p. 170 | AN EXTRACT

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 20, 1859

AN EXTRACT.

[BRO. SMITH: The following extract is taken from the Guide to Holiness. It is part of a letter to a friend. W. W. M.]

I believe there is a particular calling and place for every individual to occupy, and there he alone can do what God has commissioned him to do. If I judge correctly, no one has a right to enter any path, pursue any kind of business, or change his relations to society, without first learning the will of the Lord. There is meaning in the course pursued by holy men of old, in being unwilling to go up against their enemies till they had learned the will of the Lord. Though he does not now speak so directly as then, yet I believe he does more so than we at all times allow. We have far too little faith; we think we pray believingly when we ask the Lord to open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things out of his word; and yet, when our eyes are opened, fearfulness has taken hold of us, and we start back from the revelations as not of God, because, forsooth, they are so strange, or contrary to our experience, or different from what we have learned, or it may be because the church does not teach so; as if we could understand the way, the mind, the purposes of the Lord so as to dictate or decide on what are "wondrous things;" at the same time admitting we expect to be led, if led of God, in a way that we know not of. O, when shall we cease to be inconsistent with our convictions and our prayers? If we will but submit, yes, submit to God our whole being, really willing God should fulfill his promise to us, "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go; I will guide thee with mine eye," there would be no real difficulty about knowing the will of God as revealed by his word, Spirit, or providences. O, let us but renounce self wholly, cease from man, look to Jesus this moment, doing just what we are this moment convinced is best, judging by the light we this moment have.