The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 261

by our own church. Therefore it cannot be either false or erroneous,
provided the Scripture be true.” “Others allege, ‘Their doctrine is too
strict; they make the way to heaven too narrow.’ And this is in truth the
original objection, (as it was almost the only one for some time,) and
is secretly at the bottom of a thousand more, which appear in various
forms. But do they make the way to heaven any narrower than our Lord
and His apostles made it? Is their doctrine stricter than that of the Bible?
Consider only a few plain texts: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength.’ ‘For every idle word which men shall speak, they shall give an
account in the day of judgment.’ ‘Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatever
ye do, do all to the glory of God.’
“If their doctrine is stricter than this, they are to blame; but you
know in your conscience it is not. And who can be one jot less strict
without corrupting the word of God? Can any steward of the mysteries
of God be found faithful if he change any part of that sacred depositum?
No. He can abate nothing, he can soften nothing; he is constrained to
declare to all men, ‘I may not bring down the Scripture to your taste.
You must come up to it, or perish forever.’ This is the real ground of
that other popular cry concerning ‘the uncharitableness of these men.’
Uncharitable, are they? In what respect? Do they not feed the hungry
and clothe the naked? ‘No; that is not the thing: they are not wanting
in this: but they are so uncharitable in judging! they think none can be
saved but those of their own way.”’—Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 152, 153.
The spiritual declension which had been manifest in England just
before the time of Wesley was in great degree the result of antinomian
teaching. Many affirmed that Christ had abolished the moral law and that
Christians are therefore under no obligation to observe it; that a believer
is freed from the “bondage of good works.” Others, though admitting

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