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us out from the world and united us a distinct and peculiar people, be
given up as erroneous? Shall we receive the faith of this one man,
with the evidences he gives us of the fruits of his religious character?
Or will Brother B yield his judgment and opinions, and come to the
body? If he had not blinded his soul by receiving prejudice, and by
cherishing wicked opposition to the work of God, he would not have
been left to such darkness and deception.
He is a ready talker and will persistently urge his opinions and will
not yield to the weight of evidence against him. It is cruel for him
to stand in the way of the prosperity of the church, as he has done.
The world is large; he has all the privileges that he can ask of going
out among unbelievers and converting them to his theories; and when
he can present a well-organized body that he has been the means of
converting from sin to righteousness, then, and not before, should he
press his peculiar views upon the church of God, which is pained and
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disheartened with his darkness and error. He has no right to build upon
another man’s foundation his wood, hay, and stubble to be consumed
by the fires of the last day.
I was shown that the only safe position for Brother B is to sit at
the feet of Jesus and learn the way of life more perfectly. His doctrine
shall drop as the rain, and His speech shall distill as the dew, upon the
heart of the humble and teachable. Brother B must obtain a teachable
disposition. He is not to sit as a judge, but as a learner; not to cavil,
but to believe; not to question and find fault and oppose, but to listen.
Pride must give way to humility, and prejudice must be exchanged for
candor, or the gracious words of Christ will be in vain to him. My
brother, you may reason with your blind judgment and unsanctified
mind until the day of God and not advance a step toward heaven; you
may debate and investigate and search learned authors, and even the
Scriptures, and yet grow more and more self-deceived, and become
darker and darker, as did the Jews in reference to Christ. What was
their fault? They rejected the light which God had already given them
and were seeking for some new light by which they might so interpret
the Scriptures as to sustain their actions.
You are doing the same; you pass over the light that God has
seen fit to give you in the publications upon present truth and in His
word, and are seeking doctrines of your own, theories which cannot
be sustained by the word of God. When you become as a little child,