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/321

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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.

LETTER DCCCVIII. To Lady H——n.


Honoured Madam, London, Jan. 12, 1750.

THOUGH I have missed two posts, yet the only cause of my not writing was a fear of being troublesome, and too particular and prolix in the accounts sent your Ladyship in my last letters. Your Ladyship's kind letter this afternoon, together with the inclosed, which I received yesterday, give me fresh occasion to renew that pleasing employ of acquaint-