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Testimonies for the Church Volume 3
sow tares among the wheat. Satan never sleeps. He is watching, and
he improves every opportunity to set his agents to scatter error, which
finds good soil in many unsanctified hearts.
The sincere believers of truth are made sad, and their trials and
sorrows greatly increased, by the elements among them which annoy,
dishearten, and discourage them in their efforts. But the Lord would
teach His servants a lesson of great carefulness in all their moves. “Let
both grow together.” Do not forcibly pull up the tares, lest in rooting
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them up the precious blades will become loosened. Both ministers
and church members should be very cautious, lest they get a zeal not
according to knowledge. There is danger of doing too much to cure
difficulties in the church, which, if let alone, will frequently work
their own cure. It is bad policy to take hold of matters in any church
prematurely. We shall have to exercise the greatest care, patience, and
self-control to bear these things and not go to work in our own spirit
to set them in order.
The work done in-----was premature and caused an untimely sepa-
ration in that little church. If the servants of God could have felt the
force of our Saviour’s lesson in the parable of the wheat and tares,
they would not have undertaken the work they did. Before steps are
taken which will give even those who are utterly unworthy the least
occasion to complain of being separated from the church, the matter
should always be made a subject of the most careful consideration and
earnest prayer. Steps were taken in-----which created an opposition
party. Some were wayside hearers, others were stony-ground hearers,
and still others were of that class who received the truth while the heart
had a growth of thorns which choked the good seed—these would
never have perfected Christian characters. But there were a few who
might have been nourished and strengthened, and have become settled
and established in the truth. But the positions taken by Brethren R and
S brought a premature crisis, and then there was a lack of wisdom and
judgment in managing the faction.
If persons are as deserving of being separated from the church as
Satan was of being cast out of heaven, they will have sympathizers.
There is always a class who are more influenced by individuals than
they are by the Spirit of God and sound principles; and, in their un-
consecrated state, these are ever ready to take sides with the wrong
and give their pity and sympathy to the very ones who least deserve it.