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Life Sketches of Ellen G. White
Elder White arose, and said: “I am distressed. The Spirit of God is
grieved. I resist this influence in the name of the Lord. O God, rebuke
this foul spirit.”
I was immediately relieved, and rose above the shadows. But
again, while I was speaking words of encouragement and faith to those
present, their groanings and amens chilled me. Once more Elder White
rebuked the spirit of darkness, and again the power of God rested upon
me while I spoke to the people. These agents of the enemy were then
so bound as to be unable to exert their baleful influence again that
night.
After the meeting, Elder White said to Brother Collier: “Now I can
tell you concerning these two men. They are acting under a satanic
influence, yet attributing all to the Spirit of the Lord.”
“I believe God sent you to encourage us,” he replied. “We call their
influence mesmerism. They affect the minds of others in a remarkable
way, and have controlled some to their great damage. We seldom hold
meetings here; for they intrude their presence, and we can have no
union with them. They manifest deep feeling, as you observed tonight,
but they crush the very life from our prayers, and leave an influence
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blacker than Egyptian darkness. I have never seen them tied up before
tonight.”
The “Cannot-Sin” Theory
During family prayer that night, the Spirit of the Lord rested upon
me, and I was shown many things in vision. These men were presented
to me as doing great injury to the cause of God. While professing
sanctification, they were transgressing the sacred law. They were
corrupt at heart, and those in union with them were under a satanic
delusion, obeying their carnal instincts instead of the word of God.
They held that those who are sanctified cannot sin. And this natu-
rally led to the belief that the affections and desires of the sanctified
ones were always right, and never in danger of leading them into sin.
In harmony with these sophistries, they were practising the worst sins
under the garb of sanctification, and through their deceptive, mesmeric
influence were gaining a strange power over some of their associates,
who did not see the evil of these apparently beautiful but seductive
theories.