The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 298

shores of America, actuated by motives widely different from those
of the first Pilgrims. Though the primitive faith and purity exerted a
widespread and molding power, yet its influence became less and less as
the numbers increased of those who sought only worldly advantage.
The regulation adopted by the early colonists, of permitting only
members of the church to vote or to hold office in the civil government,
led to most pernicious results. This measure had been accepted as
a means of preserving the purity of the state, but it resulted in the
corruption of the church. A profession of religion being the condition
of suffrage and officeholding, many, actuated solely by motives of
worldly policy, united with the church without a change of heart. Thus
the churches came to consist, to a considerable extent, of unconverted
persons; and even in the ministry were those who not only held errors
of doctrine, but who were ignorant of the renewing power of the Holy
Spirit. Thus again was demonstrated the evil results, so often witnessed
in the history of the church from the days of Constantine to the present,
of attempting to build up the church by the aid of the state, of appealing
to the secular power in support of the gospel of Him who declared: “My
kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36. The union of the church with
the state, be the degree never so slight, while it may appear to bring the
world nearer to the church, does in reality but bring the church nearer to
the world.
The great principle so nobly advocated by Robinson and Roger
Williams, that truth is progressive, that Christians should stand ready
to accept all the light which may shine from God’s holy word, was lost
sight of by their descendants. The Protestant churches of America,—and
those of Europe as well,—so highly favored in receiving the blessings of
the Reformation, failed to press forward in the path of reform. Though
a few faithful men arose, from time to time, to proclaim new truth and
expose long-cherished error, the majority, like the Jews in Christ’s day or
the papists in the time of Luther, were content to believe as their fathers
had

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