Page:Bible testimony, on abstinence from the flesh of animals as food.pdf/10

 this original Law—this first Revelation of the will of the Creator of all things, relative to the diet of his creature man? Shall we be justified in concluding that it was intended only by its all-wise Author, to be applicable to Adam, and that merely during his continuance in Paradise? In so judging we should undoubtedly err; we should be putting a partial construction on the Divine Record, when we are most unequivocally assured that the "Scriptures are of no private interpretation," but that "all Scripture is given for our edification and to make us wise."—Hence the law we are considering, is for us, as well as for those to whom it was first given; its principles, whether dietetic, or spiritual, or both, concern us all, and it is for us to apply those principles, according to their fair and reasonable interpretation, to the regulation of our lives, the government of our appetites and the subjugation of all our unhallowed propensities. It appears indeed to be an incontrovertible fact, that till after the deluge, or for a period of over sixteen hundred years, mankind were sustained wholly by vegetable food; it is also clear from the nature of the Law as recorded in the text before us, that man was originally ; and as no change appears to have been made in the organic structure of men's bodies after the flood, nor any extraordinary alteration in the vegetable world, to render its productions less nutritive than they were before, it is not probable that any change was made, or intended to be made in the nature of their food. An illustrious expounder of the Sacred Scriptures has justly remarked; "Eating the flesh of animals, considered in it itself, is something ; for the people of the most ancient time never ate the flesh of any beast or fowl, but only seeds, especially bread made of wheat, also the fruits of trees, esculent plants, milk, and what is produced from milk, as butter &c. To kill animals and to eat their flesh was and