_To the Honourable Lady T――――._
_London, Nov. 19, 1748._
_Honoured Madam_,
WHEN I was lately in _Scotland_, Col. _G――――ly_ wrote me word, that
your Ladyship was pleased to desire my poor prayers. Before his writing,
they had been put up to the throne of grace in behalf of your Ladyship
very frequently; and I would then have written to your Ladyship, had
I not feared it would have been making too free. Yesterday good Lady
_H――――n_ informed me that your Ladyship was ill. Had I judged it proper,
I would have waited upon your Ladyship this morning. But I was cautious
of intruding. However, the regard I bear to your Ladyship, constrains
me to inform your Ladyship, that my heart’s desire and prayer to GOD
is, that this sickness may not be unto death, but to his glory, and
the present and eternal good of your better part, your precious and
immortal soul. This, no doubt, is the end of afflictions: GOD’s name
and nature is Love. He cannot, therefore, chastise us for any other
purpose, than that we may be made partakers of his holiness.――Every
cross and disappointment, every degree of pain, brings this important
call with it, “My son, my daughter, give me thy heart.” O that your
Ladyship’s soul may echo back, “My heart, LORD JESUS, will I give.”
O that from a feeling, spiritual, abiding sense of the vanity and
emptiness of all created good, you may, in a holy resentment, cry out,
_Be gone, vain world, my heart resign,_
_For I must be no longer thine:_
_A nobler, a diviner guest,_
_Now claims possession of my breast!_
Then, and not till then, will your Ladyship’s mind be at unity with
itself. Then, and not till then, will your Ladyship, upon truly
rational principles, with chearfulness wait for the approach of death,
and the coming of the LORD from heaven. It is faith in JESUS, a true
and living faith in the Son of GOD, that can alone bring present, real
peace, and lay a solid foundation for future and eternal comfort. I
cannot wish your Ladyship any thing greater, any thing more noble, than
a large share of this precious faith: and a large, yea a very large
share, is the glorious Redeemer ready to give to all that sincerely ask
for, and seek after it. He waits to be gracious. He giveth liberally;
he upbraideth not. When, like _Noah_’s dove, we have been wandering
about in a fruitless search after happiness, and have found no rest
for the sole of our feet, he is ready to reach out his merciful hand,
and receive us into his ark. This hand, honoured madam, is he reaching
out to you. May you be constrained to give your heart entirely to him,
and thereby enter into that rest which remains for the happy, though
despised people of GOD. But whither am I going? I forget that your
Ladyship is indisposed, and I almost a stranger to you. I will only
make this apology: “The love of JESUS constrains me.” Hoping, therefore,
your Ladyship will excuse the freedom I have here taken, I beg leave to
subscribe myself, honoured madam,
Your Ladyship’s most obliged humble servant,
_G. W._