p. 1, para. 1 | Untitled article

Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · March 23, 1893

As Lucifer sought supreme authority, eternal in the heavens, so when the spirit of worldly ambition has entered the Church it seeks temporal authority supreme on earth. This is but the natural course for human weakness to take, when it has forgotten to subject itself in child-like humility to divine leading. When the time has come that the clergy can arrogate to itself the possession of the trained intellectuality of the world sanctified by a superior spirituality in its own conceit, then is the time that it will set up its claim to rule the world, as Satan, drunk with a consciousness of his own beauty and supernal intelligence, coveted divine supremacy in the heavens. These two, then, having purposes which complement each other and tend to the same end, become natural allies, and the human power and intelligence becomes the dupe and the tool of the supernatural subtlety to work its purposes on the earth.