The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 187
eagerness than ever before. Increasing numbers joined the cause of the
heroic man who had, at such fearful odds, defended the word of God.
The Reformation was constantly gaining in strength. The seed which
Luther had sown sprang up everywhere. His absence accomplished a
work which his presence would have failed to do. Other laborers felt a
new responsibility, now that their great leader was removed. With new
faith and earnestness they pressed forward to do all in their power, that
the work so nobly begun might not be hindered.
But Satan was not idle. He now attempted what he has attempted in
every other reformatory movement—to deceive and destroy the people
by palming off upon them a counterfeit in place of the true work. As
there were false Christs in the first century of the Christian church, so
there arose false prophets in the sixteenth century.
A few men, deeply affected by the excitement in the religious world,
imagined themselves to have received special revelations from Heaven,
and claimed to have been divinely commissioned to carry forward to its
completion the Reformation which, they declared, had been but feebly
begun by Luther. In truth, they were undoing the very work which he
had accomplished. They rejected the great principle which was the very
foundation of the Reformation—that the word of God is the all-sufficient
rule of faith and practice; and for that unerring guide they substituted the
changeable, uncertain standard of their own feelings and impressions.
By this act of setting aside the great detector of error and falsehood the
way was opened for Satan to control minds as best pleased himself.
One of these prophets claimed to have been instructed by the angel
Gabriel. A student who united with him forsook his studies, declaring
that he had been endowed by God Himself with wisdom to expound
His word. Others who were naturally inclined to fanaticism united with
them. The proceedings of these enthusiasts created no little excitement.
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