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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
in these last days: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priest-
hood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth
the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His
marvelous light.” “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and
pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.”
Not all who profess to keep the commandments of God possess
their bodies in sanctification and honor. The most solemn message
ever committed to mortals has been entrusted to this people, and they
can have a powerful influence if they will be sanctified by it. They
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profess to be standing upon the elevated platform of eternal truth,
keeping all of God’s commandments; therefore, if they indulge in
sin, if they commit fornication and adultery, their crime is of tenfold
greater magnitude than is that of the classes I have named, who do
not acknowledge the law of God as binding upon them. In a peculiar
sense do those who profess to keep God’s law dishonor Him and
reproach the truth by transgressing its precepts.
It was the prevalence of this very sin, fornication, among an-
cient Israel, which brought upon them the signal manifestation of
God’s displeasure. His judgments then followed close upon their
heinous sin; thousands fell, and their polluted bodies were left in
the wilderness. “But with many of them God was not well pleased:
for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were
our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as
they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as
it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to
play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them commit-
ted, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us
tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed
of serpents. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured,
and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened
unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition,
upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
Seventh-day Adventists, above all other people in the world,
should be patterns of piety, holy in heart and in conversation. I
related in the presence of N. Fuller that the people whom God
had chosen as His peculiar treasure were required to be elevated,
refined, sanctified, partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the