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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
efforts to improve that he would have received had they been made
at an earlier period.
Instead of gathering with Christ into the truth, he too long drew
back; he would not advance himself and stood directly in the way
of the advancement of others, thus scattering abroad. His influence
has stood directly in the way of the progress of the work which God
sent His servants to do.
Brother P’s ideas of order and organization have been in direct
opposition to God’s plan of order. There is order in heaven, and it is
to be imitated by those upon earth who are heirs of salvation. The
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nearer mortals attain to the order and arrangement of heaven, the
nearer are they brought to that acceptable state before God which
will make them subjects of the heavenly kingdom and give them that
fitness for translation from earth to heaven which Enoch possessed
preparatory to his translation.
Brother P should be guarded. There is a lack of order in his
organization. He has not been in harmony with that restraint, that
care and diligence, which are necessary in order to preserve harmony
and union of action. His experience, his education in religious things
for years past, has been a great detriment to his dear children and
especially to God’s people. The obligations which Heaven has
imposed upon a father, and especially upon a minister, he has not
realized. A man who has but a feeble sense of his responsibility as
a father to encourage and enforce order, discipline, and obedience
will fail as a minister and as a shepherd of the flock. The same lack
which characterizes his management at home in his family will be
seen in a more public capacity in the church of God. Wrongs will
exist uncorrected because of the unpleasant results which attend
reproof and earnest appeal.
A great reform is needed in Brother P’s family. God is not
pleased with their present state of disorder, their having their own
way, following their own course of action. This condition of things
in his family is destined to counteract his influence wherever he is
known. It also has the effect to discourage those who have a will to
help him in the support of his family. This lack is an injury to the
cause. Brother P does not restrain his children. God is not pleased
with their disorderly, boisterous ways, their unrefined deportment.
All this is the result of, or the curse that follows, the unabridged