Husband’s Position
649
God would have you, while things remain as they now are. You will
never be established, strengthened, and settled until you allow your
wife to take the position a wife should. While she occupies her proper
place, respect her judgment, consult with her in regard to your plans,
but be very cautious about taking it for granted that her judgment is
as the judgment of God. Consult with your brethren upon whom God
has seen fit to lay the burden of the work. Had you thus advised with
those whose counsel you should have sought, you would not have
committed so great an error, so sad a blunder, as you did in the case
of E. God’s cause was wounded and reproached in this case. Your
wife thought she had light in this case; but her impressions were not
of God, but of the enemy, because he saw that you could be affected
in this direction. Your trusting so completely to your wife’s judgment
is contrary to heaven’s arrangement. Satan has designed in this way
[710]
to cut you off, in a great measure, from the influence of your fellow
laborers and your brethren in general.
You have had trials that you would not have had if you had not
considered your wife in a position where God has not placed her. You
have too implicit confidence in her judgment and wisdom. She has
not been consecrated to God, therefore her judgment has not been
consecrated. She is not a happy woman, and the unhappy train her
mind has taken has greatly injured her physical and mental health.
Satan has designed to unsettle you and cause your brethren to lose
confidence in your judgment. Satan is seeking to overthrow you.
When God specially calls your wife to the work of teaching the truth,
then should you lean to her counsel and advice, and confide in her
instructions. God may give you both, as possessing an equal interest
in and devotion to the work, equal qualifications to act a prominent
part in the most solemn work of saving souls. The great work before
her is to be diligent in making her calling and election sure, to cease
watching others, and now begin the work to be very jealous of herself.
She should seek to bless others by her godly example, her cheerfulness,
fortitude, courage, faith, hopefulness, joy, in that perfect trust, that
confidence in God, which will be the result of sanctification through
the truth. An entire conformity to the will of God she must have.
Christ says to her: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love