Testimony for the Church — No. 25a

Feeling.

Bro. Butler, you are controlled too much by feeling. The very close and severe preaching that you have given at Battle Creek has been, in some instances, the impressions and ideas received through your relatives. You, with many others, have had fears in reference to Bro. White's injuring individuals by his severity. As the ease has been presented before me in the last view given me, I have different feelings in regard to this matter. I am now convinced that the very ones who have felt burdened over his close talk which appeared severe in some individual cases, would not do nearly as well as he has done were they similarly situated. None should deceive themselves in this respect. Your wife made the remark to me at Monterey, that you talked very plainly and cut very close, but you had such a way of saying it that no one was tried with you. I now think she is deceived. Were you placed in the same position that my husband has been in, I should greatly fear the result. You are a man that, when self is touched, says things more severe than my husband would dare to speak. You have at times stood in the desk at Battle Creek and poured out strong, severe censure upon the church, which hurt them and you. They had no evidence that God prompted you to speak in the unqualified manner that you did. If it had been my husband speaking, and you listening, you would have felt indeed that he was overbearing and severe. T25a 88.1

In the case of poor Woolsey, you might have erred, if at all, on the side of mercy. But, Bro. Butler, when Woolsey cast reflections upon you, self was aroused in a moment, you felt indignant, you lost command of yourself, and bore down in an unsparing manner upon the poor, deceived soul. O my brother, you were all too severe upon Woolsey. However wicked he was, whatever course he had taken, it would have been better to err on the side of mercy than on the side of severity. Now, my brother, you have not really known yourself. Your course in connection with Ransom Lockwood, Brn. Abbey and Ings, was a grave mistake. Ransom is easily excited, easily prejudiced, and if his wife would ever cling to God and walk in the light, she might prove a great help to Ransom, Rut she is swayed by his feelings, like yourself, and she views things in a wrong light. She sustains him when she should firmly resist his strong, overbearing, pressing spirit. You both know that Bro. Lockwood is not well balanced. He is liable to have exaggerated views and very strong feelings, which he must constantly restrain. He was entirely out of place in seeking to teach, or reprove, or condemn, the church. But you could not discern this spirit. T25a 89.1

Bro. Butler, you have felt burdened because my husband has spoken plainly and with apparent severity to individuals. Your wife has felt that she must have this matter corrected in Bro. White. Your recent sermon in B. C., on love, was a matter chosen for the occasion, to teach my husband his duty. The remarks were all correct. But how did this discourse harmonize with your former severity to this church? How did this discourse upon love compare with your manner of labor with poor Woolsey. Here is where the spirit of love, exercised in a kindly manner, would have been attended with the best of results. Here is where love might have achieved good results. Woolsey was not sane. T25a 90.1

Bro. Butler, you must not let Satan blind your eyes and lead you to glaring inconsistencies. You move sometimes impulsively, as you happen to feel, It is important that you know yourself, and become familiar with the tenor of your conduct from day to day, and the motives which prompt your actions. You need to become acquainted with the particular motives which prompt particular actions. Every action of our lives is judged, not by the external appearance, but from the motive which dictated the action. T25a 90.2

You should guard your senses, lest Satan gain victory over you, for these are the avenues to the soul. Be as severe as you like in disciplining yourself, but be very cautious how you push souls to desperation. You feel that Bro. White is altogether too severe in speaking in a decided manner to individuals, in reproving what he thinks is wrong in them. He is in danger of not being so careful in his manner of reproof as to give no occasion for reflection. But you go into the desk and use the most cutting, reproving, condemnatory language, too indiscriminating to a congregation, and you feel that you have relieved your soul and done a good work. But the angels of God do not always approve such labor. If Bro. White makes one individual feel that he is not doing right, if he is too severe toward that one, and needs to be taught to modify his manners, to soften his spirit, how much more should Bro. Butler feel the inconsistency of making a large congregation suffer from cutting reproofs and strong denunciations, when the really innocent must suffer with the guilty. T25a 91.1

It is worse, far worse, to give expression to the feelings in a large gathering, firing at any one and every one, than to go to the individuals you believe have done wrong and personally reprove them; for the innocent suffer with the guilty. The offensiveness of this severe, overbearing, denunciatory talk in a large gathering is of as much more grave a character in the sight of God than giving personal, individual reproof, as the numbers are greater and the censure more general. T25a 92.1

It is ever easier to give expression to the feelings before a congregation, because there are many present, than to go openly, frankly, and plainly state their wrong course face to face with the erring. But bringing into the house of God strong feelings against individuals, and making all the innocent as well as the guilty suffer, is a manner of labor that God does not sanction, and which does harm rather than good. It has too often been the case that your severe, critical discourses given at Battle Creek have not fostered a spirit of love in the brethren. They have not tended to make them spiritually minded, and to lead them to holiness and Heaven. But a spirit of bitterness has been aroused in hearts at times that has led to desperation. Had the man who spoke these sharp and severe things been Bro. White, he would have been held to a confession by many, not excepting even yourself. T25a 92.2

Bro. Butler, I was shown Bro. Abbey, and Bro. Lockwood, and yourself, in company with some others, frequently conversing together. Your words were earnest, and you were all excited. You were all united in spirit. At this time, the unwarrantable raid was made upon the church. Your inspiration on some of these occasions was not from Heaven, but from the spirit of men who were about insane. This work was shown me in all its bearings, and my soul was sick and my heart faint. But I never had the idea before it was presented before me that you had sustained Ransom in his condemnation of the church. T25a 93.1

I never pitied the church in Battle Creek as I do now. They have endured nobly these terrible movements which were the direct work of the enemy. Bro. Butler, there is nothing gained to the cause of God by these fearful blasts of condemnation. And while you would teach Bro. White the benign influence of love, oh! carry it with you. Let its influence blend with all your labors, and characterize you as a true shepherd of the flock. You need to close your ears to reports, to go forth as one deaf who cannot hear, and close your eyes as one blind who cannot see the great and terrible state of things which is too often pictured before your imagination. “Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger that I sent.” T25a 93.2

I present those things before you as they were presented to me. I have great confidence in my husband's power of discrimination, and his judgment in regard to the fitness of things. Bro. Butler, you need that love which you recommend to be a powerful element in the Christian life and character. These strong sermons that cut a man all to pieces are sometimes positively necessary to arouse, alarm, and convict. But unless they bear the especial marks of being dictated by the Spirit of God, they do a far greater injury than they can do good. T25a 94.1

I was shown that my husband's course has not been perfect. He has erred sometimes in murmuring, and in giving too severe reproof. But from what I have seen, he has not been so greatly at fault in this respect as I have feared. We need reproof. T25a 94.2

Job was not understood by his friends. He flings back upon them their reproaches. He shows them that if they are defending God in avowing their faith in him and their consciousness of sin, he had a more deep and thorough knowledge of it than they ever had. Miserable comforters are ye all, is the answer he makes them to their criticisms and censures. I also, says Job, could speak as ye do if your soul were in my soul's stead. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you. But he declares he would not do this. I, he says, would strengthen you with my mouth, and the moving of my lips should assuage your grief. T25a 94.3

Well-meaning brethren and sisters, but having narrow conceptions and looking only at externals, may attempt to help matters which they have no real knowledge of. Their limited experience cannot fathom the feelings of a soul who has been urged out by the Spirit of God, and has felt to the depths that earnest and inexpressible love and interest for the cause of God and for souls that they have never experienced, and who have borne burdens in the cause of God they have never lifted. T25a 95.1

The narrow vision of some short-sighted, short-experienced friends, cannot appreciate the feelings of a soul who has been in close harmony with the soul of Christ in connection with the salvation of souls. The motives are misunderstood and the actions misconstrued by those who would be his friends, until, like Job, the earnest prayer goes forth from his lips, Save me from my friends. T25a 95.2

God takes the ease of Job in hand himself. His patience has been severely taxed; but when God speaks, all his pettish feelings are changed. His self-justification, which he felt necessary to withstand the condemnation of his friends, is not necessary toward God. He never misjudges. God never errs. Says the Lord to Job, Gird up now thy loins like a man; and Job no sooner hears the divine voice than his soul is bowed down with a sense of his sinfulness, and he says before God, I abhor myself in dust and ashes. T25a 96.1

When God has spoken, my husband has hearkened to his voice. But to bear the condemnation and reflection of his friends who do not seem to discriminate, has been a great trial. When his brethren shall have stood under the same circumstances, bearing the responsibilities he has borne with as little encouragement and help as he has had, then they may be able to understand how to sustain, how to comfort, how to bless, without torturing his feelings by reflections and censures he in no way deserves. T25a 96.2