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The Great Controversy 1888
what religion would there have been now upon the earth? ... And so,
madam, you may perceive that subjects are not bound to the religion of
their princes, although they are commanded to give them reverence.”
Said Mary, “You interpret the Scripture in one way, and they [the
Romish teachers] interpret it in another; whom shall I believe, and
who shall be judge?”
“You shall believe God, who plainly speaketh in his Word,” an-
swered the reformer; “and farther than the Word teaches you, ye shall
believe neither the one nor the other. The Word of God is plain in
itself, and if in any one place there be obscurity, the Holy Ghost, who
never is contrary to himself, explains the same more clearly in other
places, so that there can remain no doubt but unto such as are obsti-
nately ignorant.” Such were the truths that the fearless reformer, at the
peril of his life, spoke in the ear of royalty. With the same undaunted
courage he kept to his purpose, praying and fighting the battles of the
Lord, until Scotland was free from popery.
In England the establishment of Protestantism as the national reli-
gion diminished, but did not wholly stop persecution. While many of
the doctrines of Rome had been renounced, not a few of its forms were
retained. The supremacy of the pope was rejected, but in his place the
monarch was enthroned as the head of the church. In the service of the
church there was still a wide departure from the purity and simplicity
of the gospel. The great principle of religious toleration was not as
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yet understood. Though the horrible cruelties which Rome employed
against heresy were resorted to but rarely by Protestant rulers, yet the
right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his
own conscience was not acknowledged. All were required to accept
the doctrines and observe the forms of worship prescribed by the es-
tablished church. Dissenters suffered persecution, to a greater or less
extent, for hundreds of years.
In the seventeenth century thousands of pastors were expelled
from their positions. The people were forbidden, on pain of heavy
fines, imprisonment, and banishment, to attend any religious meetings
except such as were sanctioned by the church. Those faithful souls
who could not refrain from gathering to worship God, were compelled
to meet in dark alleys, in obscure garrets, and, at some seasons, in the
woods at midnight. In the sheltering depths of the forest, a temple
of God’s own building, those scattered and persecuted children of