"Downs, February 1, 1738.
"I received the news of your arrival (blessed be God!) with the utmost composure, and sent a servant immediately on shore to wait on you, but found that you were gone. Since that, your kind letter has reached me. But I think many reasons may be urged against my coming to London. For, first, I cannot be hid if I come there; and the enemies of the Lord will think I am turning back, and so blaspheme that holy name wherewith I am called. Secondly, I cannot leave the flock committed to my care on shipboard, and perhaps while I am at London the ship may sail. Thirdly, I see no cause for not going forwards to Georgia. Your coming rather confirms (as far as I can see) than disannuls my call. It is not fit the colony should be left without a shepherd. And though they are a stiff-necked and rebellious people, yet as God hath given me the affections of all where I have been, why should I despair of finding His presence in a foreign land?"[121]
Whitefield's answer was worthy of himself. Who can estimate what would have been the consequences of Whitefield's yielding to Wesley's wish? Had he now returned to London, the probability is he would never again have started for America; and, in such a case, many of the brightest chapters of his history could never have been penned. Wesley's advice was natural; but Whitefield's reply was right. Had Wesley known all that had transpired, he would not have given the counsel that he did. Whitefield's services in Georgia were engaged by the Georgian Trustees. He was the bearer of a large number of useful presents, purchased by the money of his friends for the Georgian colonists. He was the recognised chaplain of a ship conveying troops sent for the defence of those distant emigrants. If Whitefield had relinquished his mission, he would have justly inherited indelible disgrace.
On the day after the letter to Wesley was written, the long-detained ship again set sail, and on February 19th arrived at Gibraltar. As usual, Whitefield read prayers, and preached to the soldiers daily. He explained the Catechism to the women, and exhorted them particularly to be obedient to their husbands, "which they had lately been wanting in." At the request of Captain Whiting, he began "to have full public prayers," and to expound the lessons to the officers in the "great cabin." On Wednesday, February 8th, he writes:—
"Had public worship and expounded, as usual, to both my congregations. In the afternoon, I preached and read prayers on open deck, at the captain's desire, who ordered chairs to be brought, and boards put across them for the soldiers to sit upon. My subject was The Eternity of Hell Torments, and I was earnest in delivering it, being desirous that none of my dear hearers should experience them."
This was a fearful topic, in such a place, and before such a congregation; and great must have been the young preacher's courage in selecting it. The sermon was published in the year following, and the ensuing extracts will serve to exhibit Whitefield's boldness in uttering, face to face, sentiments so terrible, to the men and officers with whom he was so closely associated in his floating church.
Having proved his doctrine from Scripture, and answered several objections, Whitefield proceeded:—
"Knowest thou, O worm, what blasphemy thou art guilty of in charging God with injustice? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Wilt thou presume to arraign the Almighty at the bar of thy shallow reason? Hath God said it, and shall He not do it? He hath said it, and let God be true, though every man be a liar. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Assuredly He will. And if sinners will not own His justice in His threatenings here, they will be compelled, ere long, to own and feel them when tormented by Him hereafter. Would we now and then meditate a while by faith on the miseries of the damned, I doubt not we should hear many an unhappy soul venting his fruitless sorrows in some such piteous moans as these: 'O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death! O foolish mortal that I was, thus to bring myself into these never-ceasing tortures for the transitory enjoyment of a few short-lived pleasures, which scarcely afforded me any satisfaction, even when I most indulged myself in them! Alas! are these the wages, the effects of sin? Are all the grand deceiver's promises come to this? O damned apostate! First to delude me with pretended promises of happiness, and, after years of drudgery in his service, thus to involve me in eternal woe! Oh that I had never hearkened to his beguiling insinuations! Oh that I had taken up my cross and followed Christ! Oh that I had never ridiculed serious godliness, and condemned the truly pious as too severe, enthusiastic, or superstitious! Alas! these reflections come too late. I have in effect denied the Lord that bought me, and therefore justly am I now denied by Him. But must I live for ever tormented in these flames? Must my body, which not long since lay in state, was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day—must this be here eternally confined and made the mockery of insulting devils? Oh, eternity! That thought fills me with despair—I cannot, will not, yet I must be miserable for ever!'
"But I can no more. These thoughts are too melancholy for me to dwell upon, as well as for you to hear; and God knows, as punishing is His strange work, so denouncing His threatenings is mine. But if the bare mentioning the torments of the damned is so shocking—good God! terrible must the enduring of them be!"
A sermon in such a strain would give offence in many of the costly churches and pretentious chapels of the present day; but it was devoutly listened to on board the Whitaker. Why? Perhaps, one reason may be found in the solemn fact that it is the sovereign prerogative of God, not only to raise up faithful preachers, but, to give ears to hear, and hearts to understand.
For more than a fortnight, Whitefield was detained at Gibraltar, where he received the greatest kindness. Major Sinclair, a gentleman whom he had never seen before, hearing of his arrival, provided him two handsome rooms in a merchant's house,[122] and ministered to his wants. General Columbine and many others treated him with the utmost courtesy. Governor Sabine gave him a general invitation to dine with him every day during his stay, an invitation which was frequently accepted. The governor was an exemplary man, and, except when prevented by ill-health, had not been absent from public prayers for seven years.[123] His table was sumptuous; but his guests, officers and others, indulged in no excesses. "We had," says Whitefield, the once Oxford ascetic, "what an Epicurean would call cœna dubia; but the law at the governor's table was the same with that of Ahasuerus, 'No one was compelled;' and all the officers behaved in such a decent manner every time I dined there, that they pleased me very much."[124]
2. T. Cooper, "at the Globe in Paternoster Row," saw it, and printed it, without the writer's knowledge or consent. 3. James Hutton, himself a publisher, was wroth—denounced Cooper's edition as surreptitious, and said the Journal was sent to him (Hutton) to be communicated to Whitefield's friends; "but not to be made public without the advice and correction of certain persons particularly known to himself." 4. Hutton added that, "Whitefield knew himself too well to obtrude his little private concerns upon the world—especially when intermixed with such passages relating to others as none but an unthinking person could judge proper to divulge." 5. Nevertheless, Mr. Cooper having published his surreptitious copy, he (Hutton) "at the earnest solicitation of several of Mr. Whitefield's friends, now determined to print the whole." 6. T. Cooper resented this, and, in the Weekly Miscellany for August 11, 1738, there was an advertisement of Cooper's edition with the following postscript: "Notwithstanding the clamour that has been made about this copy being surreptitious, I can, with the utmost veracity, assure the public that it is genuine to a great degree of exactness; and the advertiser against it is desired to point out, for the notice of the public, any passage, circumstance, or even any word, that has been altered, or which varies from the copy which (he says) he has in his hand, and which he has owned he never designed to have published.—T. C."