Chapter 14—Sexual Excess within Marriage
Celibacy in Married State Not Recommended—My dear
brother: I wish to present before you some things concerning the
dangers that threaten the work at the present time. The work of Anna
Phillips does not bear the signature of heaven. [
In a “Testimony”
written on August 10, 1892, Anna Rice Phillips stated, “The time has
come of which Paul spoke when he said, ‘But this I say, brethren, the
time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though
they had none.’ ... Satan will make you feel that you cannot give up
this one thing, that it is yours by right my brother, but is it when God
has spoken?”—White Estate Document File No. 363.
] I know what I
am talking about. In our first experience in the infancy of this cause
we had to meet similar manifestations. Many such revelations were
given, and we had a most disagreeable work in meeting this element
and giving it no place. Some things stated in these revelations were
fulfilled, and this led some to accept them as genuine.
Young, unmarried women, would have a message for married men,
and in no delicate words would tell them to their face of the abuse of
the marriage privileges. Purity was the burden of the messages given,
and for a while everything appeared to be reaching a high state of
purity and holiness. But the inwardness of these matters was opened
to me. I was shown what would be the outcome of this teaching.
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Those who were engaged in this work were not a superficial, im-
moral class, but persons who had been the most devoted workers.
Satan saw an opportunity to take advantage of the state of things, and
to disgrace the cause of God. Those who thought themselves able
to bear any test without exciting their carnal propensities, were over-
come, and several unmarried men and women were compelled to be
married. I am afraid of those who feel so great a burden to labor in
this direction. Satan works upon the imagination, so that impurity is
the result, instead of purity.—
Letter 103, 1894
.
Jesus did not enforce celibacy upon any class of men. He came
not to destroy the sacred relationship of marriage, but to exalt it and
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