George Whitefield.
A
LETTER
TO THE
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES
OF
ENGLAND.
Written during the Voyage to Philadelphia, 1739; and particularly recommended to those who had then lately formed themselves into Religious Societies in Scotland.
A
LETTER, &c.
My dear Brethren in Christ,
THE Apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews, chapter x. 23. exhorts them to hold fast the profession of their faith without wavering; and soon after adds, as a most effectual means to so desirable an end, “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love, and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.”
As christianity was not then the national religion, I suppose the assemblies here intended, were not such as our public congregations, but rather little private societies, or associations, or churches, as was the custom of the primitive christians, who, we are told, continued stedfastly in the Apostle’s doctrine, and in fellowship one with another.
This was the Apostle’s exhortation to the christians of those times; and I am fully persuaded there never was more occasion for renewing it, than the age wherein we live.