The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 192

“To them the Holy Scriptures were but a dead letter, and they all began
to cry, ‘The Spirit! the Spirit!’ But most assuredly I will not follow
where their spirit leads them. May God of His mercy preserve me from
a church in which there are none but saints. I desire to dwell with the
humble, the feeble, the sick, who know and feel their sins, and who groan
and cry continually to God from the bottom of their hearts to obtain His
consolation and support.”—Ibid., b. 10, ch. 10.
Thomas Munzer, the most active of the fanatics, was a man of
considerable ability, which, rightly directed, would have enabled him to
do good; but he had not learned the first principles of true religion. “He
was possessed with a desire of reforming the world, and forgot, as all
enthusiasts do, that the reformation should begin with himself.”—Ibid.,
b. 9, ch. 8. He was ambitious to obtain position and influence, and was
unwilling to be second, even to Luther. He declared that the Reformers,
in substituting the authority of Scripture for that of the pope, were only
establishing a different form of popery. He himself, he claimed, had been
divinely commissioned to introduce the true reform. “He who possesses
this spirit,” said Munzer, “possesses the true faith, although he should
never see the Scriptures in his life.”—Ibid., b. 10, ch. 10.
The fanatical teachers gave themselves up to be governed by
impressions, regarding every thought and impulse as the voice of God;
consequently they went to great extremes. Some even burned their
Bibles, exclaiming: “The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.”
Munzer’s teaching appealed to men’s desire for the marvelous, while
it gratified their pride by virtually placing human ideas and opinions
above the word of God. His doctrines were received by thousands. He
soon denounced all order in public worship, and declared that to obey
princes was to attempt to serve both God and Belial.
The minds of the people, already beginning to throw off the yoke of
the papacy, were also becoming impatient under the restraints of civil
authority. Munzer’s revolutionary

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