Labors in New Hampshire
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Terrible was their power over the people, for while holding their
attention and winning their confidence through a mesmeric influence,
they led the innocent and unsuspecting to believe that this influence was
the Spirit of God. Therefore those who followed their teachings were
deceived into the belief that they and their associates who claimed to
be wholly sanctified, could fulfill all the desires of their hearts without
sin.
Clearly the deceptions of these false teachers were laid open before
me, and I saw the fearful account that stood against them in the book
of records, and the terrible guilt that rested upon them for professing
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complete holiness while their daily acts were offensive in the sight of
God.
Some time after this, the characters of these persons were devel-
oped before the people, and the vision given in reference to them was
fully vindicated.
True Sanctification
“Believe in Christ,” was the cry of these claimants of sanctification.
“Only believe; this is all that is required of you. Only have faith in
Jesus.”
The words of John came forcibly to my mind, “If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
1 John
1:8
. I was shown that those who triumphantly claim to be sinless, show
by their very boasting that they are far from being without taint of sin.
The more clearly fallen man comprehends the character of Christ, the
more distrustful will he be of himself, and the more imperfect will
his works appear to him, in contrast with those which marked the life
of the spotless Redeemer. But those who are far from Jesus, those
whose spiritual perceptions are so clouded by error that they cannot
comprehend the character of the great Exemplar, conceive of Him
as altogether such a one as themselves, and dare to talk of their own
perfection of holiness. But they are far from God; they know little of
themselves, and less of Christ.
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