The Great Controversy - Righteousness is Love

224to them." –J. Brown, The Pilgrim Fathers, page 74. Here was the true spiritof reform, the vital principle of Protestantism. It was with this purpose thatthe Pilgrims departed from Holland to find a home in the New World. JohnRobinson, their pastor, who was providentially prevented fromaccompanying them, in his farewell address to the exiles said:"Brethren, we are now erelong to part asunder, and the Lord knowethwhether I shall live ever to see your faces more. But whether the Lord hathappointed it or not, I charge you before God and His blessed angels tofollow me no farther than I have followed Christ. If God should revealanything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it asever you were to receive any truth of my ministry; for I am very confidentthe 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 reformedchurches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present nofarther than the instruments of their reformation. The Lutherans cannot bedrawn to go beyond what Luther saw; . . . and the Calvinists, you see, stickfast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not allthings. This is a misery much to be lamented; for though they were burningand shining lights in their time, yet they penetrated not into the wholecounsel of God, but were they now living, would be as willing to embracefurther light as that which they first received."–D. Neal, History of thePuritans, vol. 1, p. 269."Remember your church covenant, in which you have agreed to walk in allthe ways of the Lord, made or to be made known unto you. Remember yourpromise and covenant with God and with one another, to receive whateverlight and truth shall be made known to you from His written word; butwithal, take heed, I beseech you, what you receive for truth, and compare itand weigh it with other scriptures of truth before you accept it; for it is notpossible the Christian world should come so lately out of such thickantichristian darkness, and that full perfection of knowledge should breakforth at once."–Martyn, vol. 5, pp. 70, 71.It was the desire for liberty of conscience that inspired the Pilgrims to bravethe perils of the long journey across the sea, to endure the hardships anddangers of the wilderness, and with God's blessing to lay, on the shores ofAmerica, the foundation of a mighty nation. Yet honest and God-fearing asthey were, the Pilgrims did not yet comprehend the great principle ofreligious liberty. The freedom which they sacrificed so much to secure for