Page:The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., late of Pembroke-College, Oxford, and Chaplain to the Rt. Hon. the Countess of Huntingdon (1771 Volume 2).djvu/318

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LETTER DCCCV.

To Lady H——n.


Honoured Madam, London, Jan. 6, 1750.

THE inclosed letters came to hand on Monday last, as a new-year's-gift. As they bring such good news, I must communicate them to your Ladyship. The first writer is a Virginia planter, at whose house I lay, and who with some other gentlemen asked me to play a game at cards: I refused, and retired to pray for him. His present wife is my spiritual child. The letters will shew how God was pleased to answer our prayers. This, and other things I meet with, more and more convinces me, that a liberty to range and publish the gospel wherever providence shall call me, is what I am to maintain and preserve. Mr. A—— abides still, and as far as I can judge, disinterested. Blessed be God for stripping seasons! I would not lose the privilege of leaning only upon the Lord Jesus for thousands of worlds. He alone can make me happy, and he alone without foreign assistance can bless; and blessed be his name, he daily makes me so. He has been pleased to remove in some degree the pain of my breast, and gives me to determine more and more, that every breath I draw by divine assistance shall be his. I thank him ten thousand times that your Ladyship is so well pleased with Mr. B——. He expresses the strong sense he has of the obligations he lies under to the Lord Jesus Christ, and under him, to your Ladyship. O that neither of us may prove ungrateful in any respect! Next week I hope to let your Ladyship know how affairs go at Mrs. K——'s. I expect to see her then. Lately his Majesty seeing Lady Chesterfield at court with a grave gown, pleasantly asked her, "whether Mr. Whitefield advised her to that colour." O that all were cloathed in the bright and spotless robe of the Redeemer's righteousness! How beautiful would they then appear in the sight of the King of kings! This, honoured Madam, through free grace, is your dress. That your honoured sisters, and all your children, may be