Bible Hygiene | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 1, 1871

Bible Hygiene.

“Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” 1 Tim. 4: 8.

“God is love.” His revealed will relates to man's well-being in this life, as well as to that which is to come. God does not take pleasure in the miseries of this mortal state. He delights in the happiness of obedient intelligences in this, as well as in the future rapturous joys of the redeemed in the world that is to come. The Bible teaches how to live so as to enjoy that health and happiness in this life, favorable to the securing of eternal life. True godliness does not blindly look over, and stupidly neglect, the laws of our present being, and dimly view only the immortal existence. It is profitable unto all things. It gives promise of the life that now is. It also has promise of that which is to come.

The religion of the Bible was not intended simply as a garment to put on, to cover moral and physical impurities. It was designed to convert the entire man, soul, body, and spirit, that he might be pure within and without. That bogus piety which would give license to consecrated gluttony, devoted lust, and sanctified filthiness, is simply a burlesque upon the religion of the Bible. “Wherefore,” says the apostle, “come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean, and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” 2 Cor. 6: 17, 18; 7: 1. This is Bible religion. This is true godliness. It proposes to elevate in this life, make fallen beings real men, pure without and within here, and glorified saints in the world to come.

The record of man's creation, of his ample provisions, and his glorious surroundings, fully attests the love of God to created intelligences in this life. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.” Gen. 2: 7-9.

Of all the creatures God made, man was his best work. He was formed in the image of his Creator, to be lord of the work of his hands. Physically considered, Adam must have been very grand. “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” This was true of the first man, in its highest sense, intellectually and physically. Adam and his sons lived nearly one thousand years. And may we not suppose that the race has fallen off in size and physical strength, in proportion to the period of existence? If this supposition be admissible, it becomes a matter of mathematical calculation. Adam and his first sons lived nine hundred years. Men of this age live seventy-five years, at the weight of about one hundred and fifty pounds. According to the foregoing supposition the first men, even down to the flood, were of a size to weigh, not far from eighteen hundred pounds. Noah lived nine hundred and fifty years. Of necessity for a time he and his sons ate flesh for food, and from that point of time rapidly declined in length of days. The original curse, with all its accumulated weight of transgression and violation of natural law, has bowed down the race, and caused man to dwindle to his present brief period of existence, marked with disease, decrepitude, and imbecility.

With this view of the subject, we see man in Eden standing in the glory of his manhood, a grand specimen of the perfect work of God. Earth has long since forgotten the grandeur, perfection of symmetry, and the beauty of the first man, before there fell upon him the depressing influence and the blight and mildew of the curse. And there is so close a connection between matter and mind, that when we consider him intellectually, we are carried up in contemplation of what an intellect might have been, unbalanced by the extremes incident to the curse, and the depraving and depressing influence of continued transgression, until we are well-nigh lost in conjecture. We behold happy Adam, in holy Eden, walking and talking with God, the great originator of thought, and communing face to face with his Son, and with the holy angels. He is now the companion of the highest order of intelligences. Has man been progressing for six thousand years? Verily, downward, downward!

We have only to look back to our parents as they were in the strength of the noon of life, and to our grandparents, as their still nobler frames were bowed with the weight of years, to be impressed with the fact that each successive generation suffers under greater physical feebleness than the one before it. This is especially true of American women. It has finally come to this, that by reason of artificial habits and in-door life, and consequent feebleness, not one woman in ten in our country is capable of bearing a well-developed offspring.

And while we admit that, in the providence of God, the present is an age of discovery and invention, in many things necessary to the very existence of the present enfeebled generation, we regard the popular idea of the increase of the mental strength of the race at war with sound philosophy and the facts in the case.

“But what will you do with the text,” says some old fogy who has for a quarter of a century been dreaming of the golden age of mental progression, “that declares that every generation grows weaker and wiser?” We reply that the Sacred Scriptures have no such text. This saying can only be found in the chapters of those maxims that are about one half true, and the other half false. Facts compel us to admit the weakness of the present generation, and to seriously question its superior wisdom. Those who have listened to the words of the eloquent Wendell Phillips in his lecture upon the Lost Arts, have been impressed with the fact that wisdom has not been reserved to the present generation.

“A sound mind in a sound body,” is a maxim worthy of a place in the writings of Moses, Solomon, or Paul. Natural and correct habits of life result in health, physical force, mental clearness and mental strength. Artificial and incorrect habits always tend to physical and mental enfeeblement. We call in question the sanity of those writers who blow hot and cold, in first representing that the bad habits of the present generation are ruinous to body and soul, to physical, mental, and moral strength; and then, by way of change in the exercises, strike up the popular, siren song of grand progression!

But we turn from this sad picture to contemplate the first man. God in love created him to enjoy the delights of taste, and to feast the eye with the beautiful. Then his senses were perfect. “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food.” Gen. 2: 9. The God of the Bible is the author of all that is really beautiful; and we please him best when we, in a restricted sense, love that which he has made lovely.

The great God has prepared a feast for the sight, as well as for the taste. We should labor for the proper indulgence of both. The thousands who build large pig-pens, and extensive hen-parks, and grumble over the labor and expense of the sweet adornments of flowers, shrubs, evergreens, and ornamental trees, are hardly in speaking distance of the Christian's beautiful Heaven. But, thank God, we may not only feast the eye with the beauties of nature; but, by returning to more natural habits of eating and drinking, we may educate and restore the appetite in the use of simple yet nutritious diet, so as to enjoy much of the original delights of taste.

With the present enjoyments of sanctified sight and taste, of the good things which God has made for the happiness of men, we look back over six thousand years of transgression of divine and natural law, during which time the curse has been rending the earth, man has been degenerating, and moral darkness, like the pall of death, has enveloped groaning creation, and exclaim, What must have been the delights of Eden before sin entered!

But we call especial attention to Adam's bill of fare, “And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Gen. 1: 29. The word meat in this passage means simply food. William Smith, Classical Examiner of the University of London, in his Dictionary of the Bible, says of the word:—

“MEAT. It does not appear that the word meat is used in any one instance in the Authorized Version of either the Old or New Testament in the sense which it now almost exclusively bears of animal food. The latter is denoted uniformly by flesh.”

The American Tract Society's Dictionary of the Holy Bible, says:—

“MEATS. ‘Meat’ in the English Bible usually signifies ‘food,’ and not merely ‘flesh.’ Gen. 1: 29, 30; Matt. 15: 37. So in Luke 24: 41: ‘Have ye here any meat?’ literally, anything to eat? The ‘meat offerings’ of the Jews were made of flour and oil, etc. Lev. 2.”

Our good Bible does not record the flesh of animals as constituting an important part of Adam's bill of fare. In fact, it is entirely left out. As true as the book of Genesis, that first venerable gentlemen, who lived nine hundred and thirty years, without either the dyspepsia or the gout, was a vegetarian.—Health Reformer.