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their hearts and characters up to God’s standard, they allow Satan’s
agents to erect his standard in their hearts. Corrupt men think it easier
to misinterpret the Scriptures to sustain them in their iniquity than to
yield up their corruption and sin and be pure in heart and life.
There are more men of this stamp than many have imagined, and
they will multiply as we draw near the end of time
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When Satan’s bewitching power controls a person, God is forgot-
ten, and man who is filled with corrupt purposes is extolled. Secret
licentiousness is practiced by these deceived souls as a virtue. This
is a species of witchcraft.... There is always a bewitching power in
heresies and in licentiousness. The mind is so deluded that it cannot
reason intelligently, and an illusion is continually leading it from pu-
rity. The spiritual eyesight becomes blurred, and persons of hitherto
untainted morals become confused under the delusive sophistry of
those agents of Satan who profess to be messengers of light. It is this
delusion which gives these agents power. Should they come out boldly
and make their advances openly, they would be repulsed without a
moment’s hesitation; but they work first to gain sympathy and secure
confidence in themselves as holy, self-sacrificing men of God. As his
special messengers they then begin their artful work of drawing away
souls from the path of rectitude by attempting to make void the law of
God
Both Men and Women Must Keep Their Place and Live Above
Reproach—The mind of a man or woman does not come down in a
moment from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime.
It takes time to transform the human to the divine, or to degrade those
formed in the image of God to the brutal or the satanic. By beholding
we become changed. Though formed in the image of his Maker, man
can so educate his mind that sin which he once loathed will become
pleasant to him. As he ceases to watch and pray, he ceases to guard the
citadel, the heart, and engages in sin and crime. The mind is debased,
and it is impossible to elevate it from corruption while it is being
educated to enslave the moral and intellectual powers and bring them
in subjection to grosser passions. Constant war against the carnal mind
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must be maintained; and we must be aided by the refining influence of
10
Testimonies For The Church 5, 141
.
11
Testimonies For The Church 5, 142, 143
.