spirit, and work for the same end as in all preceding
ages. That which has been, will be, except that the coming struggle will
be marked with a terrible intensity such as the world has never witnessed.
Satan’s deceptions will be more subtle, his assaults more determined. If
it were possible, he would lead astray the elect. Mark 13:22, R.V.
As the Spirit of God has opened to my mind the great truths of His
word, and the scenes of the past and the future, I have been bidden to
make known to others that which has thus been revealed—to trace the
history of the controversy in past ages, and especially so to present it
as to shed a light on the fast-approaching struggle of the future. In
pursuance of this purpose, I have endeavored to select and group together
events in the history of the church in such a manner as to trace the
unfolding of the great testing truths that at different periods have been
given to the world, that have excited the wrath of Satan, and the enmity
of a world-loving church, and that have been maintained by the witness
of those who “loved not their lives unto the death.”
In these records we may see a foreshadowing of the conflict before
us. Regarding them in the light of God’s word, and by the illumination
of His Spirit, we may see unveiled the devices of the wicked one, and
the dangers which they must shun who would be found “without fault”
before the Lord at His coming.
The great events which have marked the progress of reform in past
ages are matters of history, well known and universally acknowledged by
the Protestant world; they are facts which none can gainsay. This history
I have presented briefly, in accordance with the scope of the book, and
the brevity which must necessarily be observed, the facts having been
condensed into as little space as seemed consistent with