Sexual Excess within Marriage
95
restore it to its original sanctity. He looks with pleasure upon the
family relationship where sacred and unselfish love bears sway.—
The
Adventist Home, 121
.
The Expenditure of Vital Energy—Many parents do not obtain
the knowledge that they should in the married life. They are not
guarded lest Satan take advantage of them and control their minds and
their lives. They do not see that God requires them to control their
married lives from all excesses. But very few feel it to be a religious
duty to govern their passions. They have united themselves in mar-
riage to the object of their choice, and therefore reason that marriage
sanctifies the indulgence of the baser passions. Even men and women
professing godliness give loose rein to their lustful passions, and have
no thought that God holds them accountable for the expenditure of
vital energy, which weakens their hold on life and enervates the entire
system.
Excessive Sexual Indulgence—The marriage covenant covers
sins of the darkest hue. Men and women professing godliness de-
[111]
base their own bodies through the indulgence of the corrupt passions,
and thus lower themselves beneath the brute creation. They abuse the
powers that God has given them to be preserved in sanctification and
honor. Health and life are sacrificed upon the altar of base passion.
The higher, nobler powers are brought into subjection to the animal
propensities. Those who thus sin are not acquainted with the result of
their course.
Could all see the amount of suffering that they bring upon them-
selves by their own sinful indulgence, they would be alarmed; and
some, at least, would shun the course of sin that brings such dreaded
wages. So miserable an existence is entailed upon a large class that
death would 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 Review and Herald,
September 19, 1899
.
The Wife’s Dignity and Self-Respect—Many professed Chris-
tians who passed before me seemed destitute of moral restraint. They