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ALONE
WITH GOD
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Spiritual Answers and Reasons
for Faith |
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The Dark
Ages--Night
Compared with the clear morning glory of the church, this
awful period is well expressed by night. The clear light
that shone so brilliantly in the apostolic age was
eclipsed by the darkest superstition and errors that men
and devils have ever invented. The earth was flooded with
false doctrines of every kind. Image worship. prayers
offered to the Virgin Mary, licentious popes regarded as
infallible, prayers offered for the dead, the Bible
chained to the pulpit, martyred saints branded as
heretics, and a thousand other things of like character
were rife during that time.
"What are termed the Middle
Ages commenced with the fifth and terminated with the
fifteenth century. Of these the first six are denominated
the Dark Ages. But throughout the whole period
Christianity suffered a long eclipse of a thousand
years."—Goodrich's Church History, page 478. This
period was thus foretold in prophecy: "Watchman, what
of the night?" The watchman said, ''The morning
cometh, and also the night." Isa. 21: 11, 12. AS
before observed, the morning here referred to was the
ushering in of the Christian era, the clear, transplendent
light of the gospel and the church of God in the beginning
of this age. But it was foreseen that night would follow
the morning. "The morning cometh and also the
night." In the natural day night does not follow the
dawn of morning; but in the day here referred to— the
gospel day—night was to come immediately after the
morning. And true to prophecy, "the people of God's
holiness, possessed it but a little while." The
morning glory of the church was early eclipsed by the
great apostasy, and there followed a long dark night of
more than one thousand years.
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