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The Great Controversy 1888
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.
The noontide of the papacy was the world’s moral midnight. The
Holy Scriptures were almost unknown, not only to the people, but
to the priests. Like the Pharisees of old, the papist leaders hated the
light which would reveal their sins. God’s law, the standard of righ-
teousness, 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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