1841 William Miller Evidence from Scripture & History - A2Z.org

274 ' LEC~BE zvrr~.
er and glory on Sinai. Yet the next genedon after
Joshus, had become so deeply corrupted, by unbelief, in
gratitude, and rebellion, that they gave all the tory to
works of their own hands, and worshipped idols o stocks
and stones.
This, you say, is a dark picture of man, and could not
have applied to any other people but the Jews. I will
agree that no other nation were, at that time, placed in
like circumstances with them. But dark as the picture,
and h~deous as the detnil, it is but a shadow of our day,
a type of the Christian church in the tiines in which we
live.
u Who is this comin up from the wildernem, leaning
upon her beloved " #'he text doea not tell us she ia out
of tl~e wilderness, but coming out; as though in the wilderness,
and while she is coming out, she leans upon her
lord Her affections wek not yet contaminated by a
love for the world, nor her faith weakened by her vanity
and self-esteem Thus was it with the Jews ; and so llaa
it been with the church in ages past Then let me,
111. Make an application of our subject, by showin
what may be considered the present state of the
church.
I believe all writers and commentators on the Apocalypse
agree that the church of Christ has been in the
wilderness more thad twelve centuries past Some have
fixed the time of the church entering into her wilderness
state as early as A. D. 534, when the great controveray
between the orthodox and Arians, which, in the days of
Justir~ian, shook the religious world into two at divisions,
like the two of an eagle," from g eonvulsions
of which mAT:the true senanta of God, or aII
of them, disgusted with the spirit shown by both of the
contending parties, who both claimed and used the civil
authority to exterminate or conquer their heterodox
brethren, fled into the north-east part of Europe, away
from the face of the serpent," - the emperors of the eaet,
and the more powerful bishops of Rome-where for
numbers of centuries they lived unknowing and nnknorn
Other writers Ray that it wae as late as A. D. 6W3, when
the Pope, by the cowsseiona of Phocu, obtained &il