_To W―――― P――――, Esq._
_At my Tottenham-Court Bethel, Six in the Morning,
December 30, 1766._
_My very dear Sir_,
THE _Christmas_ holiday season hath prevented my sending an immediate
answer to your last kind letter. The order therein given shall be
readily complied with, and the love therein expressed, returned, by
praying for the writer’s whole self, and the honourable, christian, and
ministerial circle with which they are at present happily surrounded
with, _four Methodist parsons_. Honourable title! so long as attended
with the cross. When fashionable, (and blessed be GOD there is not much
danger of that) we will drop it. _Four Methodist parsons!_ enough (when
JESUS says, Loose them and let them go) to set a whole kingdom on fire
for GOD. I wish them prosperity in the name of the LORD. _I pre sequar
etsi non passibus æquis._ Fy upon me, fy upon me, fifty-two years old
last _Saturday_; and yet, O loving, ever-loving, altogether lovely
JESUS, how little, yea how very little have I done and suffered for
thee! Indeed and indeed, my dear and honoured friends, I am ashamed
of myself: I blush and am confounded. To-morrow, GOD willing, and
_Thursday_ also, with many hundreds more, I intend to take the
sacrament upon it, that I will begin to begin to be a christian. Though
I long to go to heaven to see my glorious Master, what a poor figure
shall I make among the saints, confessors, and martyrs, that surround
his throne, without some deeper signatures of his divine impress,
without more fears of christian honour. Our truly noble mother in
_Israel_, is come to _London_ full of them. _Crescit sub pondere virtus.
_ She is come out of her cell, with her face shining again. Happy they
who have the honour of her acquaintance! Highly honoured are those
ministers, who have the honour of preaching for and serving her. Good
and honest and dearly beloved Sir _C――――s_, and all your happy circle,
male and female, I am persuaded are of my mind. O this single eye,
this disinterested spirit, this freedom from worldly hopes and worldly
fears, this flaming zeal, this daring to be singularly good, this holy
laudable ambition to lead the van; O it is, what? an heaven upon earth!
O for a plerophory of faith! To be filled with the Holy Ghost. This
is the grand point. GOD be praised that you have it in view! All our
lukewarmness, all our timidity, all our backwardness to do good, to
spend and be spent for GOD, is all owing to our want of more of that
faith, which is the inward, heart-felt, self-evident demonstration of
things not seen. But whither am I going? Pardon me, good Sir: I keep
you from better company. Praying that all (if you live to be fifty-two)
may not be such dwarfs in the divine life as I am, I hasten to
subscribe myself, most honoured friends,
Yours, &c. &c. &c. in JESUS,
_G. W._