The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 61
martyrs cried to God for vengeance upon that apostate power.
Popery had become the world’s despot. Kings and emperors bowed
to the decrees of the Roman pontiff. The destinies of men, both for time
and for eternity, seemed under his control. For hundreds of years the
doctrines of Rome had been extensively and implicitly received, its rites
reverently performed, its festivals generally observed. Its clergy were
honored and liberally sustained. Never since has the Roman Church
attained to greater dignity, magnificence, or power.
But “the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world.”—J. A.
Wylie, The History of Protestantism, b. 1, ch. 4. The Holy Scriptures
were almost unknown, not only to the people, but to the priests. Like
the Pharisees of old, the papal leaders hated the light which would
reveal their sins. God’s law, the standard of righteousness, having been
removed, they exercised power without limit, and practiced vice without
restraint. Fraud, avarice, and profligacy prevailed. Men shrank from
no crime by which they could gain wealth or position. The palaces of
popes and prelates were scenes of the vilest debauchery. Some of the
reigning pontiffs were guilty of crimes so revolting that secular rulers
endeavored to depose these dignitaries of the church as monsters too vile
to be tolerated. For centuries Europe had made no progress in learning,
arts, or civilization. A moral and intellectual paralysis had fallen upon
Christendom.
The condition of the world under the Romish power presented a
fearful and striking fulfillment of the words of the prophet Hosea: “My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected
knowledge, I will also reject thee: ... seeing thou hast forgotten the
law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” “There is no truth, nor
mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and
killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood
toucheth blood.” Hosea 4:6, 1, 2. Such were the results of banishing the
word of God.
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