p. 156 | BOGUS SANCTIFICATION

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 16, 1878

BOGUS SANCTIFICATION.

By Dudley Marvin Canright; Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventists believe in genuine sanctification, for the Bible plainly teaches it. It is a most excellent thing. No man can be a Christian without being sanctified. But of late there is a certain commodity going under the name of “holiness” and “entire sanctification” in which we do not believe. Our reasons are these: First, the Bible does not teach holiness in the way these men teach it; that is, a sort of second conversion, something added to an ordinary Christian, to make him extra holy; and, Secondly, We are very much disgusted with the conduct of those who profess this holiness. So far as we have known them, they are without exception the most self-confident, self-righteous, self-conceited, unteachable, self-willed, pompous persons we know of. They are, in their own eyes, more holy than any body else; no one can teach them anything; they never commit sin; they are specially led by the Spirit of God in everything they do. So they say.

But in the minds of all sober, candid people they are simply led of their own wills. The desires of their mind they call the leadings of the Spirit. A certain fanatical branch of the Methodists have gone into this theory extensively. We have met them frequently, but never found one of them who would listen a moment to the truth. No, they are sanctified; they have not sinned for twenty years. They are always led by the Spirit; so it cannot be that they are breaking the law of God—oh, no! All the glorious ideas pertaining to the second advent they utterly ignore. From these, certain ones among the first-day Adventists, having no better light, have learned this theory. They are constantly boasting of their holiness. Yet these same men who are so certain that they are sanctified, can trample upon the law of God, and slander in the most wicked manner God's servants who are trying to defend his law and preach the third angel's message.

We are glad to say that only a very few indeed of our people have ever fallen into this foolish notion. Yet we have known occasionally one here and there. And in every instance we have found them to possess the same spirit as those outside our ranks, as above described. But the strangest of all is that these persons professing to believe the seventh-day Adventist faith, the third angel's message, the sacredness of God's Sabbath,—these persons run right into harmony and fellowship with those who oppose us to the bitter death. They have more confidence in them, and feel a greater nearness to them, than they do to those who are laboring with all their souls in the third angel's message. We never knew an exception to this. Hence we call it “bogus holiness,” and thoroughly believe that it is.

Another thing that we have noticed in this class of people is that they are wonderfully lacking in reverence for God. They speak of the great God in the most common manner, as irreverently as they would speak of one of their neighbors or any common man. We have never seen any good come of this spirit. We advise our brethren to be careful how they drink into this spirit, or encourage those who have already fallen into this snare of the enemy.

D. M. CANRIGHT. S. N. HASKELL.