p. 183 | Health Department by James White

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Apr 15, 1875

Health Department.

By James White

"Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 John 2.

Bible Hygiene.

IN the beginning the Creator designed that appetite should be man's servant, and not his master. It was the plan of God that the appetite should be subordinate to the moral and intellectual. This great fact is seen in the first prohibitory declaration, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it." Gen. 2:16, 17. Webster defines appetite to be "a desire of food or drink." When controlled by the higher powers, the appetite is one of God's blessed gifts. But uncontrolled it becomes a debasing tyrant.

God made man upright, and endowed him with powers of mind far above any of the living creatures of his hand upon the earth. He placed him upon probation that man might form a character for the glory of the Creator, and for his own happiness. The first great moral lesson which the innocent pair of Eden were to learn was self-control. God appeals to man's nobler powers. He graciously gives him all he needs for the delights of taste and the support of his nature. And it was for man's moral good, to say the least, that God prohibited a single tree. Of all the trees of the garden he might freely eat, save one. In this prohibition, the Creator places the appetite under the watchcare and guardianship of the moral and intellectual.

When man came from the hand of his Creator he was declared to be "very good." He was put upon probation that he might develop a perfect character. This achieved, his probation would have ceased, and the race would have continued to enjoy the seal of perfection of character transmitted from their representative. In this state of things, existence would have been for the glory of the Creator, and the highest possible delight of man. But he did not develop a perfect character before God. He basely yielded to the tempter, lost his innocence, and his entire being, soul, body, and spirit, for six thousand years has felt the taint of sin, and the weight of accumulated guilt and ruin resulting from continued transgression of moral and physical law. Sickness, sorrow, pain, and death, are the legitimate fruits of transgression.

And man alone is to be blamed for the moral and physical wretchedness under which the race suffers. There was no need of Eve yielding to the tempter. And Adam is quite as inexcusable, in rashly plunging himself into the same fearful dilemma as that in which he found his unfortunate wife. In Eden they were surrounded with unparalleled variety of plenty, and the perfection of beauty. "And out of the ground caused the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food." Gen. 2:9. The surroundings of our parents in Eden were delightful. The Creator had spread out before their joyful eyes a feast of pleasure in the stately trees, the climbing vines, and in the beautiful shrubs and flowers. God is the author of the beautiful.

Eden also abounded with that which was "good for food." God had caused every good fruit tree to grow, affording variety and an inexhaustible supply. He welcomed man to "freely eat" of them all, excepting only one. And then he warned him, face to face, not to partake of the fruit of that one tree on pain of death. Thus surrounded with the beautiful, and with the variety of the most delicious plenty, and thus warned by the benificent Author of his happy existence, man rashly and basely yielded to the tempter, and plunged the race in ruin.

It was that curious, bewitching longing for just one more variety, on the part of the beautiful Eve, that led to the transgression. When she had all that heart could wish, she still wanted one more variety—only one more. She did not need the fruit of this tree; but she was charmed with the idea of just one more variety. The tempter succeeded in making Eve believe that eating was a very important matter, and that she should not at all restrict her appetite. She was flattered with the idea that eating the forbidden fruit would raise her to a higher and happier life. Her reason was dethroned, and her appetite reigned in ruin. The fall was a terrible one. And let it be remembered that uncontrolled appetite occasioned it.

But why complain bitterly of our first parents for their transgression, which brought the terrible weight of moral and physical evils upon the race, while manifesting daily as great moral weakness as they did? If there had been but one fall, murmuring against Adam and Eve would not come from these with so ill a grace. But there has been a succession of falls. And these very persons, with the history of the first transgression and its results, the plan of redemption through Christ, and all the prohibitions of the Old and New Testaments before them, sin against as great a light as the inexperienced representatives of the race did.

But Infinite Wisdom immediately devised the scheme of redemption, which placed man on a second probation by giving him another trial, with the Redeemer to help him in the work of forming a perfect character before his Maker. And if the ways of God are equal with the created intelligences of his love and care whom he has put on probation, then we have as favorable chance to perfect righteous characters before God as had innocent Adam in Eden. For while it may be urged that our condition of moral darkness and feebleness is far below that of Adam, on the other hand it can be plead that, although our moral distance from God is greater, we have the light of experience and of the word of God, and the long arm of our adorable Redeemer to help us, which our first parents did not have. Then let the men of our time cease their murmurings against God for suffering the first transgression and the consequent fall, and their bitter complaints of Adam for his moral weakness, while they are falling daily over the indulgences of morbid appetite for tea, coffee, and stimulating drinks and foods, which are filling up the cup of human woe.

And is it not reasonable to suppose that in the second probation the great test would come just where God tested our parents in Eden, and that the indulgences of the appetites and passions would be the greatest moral evil in this world during the period of human probation? But we are not left to mere supposition in forming an opinion upon this subject. The Sacred Record shows in the clearest manner possible that God has tested his people since the fall just where he tested man before the fall, and that among the most flagrant sins of fallen man, resulting in the greatest amount of human woe, has been the indulgence of unrestricted appetite.

Gluttony and drunkenness were the prevailing sins of Sodom. It is said of the people of Lot's time, "They did eat, they drank." Appetite ruled them, or their eating and drinking would not have been mentioned as sins. For their sins they were visited with fire and brimstone. It is also said of the people in the time of Noah, "They did eat, they drank." Gluttony and drunkenness which led to other crimes; and to wash the world from moral pollution God poured around it a flood of waters.

For the first twenty-five hundred years after the fall, Sacred History is exceedingly brief. For example, the life and wonderful translation of holy Enoch is contained in a few lines. While the almost numberless good deeds and careful acts of obedience in the long life of this wonderful man would furnish to some modern writers material for several voluminous religious novels, the whole matter is summed up in these few words, "And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years; and Enoch walked with God; and he was not: for God took him." We cannot reasonably expect that very much could be said upon any one subject when the history of twenty-five hundred years, embracing many of the greatest events in this world's history, is crowded into the first fifty short chapters of the Bible.

But when God is about to establish the tribes of Israel in a good land of promise, and they to be to him "a peculiar treasure above all people, a holy nation," it is then that the sacred historian speaks more fully, and the fact appears that God tests his people since the fall just where he tested man before the transgression in Eden. The sons of Jacob went down into Egypt, where they sojourned in a strange land four hundred years. There they were humbled by the most oppressive slavery, from which they were delivered by the special hand of Providence in the most triumphant manner. The entire providential experience of the Israelites, both in their servitude and in their miraculous deliverance, was designed to lead them to revere, and trustingly, obey, the God of the Hebrews.

The history of their departure from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea before them, and the destruction of their pursuers, is one of thrilling interest to all Bible Christians. These manifestations were designed to remove their infidelity, draw the hosts of Israel very nigh to God, and deeply impress them with the fact that the Divine Hand was leading them, and thus prepare them to stand the test which God was about to bring to bear upon them in the gift of the manna.

J. W.