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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
and when I arise in the morning, Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to
Thee....
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I sleep alone. This seems to be Mary’s preference as well as mine.
I can have a better opportunity for reflection and prayer. I prize my
[being] all to myself unless graced with your presence. I want to share
my bed only with you.—
Letter 6, 1876
.
At no time did she participate in or condone teachings which
called for a sort of platonic brother and sister relationship in marriage.
When dealing with some who pressed teachings of this nature, Ellen
White counseled against urging such views. To dwell on them, she
wrote, opened the way for Satan to work “upon the imagination so that
impurity” instead of purity would result.—
Letter 103, 1894
.
For every lawful, God-given privilege, Satan has a counterfeit to
suggest. The holy, pure thought he seeks to replace with the impure.
For the sanctity of married love he would substitute permissiveness,
unfaithfulness, excess, and perversion; premarital sex, adultery, ani-
malism in and outside of marriage, and homosexuality. All are referred
to in this chapter.—Compilers.
(A) The Positive
(Words of Privilege and Counsel)
Jesus and the Family Relationship—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 restore it to its original
sanctity. He looks with pleasure upon the family relationship where
sacred and unselfish love bears sway.—
Manuscript 126, 1899.
(
The
Adventist Home, 121
.)
He [Christ] ordained that men and women should be united in
holy wedlock, to rear families whose members, crowned with honor,
should be recognized as members of the family above.—
The Ministry
of Healing, 356
(1905).
God’s Purpose Fulfilled in Marriage—All who enter into mat-
rimonial relations with a holy purpose—the husband to obtain the
pure affections of a woman’s heart, the wife to soften and improve her
husband’s character and give it completeness—fulfill God’s purpose
for them.—
Manuscript 16, 1899.
(
The Adventist Home, 99
.)
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