To the Reverend Mr. B——.
London, Jan. 12, 1750.
My very dear Sir,
LEST I should be hindered to-morrow, or in the beginning of the week, I now sit down to answer your kind letter. O that I may be helped to write something that may do you service, and be a means of quickening you in that delightful cause in which you are embarked. I see, my dear Sir, you are like to have hot work, before you quit the field:—For I find you have begun to batter Satan’s strongest hold, I mean the self-righteousness of man. Here, Sir, you must expect the strongest opposition. It is the Diana of every age. It is the golden image, which that apostate Nebuchadnezzar, Man, continually sets up; and the not falling down to worship it, but much more for us to speak, write, or preach against it, exposes one immediately to the fury of its blind votaries, and we are thrown directly into a den of devouring lions. But fear not, Mr. B——, the God whom we serve, the captain under whose banner we are listed, is able to deliver us. He knows how to train us up gradually for war, and is engaged to bring us off more than conquerors from the field of battle. If any one need give way, it must be the poor creature that is writing to you, for I believe there is not a person living, more timorous by nature. But I trust in a degree, Jesus hath delivered me from worldly hopes and worldly fears, and by his grace strengthening me, he makes me often bold as a lion. But O, my dear Sir, this pretty character of mine I did not at first care to part with; ’twas death to be despised, and worse than death to think of being laughed at by all. But when I began to consider Him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, I then longed to drink of the same cup, and blessed be God, contempt and I are pretty intimate, and have been so for above twice seven years. Jesus’s love makes it a very agreeable companion, and I no longer wonder that Moses made such a blessed choice, and rather chose to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. May the Lord Jesus make us thus minded! For there is no doing good without enduring the scourge of the tongue; and take this for a certain rule, “The more successful you are, the more hated you will be by Satan, and the more despised you will be by those that know not God.” What has the honoured Lady suffered under whose roof you dwell! Above all, what did your blessed master suffer, who hath done such great things for you? O let us follow him, though it be through a sea of blood. I could enlarge, but time will not permit. I am ashamed of my unprofitableness, and must retire, after begging that you will not forget, reverend and dear Sir,
Yours, &c.
G. W.
LETTER DCCCVIII.
To Lady H——n.
London, Jan. 12, 1750.