The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 293

charge you before God and His blessed angels to follow me no farther
than I have followed Christ. If God should reveal anything to you by
any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to
receive any truth of my ministry; for I am very confident the Lord hath
more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy word.”—Martyn,
vol. 5, p. 70.
“For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the
reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go
at present no farther than the instruments of their reformation. The
Lutherans cannot be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; ... and the
Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of
God, who yet saw not all things. This is a misery much to be lamented;
for though they were burning and shining lights in their time, yet they
penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but were they now living,
would be as willing to embrace further light as that which they first
received.”—D. Neal, History of the Puritans, vol. 1, p. 269.
“Remember your church covenant, in which you have agreed to
walk in all the ways of the Lord, made or to be made known unto you.
Remember your promise and covenant with God and with one another,
to receive whatever light and truth shall be made known to you from His
written word; but withal, take heed, I beseech you, what you receive for
truth, and compare it and weigh it with other scriptures of truth before
you accept it; for it is not possible the Christian world should come so
lately out of such thick antichristian darkness, and that full perfection of
knowledge should break forth at once.”—Martyn, vol. 5, pp. 70, 71.
It was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the Pilgrims
to brave the perils of the long journey across the sea, to endure the
hardships and dangers of the wilderness, and with God’s blessing to lay,
on the shores of America, the foundation of a mighty nation. Yet honest
and God-fearing

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