_To Lady H――――n._
_London, Dec. 22, 1752._
_Ever-honoured Madam_,
WITH great pleasure I received your Ladyship’s letter, which hath drawn
me to the Father of Spirits, that the meek, lowly, loving, zealous, and
heavenly-minded temper which was in CHRIST JESUS, may be stamped more
and more upon your Ladyship’s heart. A growth in these blessed graces
and fruits of the divine Spirit, I am persuaded is what your Ladyship
desires above all things under heaven, and I doubt not but all the
trials and afflictions you meet with, both from friends and foes, will
be sanctified to the promoting this glorious end. Many of these I meet
with; but if I come purified out of the furnace, and am at length any
way conformed to my dear and blessed Exemplar, I rejoice, yea and will
rejoice. Experience, if attended with this effect, cannot be bought too
dear. But alas, how unwilling is the old man to be crucified and slain!
How hard is even the mind that is renewed in part, how hard to be
brought off low and selfish and party views. With how much reluctance
doth it give up the uppermost place, and submit to be accounted in the
church, as well as in the world, less than the least of all. Yet this
is a lesson the witnesses of JESUS must learn. O that I had learnt only
my A B C in it! I beg the continuance of your Ladyship’s prayers, for
which I thank your Ladyship a thousand times. May the LORD of all lords
return them seven-fold into your bosom, and give your Ladyship success
in your endeavours to serve the persons mentioned in your last! It is
but for your Ladyship to try. I shall observe your Ladyship’s hints
about Mr. ――――. I believe our visits will not be very frequent.――But I
am easy, having no scheme, no design of supplanting or resenting, but I
trust a single eye to promote the common salvation, without so much as
attempting to set up a party for myself. This is what my soul abhors.
Being thus minded, I have peace; peace which the world knows nothing of,
and which all must necessarily be strangers to, who are fond either of
power or numbers. GOD be praised for the many strippings I have met
with: it is good for me that I have been supplanted, despised, censured,
maligned, judged by, and separated from my nearest, dearest friends. By
this I have found the faithfulness of him, who is the friend of friends;
by this I have been taught to wrap myself in the glorious _Emmanuel_’s
everlasting righteousness, and to be content that He, to whom all
hearts are open, and all desires are known, now sees, and will let all
see hereafter, the uprightness of my intentions towards all mankind.
But whither am I going? I run too fast. Your Ladyship’s kind letter
hath extorted this from me. I will weary your Ladyship no longer, but
hasten to subscribe myself, what I really am, ever-honoured Madam,
Your Ladyship’s most dutiful, obliged, and very
chearful servant for CHRIST’s sake,
_G. W._