George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

Huntingdon :
The
LORD BOLINGBROKE 251
Duchess of Argyll, Lady Betty Campbell,
Bubb Doddington, George Selwyn, the Duchess of Montagu,
Lady Cardigan, Lord Townshend, Charles Townshend, Mr.
Lyttleton, Mr. Pitt, Lord North, Lord Sandwich. The
doctrines which Whitefield taught found other believers
besides the Countess. The first Earl of Bath, formerly Mr.
Pulteney, was one of these. Lord St. John, half-brother of
Bolingbroke, seems to have been a convert. His last words,
spoken to the clergyman who attended him, were, ' To God I
commit myself ; I feel how unworthy I am ; but He died to
save sinners, and the prayer of my heart now to Him is, God
be merciful to me a sinner.' Bolingbroke was only moved so \1
far by his brother's death as to offer himself as a champion of
the Calvinistic doctrines ; not that he cared for them, but they
had a philosophical side, and he would not object to stand as
the philosopher of Calvinistic Methodism. ' You may com- .
mand my pen when you will,' he said to the Countess ;
shall be drawn in your service. For, admitting the Bible to
be true, I shall have little apprehension of maintaining the
doctrines of predestination and grace against all your revilers.'
What would have been the issue of a contest between Wesley
and his lordship on the five points ?
The eccentric Lady Townshend was one of the first to
admire Whitefield's oratory ; and probably she did so quite as
much because such admiration was unusual among her friends
as because the oratory was noble and commanding. When
her freakish fancy pointed to an opposite course, she was
equally ready to dislike and disparage her favourite. With
equal facility could she turn Papist as Methodist ; a cathedral
or a tabernacle for her place of worship, it mattered not which,
if she pleased her whim. Once Whitefield cherished some
hope of her conversion, through a serious illness which she
had; and as late as 1775, Lady Huntingdon wrote to her,
' it V