The Great Controversy The Great Controversy | Page 589
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
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