Those who walk in close communion with God are careful to preserve their physical health. When one continues using a certain article of food and drink because it is pleasing to the taste, and yet hurtful to the body, he will soon by such selfishness destroy his spiritual life. “Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31. “But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection.” 1 Cor. 9:27. “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” Rom. 8:13. “Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” 1 Pet. 2:11. “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh,” Gal. 5:16. “But put ye on the Lord Jesus [pg 305] Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Rom. 13:14. The lust of the flesh as used in these and many other texts includes the use of alcohol, opium, tobacco, tea and coffee. So we have not departed from the Word of God, which is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, when writing on these subjects. Those who most perfectly manifest the life of Christ, those who are the most brilliant spiritual reflectors, do not indulge in such narcotics. If you value your spiritual prosperity make these sayings subjects of earnest prayer before rejecting them.
Secret Vice.
When we speak of secret sins many are ready to charge us with immodesty. It is those who indulge in those secret evils that blush the deepest when they are publicly mentioned. There are many habits and indulgences of man that the pure-hearted Christian feels it is a shame to speak of publicly, yet his love for fettered, perishing souls moves him to look up to God for a modesty and delicacy of speech that will not in any sense corrupt the mind of the pure, who may read, and yet in terms sufficiently plain to reveal these sins and bring deliverance to many. As we have before said, temperance is a law of heaven. For the propagation of the race, God has implanted in his creatures, male and female, a passion for sexual connection. This desire in the nature of mankind is [pg 306] really the highest and most sacred. By it this world is being populated with souls bound on toward an eternity. This passion legitimately indulged to the glory of God is one of the most sacred, holy and pure. Since it is the highest and noblest of all the faculties of our being, its abuse must be the very lowest and unclean in the depravity of man.
That this sacred passion has been most degradingly abused is witnessed to upon almost every hand. If man could behold in one scene the awful consequences of this abuse it would be the most beastly and hellish that could possibly be pictured. The misery, wretchedness and woe entailed upon mortals by these secret indulgences is untold. It is a lust of the flesh that brings disease upon the body, destroys the vitality of human life and sows the seeds of death in the soul, which shall be harvested in the eternal fires of torment. These sins of the dark have gone far to obscure the pure light of a Christian life. “Ye are the light of the world,” can never be spoken of those who yield to the temptations of this monster vice. The Moon in her clear reflection of the Sun is unspotted by such evils. Young reader, have you any admiration for a pure life? Does there not slumber in the better faculties of your nature a love and esteem for the virtuous walks of life? What is nobler or more heavenly here upon the earth than a pure, untarnished soul? Oh, the sublimity of a Christian life! A youth or maiden with pure affections and holy desires, seeking after [pg 307] the character of God, is the admiration of angels. As God at one time said in the delight of his heart to Satan, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?” so the lovely queen Virtue can say to the hideous monster Vice, “Hast thou beheld my admiring youth and maiden? There is none like them in all the earth, ones that love chastity and escheweth evil indulgences.”
Chapter XV. The Trinity.
The wonderful grace of God removes sin and its nature from the heart. It restores to man's heart holy and pure affections. It will turn away the love for sin and fill your soul with peace and purity and your mind with a train of holy thoughts.
That the New Testament teaches a trinity in the Godhead is made obvious in Eph. 4:4-6. “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” Also in Mat. 28:19: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and [pg 308] of the Holy Ghost.” And in 1 Pet. 1:2: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” Jude 20, 21: “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” But the most indubitable text upon this subject is 1 John 5:7: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” Christ is the Word. John 1:1.
God The Father.
Father is a title conferred upon the first person in the trinity. He is the Creator of all things. Much has been written in scholastic theology of God, but such is incongruous to this work. Since most men believe in the existence of God, the Creator and Father, our Scriptural quotations relating to him will be but few.