The Great Second Advent Movement: Its Rise and Progress
Compared with the Reformation
If we apply the same rule to this movement that D'Aubigné applied to the rise of the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, it must surely be counted as the Lord’s message and in the Lord’s time. Of that Reformation as a whole the historian said:— GSAM 99.2
“Germany did not communicate the truth to Switzerland, nor Switzerland to France, nor France to England. All these countries received it from God, just as one part of the world does not transmit the light to another part; but the same shining globe communicates it directly to all the earth. Christ, the day spring from on high, infinitely exalted above all mankind, was, at the period of the Reformation, as at the establishment of Christianity, the divine fire which gave life to the world. In the sixteenth century, one and the same doctrine was at once established in the homes and churches of the most distant and diversified nations. The reason is, that the same Spirit was everywhere at work producing the same faith. GSAM 99.3
“The Reformation of Germany and that of Switzerland demonstrate this truth. Zwingle had no intercourse with Luther. There was, no doubt, a link between these two men; but we must search for it above the earth. He who from heaven gave the truth to Luther, gave it to Zwingle. God was the medium of communication between them. ‘I began to preach the gospel,’ says Zwingle, ‘in the year of grace 1516, in other words, at a time when the name of Luther had never been heard of in our country. I did not learn the doctrine of Christ from Luther, but from the word of God. If Luther preaches Christ, he does what I do; that is all.’ ” 6 GSAM 99.4
Speaking of the work of Farel and Lefevre in France, the historian says:— GSAM 100.1
“The Reformation in France, therefore, was not a foreign importation. It had its birth on the French soil; it germinated in Paris; it had its first roots in the university itself, which formed the second power in Roman Christendom. God placed the principles of the work in the honest hearts of men of Picardy and Dauphiny before its commencement in any other country. GSAM 100.2
“We have seen that the Swiss Reformation was independent of the German Reformation. The French Reformation was in its turn independent of both. The work began at once in these different countries, without any communication with each other; as, in a battle, all the different forces comprising the army move at the same instant, though the one does not tell the other to march, because one and the same command, proceeding from the same Commander-in-Chief, is heard by all. The time was accomplished, the people were prepared, and God began the Reformation of his church in all countries at once. Such facts demonstrate that the great Reformation of the sixteenth century was a divine work.” 7 GSAM 100.3
Of the Reformation in England, under Thos. Bilney, Fryth, Tyndale, and others, D'Aubigné further says:— GSAM 100.4
“The Reformation of England commenced, therefore, independently of Luther and Zwingle, holding solely from God. There was in all these countries of Christendom a simultaneous action of the divine word. The origin of the Reformation at Oxford, Cambridge, London, was the Greek New Testament published by Erasmus. [Tyndale and Thomas Bilney quitted Cambridge in the year 1519.] There came a day when England was proud of this high origin of the Reformation.” 8 GSAM 100.5
The advent proclamation arose in a similar manner to that above traced in the Reformation. Men were moved out simultaneously in more than four times as many parts of the world, with no knowledge of, or any communication of sentiment with, one another, and began the proclamation of the same Scripture truths, not simply in four nations of the earth, but to the whole civilized world. GSAM 101.1