Satan could not burn out the truth, so he mixes fable with it, and here he has a measure of success so far as public profession goes. Christendom on a large scale is like Belshazzar’s feast, for as he caused the vessels of the temple to be mingled with the vessels of his gods, so the old leaders in Christendom mixed revealed truth with fable on the one hand and, on the other, persecution. But persecution did not vanish when the world became nominally Christian. Rather, it became more bitter than its pagan ancestor, for the ritualists and rationalists of the present time were like the Pharisees and Sadducees. Superstition and infidelity mark both the ancient and the modern; they make void the Word of God by their tradition and the commandments of men.
R. Beacon, adapted