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The Great Controversy 1888
an oath, nor meet a beggar.” It was demonstrated that the principles of
the Bible are the surest safeguards of national greatness. The feeble
and isolated colonies grew to a confederation of powerful States, and
the world marked with wonder the peace and prosperity of “a church
without a pope, and a State without a king.”
But continually increasing numbers were attracted to the shores of
America, actuated by motives widely different from those of the first
Pilgrims. Though the primitive faith and purity exerted a widespread
and moulding 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
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of suffrage and office-holding, 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 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 believed, and to live as they had lived. Therefore