My Dear Brother :

I have been thinking of late as to the way in which God seems to be leading His people at this time. We may be sure, indeed, that He will lead us, and that any failure to be led aright rests entirely with us. We may also be sure that as long as He leaves His Church upon earth, the Lord will not cease to appeal to His beloved people to walk in His ways.

There are certain spiritual instincts implanted in the heart of every child of God :a judging of evil, and a love of that which is holy and true, coupled with a sense of the presence of sin in us, and the absolute need of the Lord's grace if we are in any measure to please Him. We are also taught of God to love one another, and therefore, in spite of the manifold failures which have marred our testimony and the divided state of the people of God, there is a unity of heart and a unity of nature which cannot be broken.

In the endeavor to give expression to the instincts of the heart, no doubt we often make mistakes in judgment as to the manner in which it should be done. I am sure the Lord always recognizes and approves the love which is the motive of the conduct, no matter how much that conduct may be a mistake. God approved the desire in David's heart to build Him a house, although His righteousness would not allow that desire its accomplishment in the way that David had purposed.

We may also be sure that if there is a desire in the heart which is produced by the Spirit of God, there will also be a way in which that desire can properly find expression. This will always be according to the word of God and the manifest presence of the Spirit in the Church of God.

We must distinguish, I am quite sure, between the instinct and the manner in which it seeks expression. It would be the greatest mistake to brand as " wicked" those who have evidently spiritual instincts of God, though their expression falls short of, or is even contrary to, principles of His word which may not be known. Indeed, to ascertain these principles is not a light or easy matter. It comes but partially to all, and as a result, no doubt, of much exercise, and even many failures. We are not so single-eyed that we at once learn and follow the full will of God as to our path. This should make us very pitiful one of another, and stir us up to fresh love and earnest longing that God will lead us all in His ways more fully. But that He is leading, we cannot doubt. We know this apart from any outward manifestation of it, from the fact that He loves His Church, and will never forsake it. Can we not see at the present time a distinct, fresh leading of the Lord ?

To illustrate, I will refer frankly to the sad divisions which have so marred the testimony of the various companies of God's people, professedly gathered to the name of our Lord Jesus. Entrusted with much priceless truth which we hold in common, truth which reaches from the fundamentals of the gospel to the final display of the glories of Christ in His Church in eternity, there have yet been sad and disfiguring divisions which are our common shame and sorrow. Every true spiritual instinct would long to see the cause of these divisions removed. This is the common desire to which I have referred above, which I am sure meets with our Lord's approval wherever and in whatever measure He may see it; but it is as to the manner in which He would lead us to the healing of these breaches that I think we have needed, and still need, the exercise which will cast us the more upon our Lord's grace, in order that we may know His way.

Broadly speaking, there have been two thoughts as to this in the minds of the saints. Some, weary of the strife which has but too plainly indicated the pride that produced it, have felt that the best thing to do was to ignore and to forget all the sorrows of the past and to make a fresh start. In addition to this, they have found it necessary to modify certain principles which very many of us feel are absolutely necessary for any full scripture testimony as to God's thought of His Church. The principles have been blamed for the practices which have produced the divisions; and while perhaps not fully refusing them as unscriptural, these to whom I refer so link these principles with past failures that they would ignore and forget both the principles and the practices together. I think I might say that they would wish that we were back at the beginning again, with all the past entirely forgotten.

Now it is just here where I believe we need to be much on our guard. The principles of God's truth remain, no matter how much we have abused them through mistaken zeal or self-will. They can never alter; and any course which would sacrifice principles for the sake of giving expression even to a God-given love in the heart will only pave the way for fresh sorrow, and indeed be tantamount to giving up that for which we should contend most earnestly. If there is to be a distinct testimony as to what we call Church truth, it must be according to the word of God, and not at the sacrifice of any portion of it.

On the other hand, others, to whom we would not deny a God-given desire for His honor, have maintained that the only way to heal the sorrows of the past is to return to a certain company of the Lord's people, with the fullest acknowledgment that they constituted the divinely recognized vehicle of testimony on earth, and that to depart from them, therefore, was schism which needs to be judged. In other words, the question is not, Where is the right? but, Where is the Church ? It makes no difference who makes such a claim; it is a manifest tendency to ecclesiastical pride which cannot be overlooked. It assumes the prerogatives of the Church, and then on that ground, demands a bowing to its decrees, which is in principle, Rome-no matter by whom it may be practiced.

Here, then, we have two extremes; the one of independency, the other of metropolitan tyranny. We can accept neither of these; but again the heart cries, Has God no relief for His beloved people who, in sorrow and simplicity, would still seek His way in the midst of the confusion to which we all confess we have contributed ? I believe God has awakened this longing, and that He has heard the cry of many of His people; and I believe that He is leading in the way which is neither the undue pressing of a truth, nor the refusal to receive it. It is for us to ask, How is He leading, and how may we know it is His way ? I believe that if we will but listen we cannot mistake His voice.

In the first place, a lowly, chastened spirit of sorrow, which realizes my own individual failure, will mark any true exercise regarding this whole matter. Surely, a high and haughty spirit in a day of rebuke like this is mere madness. There never was a time when we could boast, and surely, least of all, the present. Our own slowness of heart, the constant tendency to follow the Lord afar off, the pressure of the world on all sides, the loss of the freshness of the hope of the Lord's coming, and many other things, should bring us to our faces individually and collectively.

Let us not assume that this is an easy matter, and dismiss it with a wave of the hand. Lowliness is a plant of slow and, alas, rare growth; and we all need to be deeply exercised in this direction. Therefore, wherever true contrition, self-judgment, and a lowly spirit are present, there, we may be sure, the Lord is. " I dwell in the high and holy place,'with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

Where we are thus before Him, will not our gracious God lead us to a full recognition of those principles of His truth which can never change ?-principles of assembly order and fellowship; the objective truth of the unity of the body, coupled with its expression in the endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace; there will be no sacrifice of these principles-they will be held all the more clearly because of our realization of how we have failed in the past.

If these two things are present with us, a lowly spirit and a clear apprehension of the principles of divine truth, we will next be ready for the step to which our gracious God would lead us:-not to a forgetting of the past and turning away from it (only to learn through fresh sorrow and failures lessons which we refuse to gather now), but in calmly and humbly examining the acts of the past
which have been the occasion of the divisions, and judging them in the light of divine truth,' in all lowliness and meekness. We may be sure that the need of this judgment will not be on one side alone. Even where truth has been held, its application has often been mistaken, and pride has subtly lurked behind many an act; but we will be in a position to judge the past, to see wherein we have failed, and without exacting one from another something as due to us, we will all be ready to take our share of the failure of the past. Our common state we will commonly acknowledge; our individual failures we will own, and to our corporate acts we will apportion whatever has been lacking, or contrary to the word of God which should have governed at that time. What will the effect of this be ? Not a triumph for this or that party on the one hand; nor, on the other, a branding as evil those men of God who have been our leaders in the past (a cause of such deep exercise), but a happy learning of the lessons which God would teach us, that He may lead us on in His ways, and heal that which otherwise cannot be healed according to His mind.

There are doubtless many details which require patient care, but if the spirit which I have indicated above marks us, we may be sure that we are in a path where we can be led, and only blessing can result.

There is much cause for thankfulness that the Lord has been of late leading us in this way:slowly, we must confess, very slowly we yield to that which humbles us; but let us thank Him for what He has made known and for what He has done, and let us see to it that we are ready to follow Him as He says to us:"This is the way; walk ye in it."

In brief, then, the mark of a divine leading will be not the maintenance of pretentious claims, nor an ignoring of Scripture principles, but holding them fast in lowliness, and in their light judging that which has in any of us been contrary to any of those principles.

May the Lord deepen in all our souls a longing for a true healing in any measure in these closing days, and exercise us more in prayer, and faith, unto all wisdom and patience and long suffering, and hope! S. R.