When Lord Palmerston, premier of England, was petitioned by the Scotch clergy to appoint a day of fasting and prayer to avert the cholera, he replied, in effect, “Cleanse and disinfect your streets and houses, promote cleanliness and health among the poor, and see that they are plentifully supplied with good food and raiment, and employ right sanitary measures generally, and you will have no occasion to fast and pray. Nor will the Lord hear your prayers while these, His preventives, remain unheeded.”
(SL 30.1)
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Says Paul, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1). He presents for our encouragement the freedom enjoyed by the truly sanctified: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”Romans 8:1, 2. (Romans 8:1). He charges the Galatians, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). He names some of the forms of fleshly lust—“idolatry, ...drunkenness, ...and such like”Galatians 5:20, 21. And after mentioning the fruits of the Spirit, among which is temperance, he adds, “And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts”Galatians 5:24.
(SL 30.2)
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James says that the wisdom which is from above is “first pure” (James 3:17). If he had seen his brethren using tobacco, would he not have denounced the practice as “earthly, sensual, devilish?”James 3:15. In this age of Christian light, how often the lips that take the precious name of Christ are defiled by tobacco spittle and the breath is polluted with the stench. Surely, the soul that can enjoy such uncleanness must also be defiled. As I have seen men who claimed to enjoy the blessing of entire sanctification, while they were slaves to tobacco, polluting everything around them, I have thought, “How would heaven appear with tobacco users in it?” God’s word has plainly declared that “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth” (Revelation 21:27). How, then, can those who indulge this filthy habit hope to find admittance there?
(SL 30.3)
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