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The advancing centuries witnessed a constant increase of error
in the doctrines put forth from Rome. Even before the establishment
of the papacy, the teachings of heathen philosophers had received at-
tention and exerted an influence in the church. Many who professed
conversion still clung to the tenets of their pagan philosophy, and
not only continued its study themselves, but urged it upon others as
a means of extending their influence among the heathen. Thus were
serious errors introduced into the Christian faith. Prominent among
these was the belief in man’s natural immortality and his conscious-
ness in death. This doctrine laid the foundation upon which Rome
established the invocation of saints and the adoration of the virgin
Mary. From this sprung also the heresy of eternal torment for the
finally impenitent, which was early incorporated into the papal faith.
Then the way was prepared for the introduction of still another
invention of paganism, which Rome named purgatory, and employed
to terrify the credulous and superstitious multitudes. By this heresy
is affirmed the existence of a place of torment, in which the souls of
such as have not merited eternal damnation are to suffer punishment
for their sins, and from which, when freed from impurity, they are
admitted to Heaven.
Still another fabrication was needed to enable Rome to profit
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by the fears and the vices of her adherents. This was supplied by
the doctrine of indulgences. Full remission of sins, past, present,
and future, and release from all the pains and penalties incurred,
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The Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4
were promised to all who would enlist in the pontiff’s wars to extend
his temporal dominion, to punish his enemies, or to exterminate
those who dared deny his spiritual supremacy. The people were also
taught that by the payment of money to the church they might free
themselves from sin, and also release the souls of their deceased
friends who were confined in the tormenting flames. By such means
did Rome fill her coffers, and sustain the magnificence, luxury, and
vice of the pretended representatives of Him who had not where to
lay his head.
The scriptural ordinance of the Lord’s supper had been sup-
planted by the idolatrous sacrifice of the mass. Papist priests pre-
tended, by their senseless mummery, to convert the simple bread and
wine into the actual body and blood of Christ. With blasphemous
presumption, they openly claimed the power to “create their Cre-
ator.” All Christians were required, on pain of death, to avow their
faith in this horrible, Heaven-insulting heresy. Those who refused
were given to the flames.
In the thirteenth century was established that most terrible of all
the engines of the papacy,—the Inquisition. The prince of darkness
wrought with the leaders of the papal hierarchy. In their secret
councils, Satan and his angels presided, while unseen in the midst
stood an angel of God, taking the fearful record of their iniquitous
decrees, and writing the history of deeds too horrible to appear to
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human eyes. “Babylon the great” was “drunken with the blood of
the saints.” The mangled forms of millions of 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 ob-
served. Its clergy were honored and liberally sustained. Never since
has the Roman Church attained to greater dignity, magnificence, and
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
Roman Church
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righteousness, having been removed, they exercised power without
limit, and practiced vice without restraint. Fraud, avarice, and profli-
gacy 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 upon
the throne. For centuries there was no progress in learning, arts,
or civilization. A moral and intellectual paralysis had fallen upon
Christendom.
In the condition of the world under the Romish power was pre- [65]
sented 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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Chapter 4—The Waldenses
Amid the gloom that settled upon the earth during the long
period of papal supremacy, the light of truth could not be wholly
extinguished. In every age there were witnesses for God,—men who
cherished faith in Christ as the only mediator between God and man,
who held the Bible as the only rule of life, and who hallowed the
true Sabbath. How much the world owes to these men, posterity will
never know. They were branded as heretics, their motives impugned,
their characters maligned, their writings suppressed, misrepresented,
or mutilated. Yet they stood firm, and from age to age maintained
their faith in its purity, as a sacred heritage for the generations to
come.
The history of God’s faithful people for hundreds of years after
Rome attained to power, is known alone to heaven. They ca
be traced in human records, except as hints of their existence are
found in the censures and accusations of their persecutors. It was
the policy of Rome to obliterate every trace of dissent from her doc-
trines or decrees. Everything heretical, whether persons or writings,
was destroyed. A single expression of doubt, a question as to the
authority of papal dogmas, was enough to cost the life of rich or
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poor, high or low. Rome endeavored also to destroy every record of
her cruelty toward dissenters. Papal councils decreed that books and
writings containing such records should be committed to the flames.