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p76 [To the same.] E Wootten, God gently clears the way, I believe. From the beginning I have felt that God was sifting the meetings in Kent, and when that is done adequately in God's eyes there will be peace. But the evil that was at the root of all this, besides a party spirit that had long existed, was that there were brethren, and dear brethren, who, from what I believe was want of faith, judged it was all over with brethren, and London broken up, and that they must as standing on higher ground start afresh as a new body. Now I admit that the brethren had got into a low worldly sleepy state, but I do not think it was faith to think the Lord could not rouse them up, nor that it was grace to set up themselves to be the cream of all. . . . I cannot say, sorrowful and humbling as it may be, that I regret that the sifting has come. It was from the hand of God because in grace He saw it was needed. . . . While I acknowledge in the party who take the ground of purity many dear and true saints, some to whom I am even personally attached, and their uprightness as the governing principle of their lives, I do not believe faith or grace to have been the source of the pretension I have referred to. The enemy profited by the evil, which I admit, to produce the pretension and schism of heart, varying I acknowledge in degree and form. The course of Abbot's Hill I still judge to have been thoroughly wicked, and I have not seen that the conscience has been reached. . . . I believe God is working, but He does not heal slightly the hurt of the daughter of His people, as Jeremiah says. I do not believe that hurry in acting is the way of God. I look for conscience being reached and so the root of the evil; then there will be lowliness and the path be plain.

[53064E]

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