The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
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The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
"All such as receive the grace of God which bringeth salvation, first
honestly bring their former deeds of darkness to the light, by
confessing all their sins, with a full determination to forsake them
forever. By so doing they find justification and acceptance with God,
and receive that power by which they become dead indeed unto sin, and
alive unto God, through Jesus Christ, and are enabled to follow his
example, and walk even as he walked." [Footnote: "Christ's First and
Second Appearing. By Shakers."]
A third writer reasons thus upon confession:
"As all the secret actions of men are open and known to God, therefore a
confession made in secret, though professedly made to God, can bring
nothing to light; and the sinner may perhaps have as little fear of God
in confessing his sins in this manner as he had in committing them. And
as nothing is brought to the light by confessing his sins in this
manner, he feels no cross in it; nor does he thereby find any
mortification to that carnal nature which first led him into sin; and is
therefore liable to run again into the same acts of sin as he was before
his confession. But let the sinner appear in the presence of a faithful
servant of Christ, and there confess honestly his every secret sin, one
by one, of whatever nature or name, and faithfully lay open his whole
life, without any covering or disguise, and he will then feel a
humiliating sense of himself, in the presence of God, in a manner which
he never experienced before. He will then, in very deed, find a
mortifying cross to his carnal nature, and feel the crucifixion of his
lust and pride where he never did before. He will then perceive the
essential difference between confessing his sins in the dark, where no
mortal ear can hear him, and actually bringing his evil deeds to the
light of one individual child of God; and he will then be convinced that
a confession made before the light of God in one of his true witnesses
can bring upon him a more awful sense of his accountability both to God
and man than all his confessions in darkness had ever done." [Footnote:
"Summary View," etc.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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