[Qinael]

"When the early church departed from God and imbibed pagan errors, she became Babylon. When she united with the state, she fell, and, as an organization, was the body of Christ no longer. While the Reformation churches held fast to the word, Christ was with them. Then they crystallized their various errors into creeds and endeavored thus to confine God's word, they made themselves daughters of Babylon. When some of them united with the state, they fell, and God had to use other people, called out of Babylon to carry forward His work.

Now among these very churches which came out of the second Babylon, confusion reigns; and now great Babylon, including later daughters, is in adulterous union with the kings of earth , and is endeavoring to make that union stronger. God calls no church Babylon which holds to His word, and follows the light that shines from it, even though there are in its membership many who do not know Christ When the controlling influence of a church is downward, it erects some other standard besides God's word." (First Quarter Sabbath School, Lesson IX, February 29, 1896, p. 33)