Unbroken Line of Reformers

When the apostasy had developed to the union of church and state, there were protests and withdrawals by loyal leaders and churches, which have been reviewed in previous chapters. Witness Montanus, Novatian, Donatus, the Paulicians, Constantine of Armenia, Claude of the Albigenses, Waldo of the Waldenses, Wycliffe of England, Huss and Jerome of Bohemia. At the climax also were to appear Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and their numerous associates. At no time in those fifteen centuries was the Saviour of men without true witnesses to the saving power of the gospel. These witnesses He used in all manner of ways in preparation for the mighty work wrought by Luther and other true men who had been raised up for the hour.AGP 220.2

One who has made a special study of these tragic times bears convincing testimony in these meaningful words:AGP 220.3

“Amid the gloom that settled upon the earth during the long period of papal supremacy, the light of truth could not be wholly extinguished. In every age there were witnesses for God,—men who cherished faith in Christ as the only mediator between God and man, who held the Bible as the only rule of life, and who hallowed the true Sabbath. How much the world owes to these men, posterity will never know. They were branded as heretics, their motives impugned, their characters maligned, their writings suppressed, misrepresented, or mutilated. Yet they stood firm, and from age to age maintained their faith in its purity, as a sacred heritage for the generations to come.” “The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan,” p. 61.

A careful study of the upright lives, the sound teaching, the safe guidance, the sacrificial spirit, of such outstanding characters, must profoundly impress those who believe in the doctrine of the providential shaping of destinies, that all along the way God was doing with these representatives far more than they understood.AGP 221.1