Page:Bible testimony, on abstinence from the flesh of animals as food.pdf/16

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ADDRESS ON ABSTINENCE.

testimony we have here given, will go far to impress your minds, if not fully to convince your understandings that they have "foolishly imagined a vain thing"—that they have suffered their judgments to be biassed rather by the influence of appetite, and the power of habit, than their minds to be convinced by the testimony deducible from the works and the Word of God. In brief, Christian Friends, we think it must be no difficult matter to see that the superstructure erected in defence of gratifying an unnatural, inhuman, and carniverous appetite is built on a "sandy foundation" and cannot stand;—already, in fact, it is shaken to its very basis, and in a few more revolving years, as the light of moral, physiological and religious truth becomes more general on the subject, it must inevitably sink into its merited oblivion, and become a mere matter of history, at which to wonder.

We come next to the examination of that part of the Sacred Oracles which primarily related to the People of Israel. It is a portion of Scripture of deep, and often of thrilling interest to the Christian mind, evincing the Providence of God, as exercised over that peculiar people for good, and we are persuaded, with the Divine Blessing, you will be led to agree with us, that on the subject of our present enquiry there is much also recorded that tends to corroborate our principles in relation to diet.

Among those important commandments, promulgated by Jehovah from Mount Sinai, for the edification not only of the Children of Israel, but of generations yet to come, there is one with which we shall commence our remarks on this part of the Scripture Testimony:—"Thou shalt not kill" is the precept to which we allude. If we can succeed in satisfying you that this has any bearing upon the subject under investigation, or that the Great and Merciful Author, designed it to be understood as extending to "the cattle upon a thousand hills," we shall not fear, in such