Reasons for Reform
425
in such a feeble condition. This state of things is not the work of
Providence, but of man. It has been brought about by wrong habits,—
by violating the laws that God has made to govern man’s existence. A
continual transgression of nature’s laws is a continual transgression
of the law of God. Had men always been obedient to the law of the
ten commandments, carrying out in their lives the principles of those
precepts, the curse of disease now flooding the world would not exist.
“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which
is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? for ye are
bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your
spirit, which are God’s.” When men take any course which needlessly
expends their vitality or beclouds their intellect, they sin against God;
they do not glorify Him in their body and spirit, which are His.
Yet despite the insult which man has offered Him, God’s love is
still extended to the race; and He permits light to shine, enabling man
to see that in order to live a perfect life he must obey the natural laws
which govern his being. How important, then, that man should walk
in this light, exercising all his powers, both of body and mind, to the
glory of God!
We are in a world that is opposed to righteousness, or purity of
character, and especially to growth in grace. Wherever we look, we see
defilement and corruption, deformity and sin. How opposed is all this
to the work that must be accomplished in us just previous to receiving
the gift of immortality! God’s elect must stand untainted amid the
corruptions teeming around them in these last days. Their bodies must
be made holy, their spirits pure. If this work is to be accomplished, it
must be undertaken at once, earnestly and understandingly. The spirit
of God should have perfect control, influencing every action....
Men have polluted the soul-temple, and God calls upon them to
awake, and to strive with all their might to win back their God-given
manhood. Nothing but the grace of God can convict and convert the
heart; from Him alone can the slaves of custom obtain power to break
the shackles that bind them. It is impossible for a man to present his
body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, while continuing to
indulge habits that are depriving him of physical, mental, and moral
vigor. Again the apostle says, “Be not conformed to this world; but be
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what
is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.”