JUST now I received your kind letter, and am endeavouring to catch a few moments to answer it. I thank you for your encouraging hints. O! dear Sir, continue to exhort, and provoke me to love and to good works, that I may with patience run the race that is set before me. Hitherto my dear Master magnifies his strength in my weakness. Ever since he honoured me to suffer a little reproach for his name’s sake, at Basingstoke, he has caused me to rejoice with exceeding great joy. My spirit was stirred within me. Methinks I could willingly have died to have borne my testimony against the lying vanities, and devilish entertainments of this generation. By the help of my Master, I will go on and attack the devil in his strongest holds. O pray, dear Sir, that my zeal may be always tempered with true christian prudence. It would grieve me, should I bring sufferings causelessly upon myself. A trying time, perhaps, is at hand. O that I may be found faithful! If providence permits, I will perform my promise. I am blind, I am a child, I know nothing. I only desire the whole will of God may be done, in, by, and upon, dear Sir,
Your unworthy brother and fellow-labourer in our dear Lord Jesus,
G. W.
LETTER LV.
London, July 26, 1739.
Sir,
I Received your kind letter, but must beg to be excused from dissuading your son to go with ——. The employment in which he is engaged will, in the end, if faithfully improved, tend much to God’s glory and his own good. He now sits by me; I read over your letter to him, and he continues as resolute as ever. The being disinherited does not terrify him at all. He has a more abiding inheritance, and is willing naked to follow a naked Christ.—Dear Sir, let me advise you to do nothing rashly. If you can pray for a blessing on your will when you are about to disinherit your son, I shall wonder. Have a little patience, and then you will find that your son is about to act wisely. If I thought otherwise, no one would be more forward to dissuade him, than, Sir,
Your very humble servant,
G. W.