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/221

 experience I find ripen men's judgments, and make them more solid, rational, and consistent, both in their conduct and writings. O that this may be my case! O that the blessed may enable me to hold on, and hold out, and keep me from flagging in the latter stages of my road. I thank you, dear Sir, for your solemn charge in respect to my health. Blessed be, it is much repaired since my return from Scotland, and I trust by observing the rules you prescribe (if I must live) I shall be enabled to declare the works of the. But what shall I say concerning your present trial? shall I wish you joy? Surely I may with great propriety, since an inspired writer hath said, "count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations." But at the same time, reverend Sir, I most earnestly sympathize with you, having had the same trial from the same quarter long ago. The Moravians first divided my family, then my parish at Georgia, and after that the societies which, under, I was an instrument of gathering. I suppose not less than four hundred, through their practices, have left the tabernacle. But I have been forsaken otherways. I have not had above an hundred to hear me, where I had twenty thousand, and hundreds now assemble within a quarter of a mile of me, who never come to see or speak to me; though they must own at the great day that I was their spiritual father. All this I find but little enough to teach me to cease from man, and to wean me from that too great fondness which spiritual fathers are apt to have for their spiritual children. Thus blessed Paul was served, thus must all expect to be treated who are of Paul's spirit, and are honoured with any considerable degree of Paul's success. But I have generally observed, that when one door of usefulness is shut, another opens. Our blesses you, dear Sir, in your writings; nay your people's treating you as they are now permitted to do, perhaps is one of the greatest blessings you ever received from heaven. May patience have its perfect work, and may you be enabled to sanctify the in your heart! I know of no other way of dealing with the Ms, than to go on preaching the truth as it is in, and rest upon that promise, "Every plant which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be plucked up." Seven years will make a great