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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
here. This earth is the fitting-up place. You have not one moment to
lose. All is harmony, peace, and love in heaven. No discord, no strife,
no censuring, no unloving words, no clouded brows, no jars there; and
no one will be introduced there who possesses any of these elements
so destructive to peace and happiness. Study to be rich in good works,
ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up for yourselves a
good foundation against the time to come, that you may lay hold on
everlasting life.
Forever cease your murmurings in regard to this poor life, but let
your soul’s burden be, how to secure the better life than this, a title
to the mansions prepared for those who are true and faithful to the
end. If you make a mistake here, everything is lost. If you devote
your lifetime to securing earthly treasures, and lose the heavenly, you
will find that you have made a terrible mistake. You cannot have both
worlds. “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his
soul?” Says the inspired Paul: “For our light affliction, which is but for
a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of
glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things
which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the
things which are not seen are eternal.”
These trials of life are God’s workmen to remove the impurities,
infirmities, and roughness from our characters, and fit us for the society
of pure, heavenly angels in glory. But as we pass through these trials,
as the fires of affliction kindle upon us, we must not keep the eye on the
fire which is seen, but let the eye of faith fasten upon the things unseen,
the eternal inheritance, the immortal life, the eternal weight of glory;
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and while we do this the fire will not consume us, but only remove
the dross, and we shall come forth seven times purified, bearing the
impress of the Divine.
Greenville, Michigan,
March 7, 1868
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