Why not Found out Before?
If the doctrines taught by Seventh-day Adventists are true, why have not our learned men found them out before? From the time of the Reformation under Martin Luther until now, every advance step in reform has been opposed by those who were under the influence of fables and traditions of men. The famous Roman Catholic, Dr. Eck, spoke against Luther as follows:— “I am surprised at the humility and modesty with which the reverend doctor undertakes to oppose, alone, so many illustrious fathers, and pretends to know more than the sovereign pontiff, the councils, the doctors, and the universities! It would be surprising, no doubt, if God had hidden the truth from so many saints and martyrs until the advent of the reverend father?”—D’Aubigne’s Hist. Ref., vol. ii, p. 59. Sebastian Myer gives the following refutation of the above:— “To have been a thousand years wrong, will not make us right for one single hour! or else the pagans should have kept to their creed.”—Id., vol. ii, p. 427. The pagan emperor of Rome, Diocletian, in a law against Christians, A. D. 296, said:— “The immortal gods have, by their providence, ordained and established that which is true and good. Many wise and good men are united in the opinion that this must be maintained without alteration. These we dare not oppose, and no new religion ought to venture to blame the old; for it is an enormous crime to pull down that which our forefathers established and which has dominion in the State.”—Rose’s Neander, vol. i, p. 84. John Locke, the great Christian philosopher, says:— “An error is not better for being common, nor the truth, for having lain neglected; and, if it were put to vote anywhere in the world, I doubt, as things are managed, whether truth would have the majority, at least while the authority of men, and not the examination of things, must be its measure.”—Essay on Human Understanding, book iv, chap. 3, sec. 6, note.