plausibility . The leaders of the Sunday movement may advocate reforms which the people need , principles which are in harmony with the Bible ; yet while there is with these a requirement which is contrary to God ' s law , His servants cannot unite with them . Nothing can justify them in setting aside the commandments of God for the precepts of men .
Through the two great errors , the immortality of the soul and Sunday sacredness , Satan will bring the people under his deceptions . While the former lays the foundation of spiritualism , the latter creates a bond of sympathy with Rome . The Protestants of the United States will be foremost in stretching their hands across the gulf to grasp the hand of spiritualism ; they will reach over the abyss to clasp hands with the Roman power ; and under the influence of this threefold union , this country will follow in the steps of Rome in trampling on the rights of conscience .
As spiritualism more closely imitates the nominal Christianity of the day , it has greater power to deceive and ensnare . Satan himself is converted , after the modern order of things . He will appear in the character of an angel of light . Through the agency of spiritualism , miracles will be wrought , the sick will be healed , and many undeniable wonders will be performed . And as the spirits will profess faith in the Bible , and manifest respect for the institutions of the church , their work will be accepted as a manifestation of divine power .
The line of distinction between professed Christians and the ungodly is now hardly distinguishable . Church members love what the world loves and are ready to join with them , and Satan determines to unite them in one body and thus strengthen his cause by sweeping all into the ranks of spiritualism . Papists , who boast of miracles as a certain sign of the true church , will be readily deceived by this wonder-working power ; and Protestants , having cast away the shield of truth , will also be deluded . Papists , Protestants , and worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power , and they will see in this union a grand movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millennium .
Through spiritualism , Satan appears as a benefactor of the race , healing the diseases of the people , and professing to present a new and more exalted system of religious faith ; but at the same time he works as a destroyer . His temptations are leading multitudes to ruin . Intemperance dethrones reason ; sensual indulgence , strife , and bloodshed follow . Satan delights in war , for it excites the worst passions of the soul and then sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood . It is his object to incite the nations to war against one another , for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God .
409