370
The Great Controversy
image to the beast.” Here is clearly presented a form of government
in which the legislative power rests with the people, a most striking
evidence that the United States is the nation denoted in the prophecy.
But what is the “image to the beast”? and how is it to be formed?
The image is made by the two-horned beast, and is an image to the
beast. It is also called an image of the beast. Then to learn what the im-
age is like and how it is to be formed we must study the characteristics
of the beast itself—the papacy.
When the early church became corrupted by departing from the
simplicity of the gospel and accepting heathen rites and customs, she
lost the Spirit and power of God; and in order to control the consciences
of the people, she sought the support of the secular power. The result
was the papacy, a church that controlled the power of the state and
employed it to further her own ends, especially for the punishment
of “heresy.” In order for the United States to form an image of the
beast, the religious power must so control the civil government that the
authority of the state will also be employed by the church to accomplish
her own ends.
Whenever the church has obtained secular power, she has employed
it to punish dissent from her doctrines. Protestant churches that have
followed in the steps of Rome by forming alliance with worldly powers
have manifested a similar desire to restrict liberty of conscience. An
example of this is given in the long-continued persecution of dissenters
by the Church of England. During the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, thousands of nonconformist ministers were forced to flee
from their churches, and many, both of pastors and people, were
subjected to fine, imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom.
It was apostasy that led the early church to seek the aid of the civil
government, and this prepared the way for the development of the
papacy—the beast. Said Paul: “There” shall “come a falling away, ...
and that man of sin be revealed.”
2 Thessalonians 2:3
. So apostasy in
[444]
the church will prepare the way for the image to the beast.
The Bible declares that before the coming of the Lord there will
exist a state of religious declension similar to that in the first centuries.
“In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of
their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient
to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers,
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,