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Chapter 52—Christian Temperance [Delivered in
Battle Creek, March 6, 1869, and reported by U.
Smith]
“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost
which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body,
and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
.
We are not our own. We have been purchased with a dear price,
even the sufferings and death of the Son of God. If we could under-
stand this, and fully realize it, we would feel a great responsibility
resting upon us to keep ourselves in the very best condition of health,
that we might render to God perfect service. But when we take any
course which expends our vitality, decreases our strength, or be-
clouds the intellect we sin against God. In pursuing this course we
are not glorifying Him in our bodies and spirits which are His, but
are committing a great wrong in His sight.
Has Jesus given Himself for us? Has a dear price been paid to
redeem us? And is it so, that we are not our own? Is it true that all
the powers of our being, our bodies, our spirits, all that we have, and
all we are, belong to God? It certainly is. And when we realize this,
what obligation does it lay us under to God to preserve ourselves in
that condition that we may honor Him upon the earth in our bodies
and in our spirits which are His.
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We believe without a doubt that Christ is soon coming. This is
not a fable to us; it is a reality. We have no doubt, neither have we
had a doubt for years, that the doctrines we hold today are present
truth, and that we are nearing the judgment. We are preparing to
meet Him who, escorted by a retinue of holy angels, is to appear in
the clouds of heaven to give the faithful and the just the finishing
touch of immortality. When He comes He is not to cleanse us of our
sins, to remove from us the defects in our characters, or to cure us
of the infirmities of our tempers and dispositions. If wrought for us
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