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Testimonies for the Church Volume 7
principles have a measure of truth interwoven with the error; but it
leads to no just action; and this is why men are misled. They desire to
reign and become a power, and, in the effort to justify their principles,
they adopt the methods of Satan.
* * * * *
If men resist the warnings the Lord sends them, they become even
leaders in evil practices; such men assume to exercise the prerogatives
of God—they presume to do that which God Himself will not do in
seeking to control the minds of men. Thus they follow in the track of
Romanism. They introduce their own methods and plans, and through
their misconceptions of God they weaken the faith of others in the
truth and bring in false principles that work like leaven to taint and
corrupt institutions and churches.
Anything that lowers man’s conception of righteousness and equity
and impartial judgment, any device or precept that brings God’s human
agents under the control of human minds, impairs their faith in God,
and separates the soul from Him.
God will not vindicate any device whereby man shall in the slight-
est degree rule or oppress his fellow man. As soon as a man begins to
make an iron rule for other men, he dishonors God and imperils his
own soul and the souls of his brethren.
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