Dear -,-I had already heard of your fall, but I did not know the details, nor did I know that you had been restored.... Having been restored by the assembly, I receive you as pardoned by God, and as His child, recognized by Him as belonging to the assembly just as any other brother—as myself—for we are all pardoned sinners. But, as a personal matter, I may tell you what I think. You never knew your heart to the bottom, you never were really delivered. When this is the case, there is always too much confidence in oneself. Then your activity, and the acceptance of your labors by others, have hidden from you the inward state of your soul; and this very activity has had the effect of making your conscience ever less sensitive to the evil which was in the heart. God, in His sovereign and faithful grace and in His mercy, did not allow this to go further. I do not at all think that you were wanting in sincerity; but activity, when one is not in the presence of God, when the heart does not judge itself, has always a tendency to harden. You will be much happier now that all is known; and God has permitted that all should be known by men also, because there was in your case a tendency to have a good opinion of yourself. For He is faithful in all His ways, and we are, save as in grace, only miserable creatures who are worth nothing.
Your place at present, dear -, is to be quiet; not to be so would even rather be a proof that you were not thoroughly humbled. Submission to your position and to this painful change in your relations with others will be, on the contrary (supposing of course the sincerity of this state of mind), a proof that you realize your position with God. This does not mean that God may not give you, later on, to be occupied in His service, either where you are now or elsewhere, when time has made all feel that you are a changed man, and confidence has been restored. For the moment, your own heart is what must concern you. Just read in Num. 19—those who had touched sin, even in the Lord's service, were unclean until the evening; and, what is so striking, if any one died suddenly in the tent, everything was made unclean. This is not to show that sin is unavoidable, but that, whatever might be its source, it is intolerable to God; although this was accompanied by a revelation as to the means of purification from it. Keep quiet, then, and thus all will be made more clear; and by not being in too great a hurry the path will be ever clearer to yourself, your soul being ever nearer God.
Zurich,
June 7th.