Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 1 (1844 - 1868)

Ms 4, 1854

Testimony

Rochester, New York

April 1854

This manuscript is published in entirety in PH016 32-33. See also Annotations.

I saw that with some there has not been a receiving of what God has shown. It has been doubted. It has borne but with a feather’s weight. I saw that straight testimonies must be borne, and they have not been received. I then saw that the church must be united, and if they could not endure straight testimonies when they were needed and we were bound, we must move the office and go where we could bear them. I saw that we neither of us had done our duty. There has been a holding back, a shunning to declare the whole counsel of God. I saw that God wanted us to be free, that if we did not follow the movings of His Spirit and bear the testimonies He gave us, He would leave us in bondage and then our health and strength would fail, and worse than all this, the bondage would be felt on the people, and if there is not freedom and liberty here, we must move where there would be freedom and where the testimonies given us of God would be received. I saw that some had doubted what God had taught, therefore it could not have weight with them or serve to move them. I saw this, and begged of God to use another instrument, to send by one whom they would receive, or to fit up the frail instrument that the church might be convinced. Said the angel, God has chosen His own way, that through the simple means He has ordained that light should be given, and if it is not received God will give them up to their own ways to be filled with their own doing. 1LtMs, Ms 4, 1854, par. 1