Impending Conflict—Its Causes
485
and corruption are sweeping in upon us like an overwhelming tide. In
the family, Satan is at work. His banner waves, even in professedly
Christian households. There is envy, evil surmising, hypocrisy, es-
trangement, emulation, strife, betrayal of sacred trusts, indulgence of
lust. The whole system of religious principles and doctrines, which
should form the foundation and frame-work of social life, seems to be
a tottering mass, ready to fall to ruin. The vilest of criminals, when
thrown into prison for their offenses, are often made the recipients
[586]
of gifts and attentions, as if they had attained an enviable distinc-
tion. Great publicity is given to their character and crimes. The press
publishes the revolting details of vice, thus initiating others into the
practice of fraud, robbery, and murder; and Satan exults in the success
of his hellish schemes. The infatuation of vice, the wanton taking of
life, the terrible increase of intemperance and iniquity of every order
and degree, should arouse all who fear God, to inquire what can be
done to stay the tide of evil.
Courts of justice are corrupt. Rulers are actuated by desire for gain,
and love of sensual pleasure. Intemperance has beclouded the faculties
of many, so that Satan has almost complete control of them. Jurists are
perverted, bribed, deluded. Drunkenness and revelry, passion, envy,
dishonesty of every sort, are represented among those who administer
the laws. “Justice standeth afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and
equity cannot enter.” [
Isaiah 59:14
.]
The iniquity and spiritual darkness that prevailed under the
supremacy of Rome were the inevitable result of her suppression of
the Scriptures; but where is to be found the cause of the widespread in-
fidelity, the rejection of the law of God, and the consequent corruption,
under the full blaze of gospel light in an age of religious freedom?
Now that Satan can no longer keep the world under his control by
withholding the Scriptures, he resorts to other means to accomplish
the same object. To destroy faith in the Bible serves his purpose as
well as to destroy the Bible itself. By introducing the belief that God’s
law is not binding, he as effectually leads men to transgress as if they
were wholly ignorant of its precepts. And now, as in former ages, he
has worked through the church to further his designs. The religious
organizations of the day have refused to listen to unpopular truths
plainly brought to view in the Scriptures, and in combating them they
have adopted interpretations and taken positions which have sown