WHY did you not apprize me of your going? Why did you not let me have an opportunity of sending my packets after you to Portsmouth? You sailed only a day or two before I came there myself. However, I am glad to hear that you are safe arrived. May it be an earnest of your arriving ere long in the kingdom of heaven! Perhaps we may meet this Summer. I hope we shall see each other grown in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. You and I are much indebted to him. We have not a moment of time to lose. We ought to be continually saying, “What shall we render unto the Lord?” O for zeal! O for activity in his glorious service! A crucified Jesus! An incarnate God! What doth his love, his dying, yet never-dying love demand at our hands? Answer that question who can. It will nonplus men and angels. Blessed be his free grace, we find here that his name is Wonderful. Our new tabernacle is compleated, and the workmen all paid. What is best of all, the Redeemer manifests his glory in it. Every day, souls come crying, “What shall we do to be saved?” This I believe you will look upon to be the best news. But I can now no more. Accept this as a token of love unfeigned, from, my dear Mr. S——,
Yours, &c. in our common Lord,
G. W.
LETTER MXXII.
To Mr. B——.
London, January 19, 1754.
My dear Mr. B——,
ALL is well, and why? Because all things are of our Lord’s ordering. May he perfect his strength in your weakness, and the more the outward man decayeth, may you be strengthened so much the more by his holy spirit in the inner man!—Welcome flux, welcome fever, welcome the plague itself, if sanctified to bring us nearer to our God. Yet a little while, and he that cometh, will come, and will not tarry. I wish you much prosperity under the cross.—You must return the favour; I stand in need of much prayer. Perhaps ere long I may be called to occupy my business in the great waters. If not, God willing, you shall see me. In the mean while, pray give my love to all, especially to those mentioned in your last. God help them to hold on and hold out! In heaven they will sing the louder for being called by such an ill and hell-deserving creature as I am. Blessed be God, awakening work goes on here: every sermon preached this Winter hath been fetched out of the furnace.—But what are we to expect as christians and ministers, but afflictions? I thank you for your kind offer, and orders to command. Such I seldom comply with. Though poor, yet desiring at least to make many rich, I would have for my motto still. Some way or another, my God will supply all my wants. I am sorry that the volume of the Christian Library was forgotten. I shall write to my dear Mr. S—— to send you his, and yours may be sent to him. Whatever becomes of written christian libraries, I earnestly pray that your heart, my dear Sir, may be the library of Jesus Christ, and beg leave to subscribe myself,
Yours most affectionately in our common Lord,