Jealousy and Faultfinding
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to God’s people. Had you esteemed yourself less, you would have had
less jealousy and suspicion.
Brother G, had you fully united with the body, and stood in union
and sympathy with those whom God has seen fit to place at the head
of the work; had you accepted the gifts which God has placed in
the church, and committed yourself fully in regard to them; had you
established yourself decidedly upon all points of present truth, and
drawn in even cords with those of experience in the cause, you and
yours would have been perfectly free and safe from this delusion. You
would have had an anchor which would have held you. But you have
taken an indefinite position, fearing that you would gratify those whose
whole soul was in the work and cause of God. God requires you to
stand firmly, decidedly, upon the platform with your brethren. God and
holy angels were displeased with your course, and would bear with
your folly no longer. You were left to follow your own judgment which
you had so highly esteemed, until you should wish to be taught, and
without jealous, stubborn feelings, without complaining or censuring
others, learn of those who have felt the burden and weight of the cause
of God. You have been reaching out for an original position of your
own, seeking to lead out independent of the body, where you would be
approved and exalted, until I saw that God had given you up to manage
and manifest that wisdom you thought superior to others, and you were
left to your blind judgment to figure in the most unreasonable, foolish,
wild fanaticism that ever cursed Wisconsin.
And yet I was shown that you did not realize the influence of your
past course upon the cause, and your present position and duty in
regard to that fanaticism. Instead of working with all your energy to
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free yourself and counteract the influence you exerted, you came up
out of all this excusing yourself and censuring those whom God sent
to you, and ready to dictate, and even to suggest a plan whereby the
Lord might have arrested you by His servants pursuing some different
course from that which they did pursue. Your judgment was perverted
by Satan’s power, and while enshrouded in darkness you were an
incompetent judge of the best course to be pursued toward you. If you
knew just what course the servants of God ought to pursue in order to
help you, you knew enough to come out yourself. God gave you your
choice, to be taught, to be instructed through His servants in His own