_To the Reverend Mr. B――――._
_London, Jan. 12, 1750._
_My very dear Sir_,
LEST I should be hindered to-morrow, or in the beginning of the week,
I now sit down to answer your kind letter. O that I may be helped to
write something that may do you service, and be a means of quickening
you in that delightful cause in which you are embarked. I see, my dear
Sir, you are like to have hot work, before you quit the field:――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 that apostate _Nebuchadnezzar_, Man, continually sets up; and the
not falling down to worship it, but much more for us to speak, write,
or preach against it, exposes one immediately to the fury of its blind
votaries, and we are thrown directly into a den of devouring lions.
But fear not, Mr. _B――――_, the GOD whom we serve, the captain under
whose banner we are listed, is able to deliver us. He knows how to
train us up gradually for war, and is engaged to bring us off more than
conquerors from the field of battle. If any one need give way, it must
be the poor creature that is writing to you, for I believe there is
not a person living, more timorous by nature. But I trust in a degree,
JESUS hath delivered me from worldly hopes and worldly fears, and by
his grace strengthening me, he makes me often bold as a lion. But O,
my dear Sir, this pretty character of mine I did not at first care to
part with; ’twas death to be despised, and worse than death to think of
being laughed at by all. But when I began to consider Him who endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself, I then longed to drink
of the same cup, and blessed be GOD, contempt and I are pretty intimate,
and have been so for above twice seven years. JESUS’s love makes it a
very agreeable companion, and I no longer wonder that _Moses_ made such
a blessed choice, and rather chose to suffer affliction with the people
of GOD, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. May the LORD
JESUS make us thus minded! For 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 hated you will be by Satan, and the more
despised you will be by those that know not GOD.” What has the honoured
Lady suffered under whose roof you dwell! Above all, what did your
blessed master suffer, who hath done such great things for you? O let
us follow him, though it be through a sea of blood. I could enlarge,
but time will not permit. I am ashamed of my unprofitableness, and must
retire, after begging that you will not forget, reverend and dear Sir,
Yours, &c.
_G. W._