filled the
prophecy of Paul following his warning in relation to the awful
conditions antecedent to the second coming of the Christ: "Let no man
deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come
a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of
God, shewing himself that he is God."[1510]

In her unrestrained abandon to the license of arrogated authority, the
Church of Rome hesitated not to transgress the law of God, change the
ordinances essential to salvation, and ruthlessly break the everlasting
covenant, thereby defiling the earth even as Isaiah had foretold.[1511]
She altered the ordinance of baptism, destroying its symbolism and
associating with it imitations of pagan rites; she corrupted the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and befouled the doctrine thereof by the
vagary of _transubstantiation_;[1512] she assumed to apply the merits of
the righteous to the forgiveness of the sinner in the unscriptural and
wholly repellent dogma of _supererogation_; she promoted idolatry in
most seductive and pernicious forms; she penalized the study of the holy
scriptures by the people at large; she enjoined an unnatural state of
celibacy upon her clergy; she revelled in unholy union with the theories
and sophistries of men, and so adulterated the simple doctrines of the
gospel of Christ as to produce a creed rank with superstition and
heresy; she promulgated such perverted doctrines regarding the human
body as to make the divinely formed tabernacle of flesh appear as a
thing fit only to be tortured and contemned; she proclaimed it an act of
virtue insuring rich reward to lie and deceive if thereby her own
interests might be subserved; and she so thoroughly departed from the
original plan of Church organization as to make of herself a spectacle
of ornate display, fabricated by the caprice of man.[1513]

The most important of the internal causes by which the apostasy of the
Primitive Church was brought about may be thus summarized: (1) The
corrupting of the simple doctrines of the gospel of Christ by admixture
with so-called philosophic systems. (2) Unauthorized additions to the
prescribed rites of the Church and the introduction of vital alterations
in essential ordinances. (3) Unauthorized changes in Church organization
and government.[1514]

Under the