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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
their own sinful indulgence, they would be alarmed, and some, at
least, would shun the course of sin which brings such dreaded wages.
So miserable an existence is entailed upon a large class that death
would to them be preferable to life; and many do die prematurely,
their lives sacrificed in the inglorious work of excessive indulgence
of the animal passions. Yet because they are married they think they
commit no sin.
Men and women, you will one day learn what is lust and the
result of its gratification. Passion of just as base a quality may be
found in the marriage relation as outside of it. The apostle Paul
exhorts husbands to love their wives “even as Christ also loved the
church, and gave Himself for it.” “So ought men to love their wives
as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no
man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it,
even as the Lord the church.” It is not pure love which actuates a
man to make his wife an instrument to minister to his lust. It is the
animal passions which clamor for indulgence. How few men show
their love in the manner specified by the apostle: “Even as Christ
also loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that He might [not
pollute it, but] sanctify and cleanse it; ... that it should be holy and
without blemish.” This is the quality of love in the marriage relation
which God recognizes as holy. Love is a pure and holy principle; but
lustful passion will not admit of restraint, and will not be dictated
to or controlled by reason. It is blind to consequences; it will not
reason from cause to effect. Many women are suffering from great
debility and settled disease because the laws of their being have
been disregarded; nature’s laws have been trampled upon. The brain
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nerve power is squandered by men and women, being called into
unnatural action to gratify base passions; and this hideous monster,
base, low passion, assumes the delicate name of love.
Many professed Christians who passed before me seemed des-
titute of moral restraint. They were more animal than divine. In
fact, they were about all animal. Men of this type degrade the wife
whom they have promised to nourish and cherish. She is made an
instrument to minister to the gratification of low, lustful propensities.
And very many women submit to become slaves to lustful passion;
they do not possess their bodies in sanctification and honor. The
wife does not retain the dignity and self-respect which she possessed