Having spent five days at Gloucester, during which he preached five times, and received the sacrament at the cathedral; and having similarly employed himself for a week at Bristol, Whitefield, at the request of the Countess of Huntingdon, returned to London on December 17th, andresumed his ministry in the Tabernacle, and in the mansion of her ladyship.
“I am now,” he wrote, “thirty-four years of age; and alas! how little have I done and suffered for Him, who has done and suffered so much for me!Thanks be to His great name for countenancing my poor ministrations so much.”[215]
A letter to Dr. Doddridge,to whom Whitefield had submitted his Journals for revision,[216] may properly close the year 1748,—a year, which, like all previous ones of his career, had been thronged with adventures and striking incidents.
“London, December 21, 1748.
“Reverend and very dear Sir,—I was glad, very glad, to receive your letter, dated November 7th, though it did not reach me till last night. I thank you for it a thousand times. It has led me to the throne of grace, where I have been crying, ‘Lord, counsel my counsellors, and shew them what Thou wouldest have me to do!’ Alas! alas! how can I be too severe against myself, who, Peter-like, have cut off so many ears, and, by imprudences, mixed with my zeal, have dishonoured the cause of Jesus! I can only look up to Him, who healed the high-priest’s servant’s ear, and say, ‘Lord, heal all the wounds my misguided zeal has given!’ Assure yourself, dear sir, everything I print shall be revised. I always have submitted my poor performances to my friends’ corrections. Time and experience ripen men’s judgments, and make them more solid, rational, and consistent. O that this may be my case!
“I thank you, dear sir, for your solemn charge in respect to my health. Blessed be God! it is much improved since my return from Scotland, and I trust, by observing the rules you prescribe, I shall be enabled to declare the works of the Lord.
“But what shall I say concerning your present trial?[217] I most earnestly sympathise with you, having had the same trial from the same quarter long ago. The Moravians first divided my family; then my parish, in Georgia; and, after that, the Societies which I was an instrument of gathering. I suppose not less than four hundred, through their practices,have left the Tabernacle. But I have been forsaken in other ways. I have not had above a hundred to hear me, where I had twenty thousand; and hundreds now assemble within a quarter of a mile of me, who never come to see or speak to me, though they must own, at the great day, that I was their spiritual father. All this I find but little enough to teach me to cease from man, and to wean me from that too great fondness, which spiritual fathers are apt to have for their spiritual children. But I have generally observed, that, when one door of usefulness is shut, another opens.Our Lord blesses you, dear sir, in your writings;[218] nay, your people’s treating you as they are now permitted to do, perhaps, is one of the greatest blessings you ever received from heaven. I know no other way of dealing with the Moravians, than to go on preaching the truth as it is in Jesus, and resting upon the promise, ‘Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be plucked up.’ Seven years will make a great alteration. I believe their grand design is to extend their economy as far as possible. This is now kept up by dint of money, and, I am apt to think, the very thing, by which they think to establish, will destroy their scheme. God is a gracious Father, and will not always let His children proceed in a wrong way. Doubtless, there are many of His dear little ones in the Moravian flock; but many of their principles and practices are exceeding wrong, for which, I doubt not, our Lord will rebuke them in His own time.
“But I fear that I weary you. Love makes my pen to move too fast, and too long. Last Sunday evening, I preached at the other end of the town, to a most brilliant assembly. They expressed great approbation; and some, I think, begin to feel. Good Lady Huntingdon is a mother in Israel. She is all in a flame for Jesus.”
Whitefield’s remarks concerning the Moravians may, perhaps, seem somewhat harsh; but they were not untrue, and will prepare the reader for other critiques hereafter.
Whitefield mentions his “brilliant assembly” in the mansion of the Countess of Huntingdon. In a letter to the Countess of Bath, he wrote, “It would please you to see the assemblies at her ladyship’s house. They are brilliant ones indeed. The prospect of catching some of the rich, in the gospel net, is very promising.I know you will wish prosperity in the name of the Lord.”[219]