"As for the other assembly you are pleased to mention, 'tis contrary to my will, having never given my consent to it, nor approved of it, but discouraged it before your reverendship came to this town; and, if these cudgellers persist in it, I shall set them upon the same level with you, and think you all breakers of the public peace. You very well know there are penal laws against cursing and swearing, and I could wish there were the same against deceit and hypocrisy. "Your appearing against me as a swift witness, at the day of judgment, I must own, is a most terrible thing, and may serve as a bugbear for children, or people of weak minds; but, believe me, reverend sir, those disguises will have but little weight amongst men of common understanding. "Yours, "JOHN ABBOT." To this Whitefield returned the following reply:-- "BASINGSTOKE, _July 20, 1739_. "HONOURED SIR--Does Mr. Mayor do well to be angry? Alas! what evil have I done? I honour you as a magistrate; but, as a minister, I am obliged to have no respect of persons. Your _apprehending_ my meetings to be unlawful, does not make them so. There is no need of a toleration to protect me, when I do not act unconformable to any law, civil or ecclesiastical. Be pleased to prove that my meetings are schismatical, seditious, or riotous, and then I will submit. "But you say they are upon unconsecrated ground. Honoured sir, give me leave to inform you, that God is not now confined to places. Where two or three are gathered together in Christ's name, there will Christ be in the midst of them. The Church, by our ministers in their prayer before their sermons, is defined to be, not the church walls, but a congregation of Christian people. Such is mine. "As for judging me, to my own Master I stand or fall. At His dreadful tribunal I will meet you; and then you shall see what is in the heart of, honoured sir, your very humble servant, "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."