“London, August 8, 1767. God be praised, if another of your brothers is gained! What grace is this! Four or five out of one family! It is scarcely to be paralleled. Who knows but the root, as well as the branches, may be taken by and by. Steadiness and perseverance, in the children, will be one of the best means, under God, of convincing the parents. Their present opposition, I think, cannot last very long. If it does, to obey God rather than man, when forbidden to do what is undoubted duty, is the invariable rule. Our dear Penty[579] is under the cross at Cambridge; but crescit sub pondere. I should be glad if any one’s exhibition was taken from him for visiting the sick, etc.[580] It would vastly tend to the furtherance of the Gospel; but Satan sees too far, I imagine, to play such a game now. Let him do his work—he is only a mastiff chained. Continue to inform me how he barks, and how far he is permitted to go in your parts; and God’s people shall be more and more stirred up to pray for you all, by yours, in our all-conquering Emmanuel,
“George Whitefield.”[581]
“London, August 26, 1767. Go to Jesus. Learn to pray of the threatened apostles. (Acts iv. 23–30.) I am afraid they will only threaten. If an expulsion should be permitted, it will take place, I believe, only for a little time, and will soon be repented of. Thousands of prayers were put up for you last Monday, at the Tabernacle letter-day. The verses sung were these:—
‘Give him thy strength, O God of pow’r!
Then, let men rage and devils roar,
Thy faithful witness he shall be:
’Tis fixed, he can do all through Thee.’”
While Whitefield was acquiring new friends, he was faithful to his old. The friendship between him and Wesley was never tenderer than now. During the month of August, Wesley held his annual Conference, in London, and wrote:—
“1767, August 18. Tuesday. I met in Conference with our assistants and a select number of preachers. To these were added, on Thursday and Friday, Mr. Whitefield, Howell Harris, and many stewards and local preachers. Love and harmony reigned from the beginning to the end.”[582]
Such a re-union of old friends, fellow-labourers, and fellow-sufferers, must have been delightful. A trio, like Wesley, Whitefield, and Howell Harris, was a sight worth seeing,—three great reformers, because three great revivers of pure and undefiled religion.