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Appeal to the Church
397
of this generation, that corruption was teeming everywhere, that
base passions controlled men and women generally, that among the
masses crimes of the darkest dye were continually practiced, and
they were reeking in their own corruption. The nominal churches
are filled with fornication and adultery, crime and murder, the result
of base, lustful passion; but these things are kept covered. Ministers
in high places are guilty; yet a cloak of godliness covers their dark
deeds, and they pass on from year to year in their course of hypocrisy.
The sins of the nominal churches have reached unto heaven, and the
honest in heart will be brought to the light and come out of them.
From the light that God has given me, fornication and adultery
are estimated by a large number of the first-day Adventists as sins
which God winks at. These sins are practiced to a great extent.
They do not acknowledge the claims of God’s law upon them. They
have broken the commandments of the great Jehovah and zealously
teach their hearers to do the same, declaring that the law of God is
abolished and has no claims upon them. In accordance with this free
state of things, sin does not appear so exceedingly sinful; “for by the
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law is the knowledge of sin.” We may expect to find in this company
men who will deceive, and lie, and give loose rein to lustful passions.
But men and women who acknowledge the Ten Commandments
binding, who observe the fourth commandment of the Decalogue,
should carry out in their lives the principles of all ten of the precepts
given in awful grandeur from Sinai.
Seventh-day Adventists, who profess to be looking for and loving
the appearing of Christ, should not follow the course of worldlings.
These are no criterion for commandment keepers. Neither should
they pattern after first-day Adventists, who refuse to acknowledge
the claims of the law of God and trample it under their feet. This
class should be no criterion for them. Commandment-keeping Ad-
ventists occupy a peculiar, exalted position. John viewed them in
holy vision and thus described them: “Here are they that keep the
commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”
The Lord made a special covenant with ancient Israel: “Now
therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant,
then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all
the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and
an holy nation.” He addresses His commandment-keeping people