Thousands said, ‘Amen, and amen!’ Let me know when you set out for Newcastle, and whether the books shall be sent by land or water. I get very little by them. I do not desire it should be otherwise. I believe, as many are given away as answer to the profits of what are sold. If souls are profited, I desire no more.”
The reading of letters, at stated times, respecting revivals of the work of God, was an established practice, both in Whitefield’s Tabernacle and Wesley’s Foundery. The chief difference between the two places was—in the Tabernacle, each letter was followed by the singing of hymns, of which the lines just given are too good a specimen; in the Foundery, the hymns sung were some of the finest that Charles Wesley ever wrote.
The poor Methodists at Cork were again in the furnace of affliction. Butler, the ballad singer, was as violent as ever; and, until the Lent assizes, pursued his murderous career with increasing zest. Accompanied by his mob, he several times assaulted the house of William Jewell, a clothier; and, at last, took forcible possession of it, swore he would blow out the brains of the first who resisted him, beat Jewell’s wife, and then smashed all the windows. He abused Mary Philips in the grossest terms, and struck her on the head. Elizabeth Gardelet was literally almost murdered by him and his ruffians; and others were similarly abused. On January 3, 1750, Whitefield wrote:—
“Mr. Lunell sends me dreadful news from Cork. Butler is there again,making havoc of the people. Mr. Haughton,[260] some time ago, expectedto be murdered every minute. I have been with some who will go to the Speaker of the House of Commons and represent the case. I hope I have but one common interest to serve; I mean that of the blessed Jesus.”
On January 5, at the Tabernacle, Whitefield preached a sermon from Ephes. iv. 24. The sermon was taken down in shorthand, and, after his death, was published, with the title, “The putting on of the New Man a certain mark of the real Christian.” (8vo. 30 pp.) The sermon is not in Whitefield’s collected works, but furnishes a good idea of the popular style he adopted. It is full of brief illustrations, and is intensely earnest; the style plain, familiar, and pointed. Three sentences may interest the reader. “Let me tell you, no matter whether you are Presbyterian or Independent, Churchman or Dissenter, Methodist or no Methodist, unless you are new creatures, you are in a state of damnation” (p. 17). “I like orthodoxy very well; but what signifies an orthodox head with a heterodox heart?” (p. 19.) “I tell thee, O man; I tell thee, O woman, whoever thou art, thou art a dead man, thou art a dead woman, nay, a damned man, a damned woman, without a new heart” (p. 27).
Whitefield, about this time, became acquainted with another clergyman, who was a man after his own heart. The Rev. William Baddiley had been made one of Lady Huntingdon’s domestic chaplains. He soon became a sort of second Grimshaw, formed a number of Societies,and employed laymen to assist him.[262] To him, Whitefield wrote as follows:—
“London, January 12, 1750.
“My very dear Sir,—I now sit down to answer your kind letter. O that I may be helped to write something that may do you service in the cause in which you are embarked!
“I see you are like to have hot work, 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 man continually sets up; and the not falling down to worship it, much more to speak, write, or preach against it, exposes one to the fury of its blind votaries, and we are thrown directly into a den of lions. But fear not, Mr. Baddiley; the God whomwe serve is able to deliver us. If any one need give way, it must be the poor creature who is writing to you; for, I believe, there is not a person living more timorous by nature than I am. But, in a degree, Jesus has delivered me from worldly hopes and worldly fears, and often makes me as bold as a lion. But, my dear sir, at first, I did not care to part with this pretty character of mine. It was death to be despised, and worse than death to think of being laughed at. Blessed be God! now contempt and I are pretty intimate, and have been so for above twice seven years. The love of Jesus makes it an agreeable companion, and I no longer wonder that Moses made such a blessed choice. 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 you will be hated by Satan, and despised by those who know not God.’ What has the honoured lady suffered under whose roof you dwell! Above all, what did your blessed Master suffer! O let us follow Him, though it be through a sea of blood.”
On the same day that Whitefield wrote to her domestic chaplain, he wrote to the Countess herself. Perhaps it ought to be premised that, at this time, Wesley had, besides the “Old Foundery,” two other London chapels—one in West Street, Seven Dials, built by the French Protestants; the other in Snowfields, Bermondsey, built by a Unitarian. The “Mr. Gifford,” whom Whitefield mentions, was a man of some importance. Besides being the respected minister of the Baptist Church, in Eagle Street, London, he was chaplain to Sir Richard Ellys, the learned author of “Fortuita Sacra.” He had a private collection of coins, said to have been one of the most curious in Great Britain, and which George II. purchased as an addition to his own. Through Sir Richard Ellys, he became a personal friend of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, Archbishop Herring, Sir Arthur Onslow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and other persons of high social rank. He was also ultimately appointed librarian of the British Museum, and was made a doctor by the University of Aberdeen.