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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
health reform. He publishes His law, and the penalty that will follow
the transgression of it, that all may learn, and be careful to live in
harmony with natural law. He proclaims His law so distinctly, and
makes it so prominent, that it is like a city set on a hill. All accountable
beings can understand it if they will. Idiots will not be responsible.
To make plain natural law, and urge the obedience of it, is the work
that accompanies the third angel’s message, to prepare a people for
the coming of the Lord.
The Ministry of Healing, 129-130
The progress of reform depends upon a clear recognition of fun-
damental truth. While, on the one hand, danger lurks in a narrow
philosophy and a hard, cold orthodoxy, on the other hand there is great
danger in a careless liberalism. The foundation of all enduring reform
is the law of God. We are to present in clear, distinct lines the need of
obeying this law. Its principles must be kept before the people. They
are as everlasting and inexorable as God Himself.
One of the most deplorable effects of the original apostasy was the
loss of man’s power of self-control. Only as this power is regained,
can there be real progress.
The body is the only medium through which the mind and the soul
are developed for the upbuilding of character. Hence it is that the ad-
versary of souls directs his temptations to the enfeebling and degrading
of the physical powers. His success here means the surrender to evil of
the whole being. The tendencies of our physical nature, unless under
the dominion of a higher power, will surely work ruin and death.
The body is to be brought into subjection. The higher powers of
the being are to rule. The passions are to be controlled by the will,
which is itself to be under the control of God. The kingly power of
reason, sanctified by divine grace, is to bear sway in our lives.
The requirements of God must be brought home to the conscience.
Men and women must be awakened to the duty of self-mastery, the
need of purity, freedom from every depraving appetite and defiling
habit. They need to be impressed with the fact that all their powers of
mind and body are the gift of God, and are to be preserved in the best
possible condition for His service.