Attempts to Restrain the Prophetic Gift

In harmony with this brief statement is the tragic picture painted by Lawrence:AGP 197.1

“The fourth century brought important changes in the condition of the bishops of Rome. It is a singular trait of the corrupt Christianity of this period that the chief characteristic of the eminent prelates was a fierce and ungovernable pride. Humility had long ceased to be numbered among the Christian virtues. The four great rulers of the church (the Bishop of Rome and the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria) were engaged in a constant struggle for supremacy. Even the inferior bishops assumed a princely state, and surrounded themselves with their sacred courts. The vices of pride and arrogance descended to the lower orders of the clergy; the emperor himself was declared to be inferior in dignity to the simple presbyter, and in all public entertainments and ceremonious assemblies the proudest layman was expected to take his place below the haughty churchman. As learning declined and the world sunk into a new barbarism, the clergy elevated themselves into a ruling caste, and were looked upon as half divine by the rude Goths and the degraded Romans. It is even said that the pagan nations of the West transferred to the priest and monk the same awe-struck reverence which they had been accustomed to pay to their Druid teachers. The Pope took the place of their Chief Druid, and was worshiped with idolatrous devotion; the meanest presbyter, however vicious and degraded, seemed, to the ignorant savages, a true messenger from the skies.” “Historical Studies,” Eugene Lawrence, pp. 20, 21. New York: Harper Brothers, 1876.

This situation produced a crisis in the ranks of the true followers of the Master. Their firm decision is disclosed in these significant words of Mrs. E. G. White:AGP 197.2

“After a long and severe conflict, the faithful few decided to dissolve all union with the apostate church if she still refused to free herself from falsehood and idolatry. They saw that separation was an absolute necessity if they would obey the word of God.” “The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan,” p. 45.

So the true dissenters from the dominant church began to form a line that was to span the Middle Ages. They were soon to flee “into the wilderness” for the prophesied period of 1260 years.AGP 198.1

This apostate Christian power—the papacy—having assumed the name not only of a church, but of the one and only true church, then began to hold sway, to a growing degree, over the minds, rights, liberties, and earthly destinies of the human race for over a thousand years. That period has been fitly called “the Dark Ages,” and “the world’s midnight.”AGP 198.2

As the church began to depart from the standards of the doctrines and Christian experience of the first and second centuries, it also began, consistently enough, to attempt to restrain and to terminate the operation of the prophetic gift. While the restraining process was going on, there was decided opposition to it by loyal believers. “The church herself,” says Swete, as previously quoted, “did not at once resign herself to the loss of prophecy. But the exigencies of controversy, added to the growing officialism of the church, succeeded in silencing this conviction and the church ceased to prophesy.”AGP 198.3