The first time I read this, I read it wrongly! I figured McIntyre was against direct talk with God and guidance by Scripture. I had to remember that decades ago “but” could also be a continuation of a sentence, not an interruption, perhaps even creating a greater emphasis. (BTW: Muller was exactly my age when he wrote this!)
See what you think.
David MacIntyre (1859-1938) writes in his book The Hidden Life of Prayer
In his Autobiography George Müller gives a striking testimony:
“I never remember, in all my Christian course, a period now (in March, 1895) of sixty-nine years and four months, that I ever SINCERELY and PATIENTLY sought to know the will of God by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, through the instrumentality of the Word of God, but I have been ALWAYS directed rightly.
But if honesty of heart and uprightness before God were lacking, or if I did not patiently wait before God for instruction, or if I preferred the counsel of my fellow-men to the declarations of the Word of the Living God, I made great mistakes.”