been amongst us, and by the light of His countenance we have prevailed.[1] We are sure the goodwill of Him who dwelt in the Bush has shined upon us; and we can humbly say, We know in whom we have believed; who can and will perfect what remaineth, and us also in doing what is well-pleasing in His eyesight.
I find some trouble in your spirit; occasioned first, not only by the continuance of your sad and heavy burden, as you call it, but “also” by the dissatisfaction you take at the ways of some good men whom you love with your heart, who through this principle, That it is lawful for a lesser part, if in the right, to force “a numerical majority” etc.
To the first: Call not your burden sad or heavy. If your Father laid it upon you, He intended neither. He is the Father of lights, from whom comes every good and perfect gift; who of His own will begot us, and bade us count it all joy when such things befall us; they being for the exercise of faith and patience, whereby in the end we shall be made perfect (James i.).
Dear Robin, our fleshly reasonings ensnare us. These make us say, ‘heavy,’ ‘sad,’ ‘pleasant,’ ‘easy.’ Was there not a little of this when Robert Hammond, through dissatisfaction too, desired retirement from the Army, and thought of quiet in the Isle of Wight?[2] Did not God find him out there? I believe he will never forget this—And now I perceive he is to seek again; partly through his sad and heavy burden, and partly through his dissatisfaction with friends’ actings.
Dear Robin, thou and I were never worthy to be doorkeepers in this Service. If thou wilt seek, seek to know the mind of God in all that chain of Providence, whereby God brought thee thither, and that Person to thee; how, before and since, God has ordered him, and affairs concerning him: and then tell me, Whether there be not some glorious and high meaning in all this, above what thou hast yet attained? And,
