one might almost think was written at Whitefield'sside. The tenderness of John, and the "weeping" of Paul, were blended in him with the boldness of Peter. The love that agonized in the garden of Gethsemane, and bled on the cross of Calvary, was largely diffused through all his powers.
Thirdly,the direct address of his ministry. The characteristic mode of his preaching, and the style of his public ministrations, was, to direct his appeal to the hearts and consciences of his hearers, and to "preachtothe people all the words of this life." It was not an haranguebeforethem. It was not an oration beautifully prepared, read, or delivered in their hearing, and presented simply for their acceptance and admiration; but a direct address, an affectionate appeal, a solemn and earnest communication of the message he had received from God to them. Oh, we have sometimes thought, what a marked difference there ought to be between the ministrations of a servant of Christ to his fellow-immortals, on things of eternal importance in which they are personally and deeply concerned, and the delivery of a lecture from the philosopher's desk, or even of a dissertation on theology from the professorial chair. So thought the apostles. So thought the prophets and public teachers of sacred mysteries of old. They had the "burden of the Lord" to deliver, and it wasuntothe people. They had an embassy to execute, and it was by negotiating directly with, and in the consciences of their hearers. Whitefield caught their spirit, proceeded in their way, and did such mighty execution, not by the mere symmetrical illustration of divine truth, but by the direct presentation of it to theirminds. They had not to ask, "For whom is all this intended?" and, "Is it designed for us?" They felt that it was. It came home to their consciences, and to their very hearts. They could not transfer it to others, nor avoid the application of it to themselves. Had the preacher called them by name, which in his skilful delineation of character, he sometimes virtually did, they could not have been more certain that he intended it for them, and that it was at their peril to neglect or pass it by. "I have a message from God unto thee," he substantially said in every discourse he uttered, and the people were compelled to believe it. "Go, and tell this people," said the divine voice to Isaiah, "Ye hear indeed, but do not understand; ye see indeed, but do not perceive." "Therefore," said Peter, "let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus,whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." "Now then," said Paul, "we are ambassadors for Christ; as though God did beseechyouby us, we prayyou, in Christ's stead,be yereconciled to God." Such was the tenor of the apostolic ministry. Such the secret of its mighty power and success. And such also was the characteristic of the faithful and seraphic Whitefield, by which he knocked at the door of many hearts, and those hearts were opened to him, to his message, and to his Lord. His plan was that of heavenly wisdom; his appeal was the same. "Unto you, O men, I call, and my voice is to the sons of men." In him were verified the poet's graphic lines:
"There stands the messenger of truth; there standsThe legate of the skies: his theme divine,His office sacred, his credentials clear.By him the violated law speaks outIts thunders; and by him, in strains as sweetAs angels use, the gospel whispers peace.He stablishes the strong, restores the weak,Reclaims the wanderer, binds the broken heart,And sues the sinner to return to God."
Fourthly,his habitual dependence on the Spirit of God, and his earnest aspirations for the manifestation of his power. That he was conscious of his own superior talents as an orator, and knew how to employ them on sacred themes; that he skilfully wielded all the weapons of a well-studied eloquence to gain access to the human mind, and knew both how to alarm and how to persuade, and could attempt both with as much success probably as any speaker, either of ancient or modern times; that he had a large and minute acquaintance with the powers and passions of the human soul, and knew well when and how to touch the hidden springs of its energies and actions; that he had a good amount of common and sacred learning at his command, and like that Apollos whom among the early teachers of Christianity he most resembled, was "mighty in the Scriptures;" and that he delighted to expatiate on the wonders and glories of redemption as a restorative scheme preëminently adapted to interest and attract, to impress and rule our common nature—are facts open to all who inspect his writings and accompany him in his labors, and will be denied by none. But with all these, and amid all, in every sermon he composed and delivered, and in his most impassioned addresses to his hearers, there is manifested an underlying and all-pervading dependence on the power andgrace of the Spirit of God, which was in character, if not in degree, meek, humble, genuine, entire, like that of the most eminent apostle or adoring saint at the foot of the divine throne. With him it was not merely a sentiment, but a feeling; and that feeling constant and habitual, as it was in him who in the review of his labors said, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." He knew that none but the almighty Spirit could gain effectual access to the spirit of man; and that not even a Melancthon, a Luther, or a Whitefield, could make old Adam yield, unless constrained by a superior power. He seemed to stand in the valley of vision among the dry bones, as the prophet did, and while he addressed them with something like a prophet's power, he had no expectation or hope of success until the wind of heaven came down and blew upon them. Therefore he prophesied to it as well as to them. "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon the slain, that they may live," was often the mighty cry of his soul, before preaching, while preaching, and after preaching. It seemed to be his joy, his only, his all-sustaining confidence, that he lived under "the dispensation of the Spirit," and wrought in a day, and preached upon a theme, in connection with which "the ministration of the Spirit" was to be "glorious," by his wonderful works of conviction, conversion, and sanctification, among the children of men. To that Spirit, as the glorifier of Christ, he often devoutly and earnestly appealed. Sometimes, in the midst of an unusual flow of tender and eloquent address to his hearers on his favorite theme of the glories and graceof his divine Master, he would pause in solemn silence, and lifting up his hands and his voice to heaven, and carrying the hearts of his audience with him, invoke aloud the descending and all-consuming fire. The present God was acknowledged and felt. The word came "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." And while the habitual aim of his preaching was to exalt "Christ Jesus the Lord," and while he reasoned, and opened the Scriptures, and taught and alarmed or invited his hearers, in the most touching strains of urgent remonstrance and tender entreaty, to accept now "the great salvation," the inward state of his soul was that of entire reliance on the presence and coöperation of the Holy Spirit of God. To him were sent up his most intense aspirations. In all the records of his success, to that Spirit the honor is always ascribed. "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me," is the grateful acknowledgment he makes in the review of every field occupied and every triumph won. And thus it was that the fabric of his ministry, and of all his ministrations, in the multitudinous labors which he directed against the kingdom of darkness and of Satan in his day, was like the mystic vision which Ezekiel saw,instinct with life. The spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. "When this went, those went; when this stood, those stood; when this was lifted up from the earth, those were lifted up." It was all life. A living preacher; a living theme; a living power, giving life, and spreading it all around. Therefore it was that life followed in the region of death, and at his coming the desert rejoiced, and the wilderness blossomed as the rose.
"Dry bones were raised, and clothed afresh,And hearts of stone were turned to flesh."
By preaching such as we have now attempted to describe, thousands and tens of thousands were gathered to Christ. "An exceeding great army" stood up. Slumbering churches were awakened, religion was revived, and "righteousness and praise" were caused to "spring forth before all the nations." And as this apostolic man surveyed the amazing scene, and glanced at the wide circumference of his labors, in the British Isles and in the New World, he might have exclaimed, as one before him had done, "Now thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of his name by us in every place." "Through mighty signs and wonders,by the power of the Spirit of God, from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ." "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." Who, in the remembrance of Whitefield and his times, will not long for their return, and exclaim, "Awake, awake; put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days." "O that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence!" Spirit of the living God, descend and replenish with thy power all our souls, our ministry, our temples, our land.
In estimating the character of Whitefield, it should be observed thathe dealt with his hearers, individually and collectively, as immortal beings. To use the language of Isaac Taylor, "he heldMANas if in the abstract, or as if whatever is not common to all men were forgotten. The most extreme diversities, intellectual and moral, differences of rank, culture, national modes of thought, all gave way and ceased to be thought of; distinctions were swept from the ground where he took his position. At the first opening of his lips, and as the rich harmony of his voice spread its undulations over the expanse of human faces, and at the instant when the sparkle of his bright eye caught every other eye, human nature, in a manner, dropped its individuality, and presented itself in its very elements to be moulded anew. Whitefield, although singularly gifted with a perception of the varieties of character, yet spoke as if he could know nothing of the thousands before him but their immortality and their misery; and so it was that these thousands listened to him.
"No preacher whose history is on record, has trod so wide a field as did Whitefield, or has retrod it so often, or has repeated himself so much, or has carried so far the experiment of exhausting himself, and of spending his popularity, if it could have been spent, but it never was spent. Within the compass of a few weeks he might have been heard addressing the negroes of the Bermuda islands, adapting himself to their infantile understandings, and to their debauched hearts; and then at Chelsea, with the aristocracy of rank and wit before him, approving himself to listenerssuch as the lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield. Whitefield might as easily have produced a Hamlet or a Paradise Lost, as have excogitated a sermon which, as a composition, a product of thought, would have tempted men like these to hear him a second time; and as to his faculty and graces as a speaker, his elocution and action, a second performance would have contented them. But in fact Bolingbroke, and many of his class, thought not the hour long, time after time, while, with much sameness ofmaterialand of language, he spoke of eternity and of salvation in Christ.... Floods of tears moistened cheeks rough and smooth; and sighs, suppressed or loudly uttered, gave evidence that human nature is one and the same when it comes in presence of truths which bear upon the guilty and the immortal without distinction."
The Rev. Dr. James Hamilton of London has admirably delineated Whitefield, in a passage which must be admired by all who read it: "Whitefield was the prince of English preachers. Many have surpassed him as sermon-makers, but none have approached him as a pulpit orator. Many have outshone him in the clearness of their logic, the grandeur of their conceptions, and the sparkling beauty of single sentences; but in the power of darting the gospel direct into the conscience, he eclipsed them all. With a full and beaming countenance, and the frank and easy port which the English people love—for it is the symbol of honest purpose and friendly assurance—he combined a voice of rich compass, which could easily thrill over Moorfields in musical thunder, or whisper its terriblesecret in every private ear; and to this gainly aspect and tuneful voice he added a most expressive and eloquent action. Improved by conscientious practice, and instinct with his earnest nature, this elocution was the acted sermon, and by its pantomimic portrait enabled the eye to anticipate each rapid utterance, and helped the memory to treasure up the palatable ideas. None ever used so boldly, nor with more success, the highest styles of impersonation: as when he described to his sailor-auditors a storm at sea, and compelled them to shout, 'Take to the longboat, sir!' His 'hark, hark!' could conjure up Gethsemane with its faltering moon, and awake again the cry of horror-stricken innocence; and an apostrophe to Peter on the holy mount would light up another Tabor, and drown it in glory from the opening heaven. His thoughts were possessions, and his feelings were transformations; and he spoke because he felt, his hearers understood because they saw. They were not only enthusiastic amateurs, like Garrick, who ran to weep and tremble at his bursts of passion, but even the colder critics of the Walpole school were surprised into momentary sympathy and reluctant wonder. Lord Chesterfield was listening in Lady Huntingdon's pew when Whitefield was comparing the benighted sinner to a blind beggar on a dangerous road. His little dog gets away from him when skirting the edge of a precipice, and he is left to explore the path with his iron-shod staff. On the very verge of the cliff this blind guide slips through his fingers and skims away down the abyss. All unconscious, the owner stoops down to regain it, and stumbling forward—'GoodGod, he is gone!' shouted Chesterfield, who had been watching with breathless alarm the blind man's movements, and who jumped from his feet to save the catastrophe.
"But the glory of Whitefield's preaching was his heart-kindled and heart-melting gospel. But for this, all his bold strokes and brilliant surprises might have been no better than the rhetorical triumphs of Kirwan and other pulpit dramatists. He was an orator, but he only sought to be an evangelist. Like a volcano where gold and gems may be darted forth as well as common things, but where gold and molten granite flow all alike in fiery fusion, bright thoughts and splendid images might be projected from his pulpit, but all were merged in the stream which bore along the gospel and himself in blended fervor. Indeed, so simple was his nature, that glory to God and good will to man had filled it; there was room for little more. Having no church to found, no family to enrich, and no memory to immortalize, he was simply the ambassador of God; and inspired with its genial piteous spirit—so full of heaven reconciled and humanity restored—he soon himself became a living gospel. Radiant with its benignity, and trembling with its tenderness, by a sort of spiritual induction a vast audience would speedily be brought into a frame of mind—the transfusing of his own; and the white furrows on their sooty faces told that Kingswood colliers were weeping, or the quivering of an ostrich plume bespoke its elegant wearer's deep emotion. And coming to his pulpit direct from communion with his Master, and in the strength of accepted prayer,there was an elevation in his mien which often paralyzed hostility, and a self-possession which made him amid uproar and confusion the more sublime. With an electric bolt he would bring the jester in his fool's cap from his perch on the tree, or galvanize the brickbat from the skulking miscreant's grasp, or sweep down in crouching submission and shamefaced silence the whole of Bartholomew fair; while a revealing flash of sententious doctrine, of vivified Scripture, would disclose to awe-struck hundreds the forgotten verities of another world, or the unsuspected arcana of their inner man. 'I came to break your head, but, through you, God has broken my heart,' was a sort of confession with which he was familiar; and to see the deaf old gentlewoman who used to mutter imprecations at him as he passed along the streets, clambering up the pulpit stairs to catch his angelic words, was a sort of spectacle which the triumphant gospel often witnessed in his day. And when it is known that his voice could be heard by twenty thousand, and that ranging all the empire, as well as America, he would often preach thrice on a working-day, and that he has received in one week as many as a thousand letters from persons awakened by his sermons, if no estimate can be formed of the results of his ministry, some idea may be suggested of its vast extent and singular effectiveness."
Very admirably has a writer in the North British Review compared and contrasted Whitefield and Wesley. He says, "Few characters could be more completely the converse, and in the church's exigencies,more happily the supplement of one another, than were those of George Whitefield and John Wesley; and had their views been identical, and their labors all along coincident, their large services to the gospel might have repeated Paul and Barnabas. Whitefield was soul, and Wesley was system. Whitefield was a summer cloud which burst at morning or noon a fragrant exhalation over an ample track, and took the rest of the day to gather again; Wesley was the polished conduit in the midst of the garden, through which the living water glided in pearly brightness and perennial music, the same vivid stream from day to day. After a preaching paroxysm, Whitefield lay panting on his couch, spent, breathless, and deathlike; after his morning sermon in the foundry, Wesley would mount his pony, and trot and chat, and gather simples, till he reached some country hamlet, where he would bait his charger, and talk through a little sermon with the villagers, and remount his pony and trot away again. In his aërial poise, Whitefield's eagle eye drank lustre from the source of light, and loved to look down on men in assembled myriads; Wesley's falcon glance did not sweep so far, but it searched more keenly and marked more minutely where it pierced. A master of assemblies, Whitefield was no match for the isolated man. Seldom coping with the multitude, but strong in astute sagacity and personal ascendency, Wesley could conquer any number one by one. All force and impetus, Whitefield was the powder-blast in the quarry, and by one explosive sermon would shake a district, and detach materials for other men's long work—deft, neat, and painstaking,Wesley loved to split and trim each fragment into uniform plinths and polished stones. Or, taken otherwise, Whitefield was the bargeman or the wagoner who brought the timber of the house, and Wesley was the architect who set it up. Whitefield had no patience for ecclesiastical polity, no aptitude for pastoral details—with a beaver-like propensity for building, Wesley was always constructing societies, and with a king-like craft of ruling, was most at home when presiding over a class or a conference. It was their infelicity that they did not always work together—it was the happiness of the age, and the furtherance of the gospel, that they lived alongside of one another."
CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATIONS.
When a century had elapsed from the commencement of Whitefield's public labors, it was deemed desirable by many in England to hold public services of a devotional and practical character, in celebration of the event. Especially was it designed that such celebrations should have a reference, as far as possible, to advance open-air preaching. The first services of this character were very properly held in the Tabernacle, London, on May 21, 1839, and well do we remember with what intense interest, in common with thousands, we attended them. Ministers and laymen of at least four religious denominations assisted in them, and eloquently discoursed on subjects illustrating the grace of God in connection with Whitefield, but still more intent were they on benefiting the presentand future generations of men. Dr. Campbell delivered a sermon on the character and labors of Apollos, illustrated by those of Whitefield; the late Dr. Cox discoursed on the genius and labors of Whitefield; the late Rev. John Blackburn described the past and present state of religion in England; and the Rev. John Young, LL. D., urged the propriety, duty, and necessity of open-air preaching. In addition to these sermons, several admirable speeches were made, and every thing was marked by a spirit of earnest devotion. A small volume, containing the sermons and speeches, was printed, and put into extensive circulation.
About the same time, a number of ministers of the Congregational order met in a central town of Gloucestershire, when one of them suggested, that "as the present year was the centenary of the Rev. George Whitefield's labors in reviving the apostolic practice of open-air preaching, it might be desirable to commemorate them by a special religious open-air celebration. It was further remarked, that Whitefield was a native of Gloucester; that as many ministers present presided over churches instituted by his ministry; that as Stinchcombe hill, in the very centre of the county, presented a most beautiful and eligible spot for a public meeting; and as upon its summit, a century ago, Whitefield himself had preached and showed the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, it seemed a duty to improve the opportunity it offered of addressing, on the gracious persuasives of the cross, a large concourse of persons, many of whom might never hear the gospel, and of promoting in the county the revivalof evangelical religion, which God so highly honored his devoted servant in commencing in our land."
The suggestion was most cordially received, arrangements were made, and, July 30, 1839, though the weather was unfavorable, the meeting was attended by at least seven thousand persons. A large preaching stand was erected for the ministers, nearly one hundred of whom were present. Sermons were preached by the Rev. Drs. Matheson and Ross, and by the Rev. Messrs. T. East, J. H. Hinton, and J. Sibree; and addresses were given, and the devotional exercises led by many others. The services were solemnly impressive. The late Josiah Conder, Esq., wrote two hymns especially for the occasion, which are well worthy of preservation; we therefore transfer them to our pages.
I.
How sweet from crowded throngs,Zion, ascend thy songs,With choral swells through echoing aisles!Where brethren, brethren meet,These songs rise doubly sweet,From humbler rooms or loftier piles.But here, not made with hands,A nobler temple stands;Here, 'mid thy works, O God, we bow,Where all around, above,Proclaims thy power and love;Oh, tune our hearts to praise thee now.We bless thy gracious care,For many a house of prayer,Where saints may meet with conscience free,To keep thy simple rites,In which thy church delights,And unforbidden, wait on thee.But now, beneath the sky,We raise our songs on high,To Him who gave all nature birth;While the free air wafts roundTo distant vales the sound—Praise to the Lord of heaven and earth.So to the mountain airThe Saviour breathed his prayer;So 'mid green hills or deserts rude,The poor he meekly taught,And gracious wonders wrought,Or fed the famished multitude.So did apostles teach;So did our Whitefield preach;These hills have heard his fervent prayer:Oh, let the saving wordThroughout our land be heard,Free as the light, and open as the air.
How sweet from crowded throngs,Zion, ascend thy songs,With choral swells through echoing aisles!Where brethren, brethren meet,These songs rise doubly sweet,From humbler rooms or loftier piles.
But here, not made with hands,A nobler temple stands;Here, 'mid thy works, O God, we bow,Where all around, above,Proclaims thy power and love;Oh, tune our hearts to praise thee now.
We bless thy gracious care,For many a house of prayer,Where saints may meet with conscience free,To keep thy simple rites,In which thy church delights,And unforbidden, wait on thee.
But now, beneath the sky,We raise our songs on high,To Him who gave all nature birth;While the free air wafts roundTo distant vales the sound—Praise to the Lord of heaven and earth.
So to the mountain airThe Saviour breathed his prayer;So 'mid green hills or deserts rude,The poor he meekly taught,And gracious wonders wrought,Or fed the famished multitude.
So did apostles teach;So did our Whitefield preach;These hills have heard his fervent prayer:Oh, let the saving wordThroughout our land be heard,Free as the light, and open as the air.
II.
Where is the voice of Whitefield now?Where does his mantle rest?Oh, for Elisha's from the plough,With kindred zeal possessed!Apostles of heroic mould,With love seraphic fired,Divinely called, like those of oldAt Pentecost inspired!OhThou, our Head, enthroned on high,By whom thy members live,Wilt thou not hear our fervent cry,The holy unction give?In all the plenitude of graceThy gifts of might bestow;And by us, Lord, in every place,Thy saving virtue show.This Christian land with error teems,The blind by blinder led;The sophist weaves his Atheist schemes;Wide has the poison spread.Arise, O Lord, send forth thy word;Thy faithful heralds call;And while the gospel trump is heard,Let Satan's bulwarks fall.Free, pure, and vital as the light,God'smessage to our race;Like genial gales theSpirit'smight,Sovereign, mysterious grace.Breathe forth, O wind, and to new birthQuicken the bones of death;Regenerate this withered earth;Give to the dying breath.
Where is the voice of Whitefield now?Where does his mantle rest?Oh, for Elisha's from the plough,With kindred zeal possessed!Apostles of heroic mould,With love seraphic fired,Divinely called, like those of oldAt Pentecost inspired!
OhThou, our Head, enthroned on high,By whom thy members live,Wilt thou not hear our fervent cry,The holy unction give?In all the plenitude of graceThy gifts of might bestow;And by us, Lord, in every place,Thy saving virtue show.
This Christian land with error teems,The blind by blinder led;The sophist weaves his Atheist schemes;Wide has the poison spread.Arise, O Lord, send forth thy word;Thy faithful heralds call;And while the gospel trump is heard,Let Satan's bulwarks fall.
Free, pure, and vital as the light,God'smessage to our race;Like genial gales theSpirit'smight,Sovereign, mysterious grace.Breathe forth, O wind, and to new birthQuicken the bones of death;Regenerate this withered earth;Give to the dying breath.
It is pleasant to add to this account, that satisfactory evidences were given that some, during these services, were brought to the saving knowledge of "the truth as in Jesus." And it may be mentioned as a singular circumstance, that an old man one hundred and three years of age attended on this occasion, who had been carried in his mother's arms to this same spot to hear Whitefield preach just a century before.
The last centenary service to which we shall make reference, is the one held at theBristolTabernacle, November 25, 1853. The sermon onThe Character of Whitefield, by the Rev. John Angell James, was from the text, "This one thing I do." Phil. 3:13. In it he said:
"We hear much in our days about the adaptation of the gospel to the age. There is no word I more hate or love, dread or desire, according to the sensein, or the purpose for which it is used, than this wordadaptationas applied to preaching. Now, if by adaptation be meant, more philosophy, and less Christianity; more of cold abstract intellectualism, and less of popular, simple, earnest statement of gospel truth; more profound discussion and artificial elaboration addressed to the learned few, and less of warm-hearted appeal to the multitude, may God preserve us from such adaptation, for it is high-treason against truth and the salvation of souls. But if by this be meant a stronger intelligence, a chaster composition, a sterner logic, a more powerful rhetoric, a more correct criticism, and a more varied illustration, but all employed to set forth the gospel as comprehending those two great words,redemption and regeneration, let us have it; we need it; and come in ever such abundance, it will be a blessing.
"Adaptation! the gospel is adaptation, from beginning to end, to every age of time, and to all conditions of humanity. It is God's own adaptation. It is he who knows every ward of the lock of man's nature, who has constructed this admirable key; and all the miserable tinkering of a vain and deceitful philosophy can make no better key, nor can all the attempts of a philosophizing theology make this key better fit the wards of the lock.
"Adaptation! was not the gospel in all its purity and simplicity adapted to human nature as it existed in commercial, scholastic, philosophical Corinth? And did not Paul think so when he determined to know nothing there, but 'Christ, and him crucified?' Was it not by this very gospel, which manyare "beginning to imagine is not suited to an intellectual and philosophical age, that Christianity fought its first battles, and achieved its victories over the hosts of darkness? Against the axe, the stake, the sword of the gladiator, and the lions of the amphitheatre; against the ridicule of wits, the reasoning of sages, the interests, influence, and craft of the priesthood; against the prowess of armies, and the brute passions of the mob, Christianity, strong in its weakness, sublime in its simplicity, potent in its isolation, asking and receiving no protection from the sceptre of the monarch or the sword of the warrior, went forth to do battle with the wisdom of Greece and the mythology of Rome. Everywhere it prevailed, and gathered its laurels from the snows of Scythia, the sands of Africa, the plains of India, and the green fields of Europe. With the gospel alone she overturned the altars of impiety in her march. Power felt his arm wither at her glance. She silenced the lying oracles by the majesty of her voice, and extinguished the deceptive light of philosophy in the schools, till at length she who went forth forlorn and weeping from Calvary to the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, ascended, upon the ruins of the temples, the idols, and the altars she had demolished, to the throne of the Cæsars, and with the diadem on her brow, and the purple on her shoulders, gave laws to the world from that very tribunal where she had been dragged as a criminal and condemned as a malefactor.[3]
"Adaptation! is not justification by faith the very substance of the gospel, and was it not by thisdoctrine that Luther effected the enfranchisement of the human intellect, from the chains of slavery which had been forged in the Vatican; achieved the liberation of half Europe from the yoke of Rome, and gave an impulse to human thought and vital Christianity which has not yet spent itself, and never will, till it issues in the jubilee of the nations and the glories of the millennium?
"Adaptation! did not Whitefield move this kingdom almost to its centre, and equally so our then great transatlantic colony to its extremities, fascinating alike the colliers of Kingswood and the citizens of the metropolis; and by this mighty theme enable myriads to burst the chains of sin and Satan, and to walk abroad disenthralled by the mighty power of redeeming grace?
"Adaptation! is not this gospel now proving its power in heathen countries to raise the savage into civilized man, the civilized man into the saint, and in this ascending scale of progression, the saint into the seraph?
"And yet, with these proofs of the power of the gospel to adapt itself to every age of the world, and to every condition of humanity, there are those who want something else to effect the regeneration of mankind. 'And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.' So said the Saviour of men. The cross is the great moral magnet for all ages and all countries, to draw men from barbarism to civilization, from sin to holiness, from misery to happiness, and from earth to heaven; and it were as rational to say the loadstone had lost its original power of polarattraction, and the mariner's compass is an old, stale invention, and must now be replaced with some new device, better adapted to the modern light of science, as to suppose that the doctrine of the cross had become effete, and must give way to some new phase of theological truth.
"I now consider themannerin which Whitefield carried out his own purpose into action. 'One thing I do:' andhowdid he accomplish it?
"Never was the joyful sound sent over the world by a more magnificentvoice. All his biographers labor, as do the historians of Greece in describing the power of Demosthenes, to make us understand his wondrous oratory. Perhaps, after all, that which gives us the most vivid idea of it is, not thecrowdsit attracted, moved, and melted, but that it warmed the cold and calculating Franklin, and fascinated the philosophical and sceptical Hume. Heaven rarely ever gave, or gives to man the faculty of speech in such perfection. But what is particularly worthy of notice is, that he trusted not to its native power, but increased that power by assiduous cultivation. His matchless elocution was not only an endowment, but an acquirement. If he preached a sermon twenty times, he went on to the last improving his method of delivering it, both as to tones and action; not for theatrical display—no man was ever more free from this—but to carry out his 'one thing'—the salvation of souls. He knew, and deeply and philosophically entered into the meaning of that text, 'Faith cometh by hearing;' and he also knew that attentive hearing comes by the power of speaking. With such a themeas the gospel, with such an object as salvation, with such an aim as eternity, and such a Master to serve as Christ, he would not give utterance to such subjects, and for such purposes, in careless and slovenly speech. He studied to be the orator, that he might thus pluck souls as brands from the burning. In this let us imitate him. Of all our faculties, that of speech is perhaps least cultivated, yet is most susceptible of cultivation, and pays best for the pains bestowed upon it. My brethren, speech is the great instrument of our ministerial labor. Our assault upon the rebel town of Mansoul is to be carried on, and our entrance to be effected, to use the language of Bunyan, at ear-gate. The tongue, rather than the pen, is the weapon of most of us. For the love of souls, let us endeavor to be good speakers. With the loftiest themes in the universe for our subjects, do, do let us endeavor to speak of them in some measure worthily. It is an instructive and astounding, and to us humiliating and disgraceful fact, that the stage-player, whether in comedy or in tragedy, takes ten times more pains to give effective utterance to his follies, vices, and passions, for the amusement of his audience, than we do to eternal and momentous truths for the salvation of ours. The stage seems the only arena where the power of oratory is much studied. Should this be?
"A few characteristics of Whitefield's manner deserve emphatic mention and particular attention, as connected with the execution of his one great purpose. The first I notice issolemnity. He never, as did some of his followers, degraded the pulpit by making it the arena of low humor and wit; abounding in anecdote,and even in action, he was uniformly solemn. His deep devotional spirit contributed largely to this, for his piety was the inward fire which supplied the ardor of his manner. He was eminently a man of prayer; and had he been less prayerful, he would also have been less powerful. He came into the pulpit from the closet, where he had been communing with God, and could no more trifle with merry humor at such a time than could Moses when he came down from the mount to the people; or than the high-priest when he came out from the blazing symbols of the divine presence between the cherubim in the holy of holies; or Isaiah when he saw the Lord of hosts, high and lifted up, with his train filling the temple. Happily the age and taste for pulpit buffoonery is gone, I hope never to return.
''Tis pitiful to count a gain when you should woo a soul.'
It was the stamp and impress of eternity upon his preaching, that gave Whitefield such power. He spoke like a man that stood upon the borders of the unseen world, alternately rapt in ecstasy as he gazed upon the felicities of heaven, and convulsed with terror as he seemed to hear the howlings of the damned, and saw the smoke of their torment ascending from the pit for ever and ever. His maxim was to preach, as Apelles painted, for eternity, and he said, if ministers preached for eternity, they would then act the part of true Christian orators. And tell me, my brethren, what are all the prettinesses, the beauties, or even sublimities of human eloquence—what the similes, metaphors, and other garniture of rhetoric—what thephilosophy and intellectualities which many in this day are aiming at, to move and bow and conquer the human soul, compared with 'the powers of the world to come?'
"But there was another characteristic of Whitefield's manner, and that was itstenderness. Our Lord, as to his humanity, was a man of sorrows, and therefore of tears; so was Paul, so was Whitefield. Perhaps the latter somewhat too much so, at any rate far too much so for any preacher but himself, and with him the fountain of his tears was somewhat too full and flowing. But Oh, what an apology for this, and what a stroke of pathetic eloquence was that appeal when on one occasion he said, 'You blame me for weeping, but how can I help it, when you will not weep for yourselves, although your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction, and for aught I know you are hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ offered to you.' Man is an emotional as well as an intellectual creature, and sympathy is one of the powers of our physical and mental economy. The passions are of an infectious nature, and men feel more in a crowd than in solitude. The adage of the ancient elocutionist is still true, 'If you wish me to weep, weep yourself.' Whitefield's tears drew forth those of his audience, and his pathos softened their hearts for the impressions of the truth. It is forgotten by many preachers that they may do much by the heart, as well as by the head. We are not the teachers of logic, mathematics, metaphysics, or natural philosophy, which have nothing to do with the heart, but of religion, the very seatof which is there; andweaddress ourselves not only to the logical, but to the æsthetical part of man's complex nature. By argument, I know we must convince, but we must not stop in the judgment, but go on to reach the heart, and we ourselves must feel as well as reason.Clear, but cold, is too descriptive of much modern preaching. It is the frosty moonlight of a winter's night, not the warm sunshine of a summer's day. A cold preacher is likely to have cold hearers. Cold! What, when the love of God, the death of Christ, the salvation of souls, the felicities of heaven, and the torments of hell are the theme? Enthusiasm here is venial, compared with lukewarmness.
"Need I say thatearnestnesswas characteristic of Whitefield's preaching? Yes, that one word, perhaps, more than any other in our language, is its epitome. An intense earnestness marked its whole career, and was carried to such a pitch as to subject him, as did that of Paul, to the imputation of madness. The salvation of souls was so entirely the one thing that engrossed his soul, his time, his labors, that not a step deviated from it. Every moment, every day, was an approximation to it. His devotions, his recreations, if any such he had, his journeys, his voyages, his sermons, his correspondence, were all referred to this one end. His exertions never relaxed for a moment, and he, with his great compeer Wesley, made the trial so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which, in the way of saving souls, may be granted to any one preacher of the gospel in any age or country.
"What may not be done, and is not done by earnestness?It givessomesuccess to any error, however absurd or enormous, and to any scheme of wickedness, however flagrant and atrocious. What is it that has given such success to popery, to infidelity, to Mormonism?Earnestness.And shall the apostles and advocates of error be more in earnest than the friends of truth? Whitefield often quoted Betterton the player, who affirmed that the stage would soon be deserted if the actors spoke like the preachers. And whatwouldempty the play-house, that is, dulness and coldness,doesoften empty the meeting-house. 'Mr. Betterton's answer to a worthy prelate,' says Whitefield, 'is worthy of lasting regard.' When asked how it is that the clergy, who speak of thingsreal, affected the people so little, and the players, who speak only of things imaginary, affected them so much, replied 'My lord, I can assign but one reason—we players speak of things imaginary as though they were real, and too many of the clergy speak of things real as though they were imaginary.' It is not always so. Many a preacher, even in our own day, by the unaffected earnestness of his manner, carries away his audience upon the tide of his own feeling. They hear what he says, they see what he feels, his eye helps his tongue, the workings of his countenance disclose the feelings of his heart; his manner is a lucid comment upon his matter, breaks down the limits which words impose upon the communication of ideas, and gives them not only an apprehension of the meaning, but a sense of the importance of his subject, which unimpassioned language and manner could not have done.
"I name but one thing more as characteristic ofthis great man, and which it would be well for us to imitate, and that is, hisdauntless courage. See him not only facing mobs, defying threats, and even lifting up his pulpit amid the wild uproar of a London fair, the boldest achievement that a speaker ever accomplished, but holding on his noble career unterrified, and working amid the storm of obloquy that came upon him from so many quarters. Who that has ever read, can ever forget Cowper's exquisite description of him?
"'Leuconomus—beneath well-sounding GreekI show a name a poet must not speak—Stood pilloried on infamy's high stage,And bore the pelting storm of half an age,The very butt of slander, and the blotFor every dart that malice ever shot.The man that mentioned him at once dismissedAll mercy from his lips, and sneered and hissed.His crimes were such as Sodom never knew,And perjury stood up to swear all true;His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence,His speech rebellion against common-sense:A knave when tried on honesty's plain rule,And when by that of reason, a mere fool.The world's best comfort was, his doom was passed,Die when he might, he must be damned at last.Now truth, perform thine office, waft asideThe curtain drawn by prejudice and pride,Reveal—the man is dead—to wondering eyes,This more than monster, in his proper guise.He loved the world that hated him; the tearThat dropped upon his Bible was sincere:Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,His only answer was—a blameless life;And he that forged, and he that threw the dart,Had each a brother's interest in his heart.Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed,Were copied close in him, and well transcribed.He followed Paul—his zeal a kindred flame,His apostolic charity the same.Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas,Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease.Like him he labored, and like him, contentTo bear it, suffered shame where'er he went.Blush, calumny! and write upon his tomb,If honest eulogy can spare the room,Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies,Which, aimed at him, have pierced the offended skies;And say, Blot out my sin, confessed, deplored,Against thine image, in thy saint, O Lord.'
"What but a guilty cowardice is it, a false and pusillanimous shame, that keeps us in these days from some novel and bolder method of aggression upon the domain of darkness? Are we not wanting here in that moral courage which would make us, when conscious of doing right, indifferent to the stare of the ignorant, and the wonder of the timid; to the shaft of ridicule, and the malignant censure of the cynic? How enslaved are we by the fetters of custom, or restrained by the trammels of conventiality! How little are we disposed to go out of the usual track, even in saving souls! Very few are disposed to imitate the boldness, ingenuity, and novelty of that noble-hearted brother,[4]who hired a disengaged theatre in the city where he dwelt, and for four months preached there to listening and well-behaved crowds, the gospel of salvation; and for his reward had very many given to him, who are his joy now, and will be his crown of rejoicing in the presence of Christ at his coming. Who can see Paul on Mars-Hill, addressing himselfto the sages and their followers of all sects, and preaching to them a doctrine so repugnant to the mythology of the temple and the philosophy of the schools, as Christ, the last judgment, and the resurrection of the body, without being impressed with the moral courage of such an act? It is this spiritual heroism that is wanted in our modern preaching, and indeed, which was no less needful when the Methodistic company commenced their preaching.
"Nor is it only in this unwillingness to go off from our own ground for saving souls that our guilty cowardice is seen, but in the disposition to shirk the more solemn and searching truths of revelation. Are we not giving way too much to the fastidiousness of modern taste and refinement, which is craving after smooth things; which desires the sentimental, the picturesque, the imaginative, but turns with disgust from the solemn, the alarming, the awakening? Are we not too gentle and courteous to mention such a word as 'hell' to modern ears polite? Are we not too fearful to break in with the thunders of a violated law upon those who are at ease in Zion? I do not ask for a gross, revolting method of describing the punishment of the wicked, as if the preacher delighted in harrowing up the feelings of his audience. This is as disgusting as if, in order to keep men from crime, our judges and magistrates were ever and anon giving a minute detail of the process of an execution, and the convulsive pangs of an expiring wretch suspended to the beam of the gibbet. We ask not for a harsh, scolding, and denunciating style of preaching; but we do want more of the unflinching boldness, and thedauntless courage, which, are necessary to fidelity, and absolutely essential to him who would win souls to Christ. It is too generally forgotten, that our Lord Jesus, who was incarnate love, was the most solemn and awful of all preachers. He whose gentle spirit so often breathed out itself in invitation, and whose compassion melted into tears, at other times robed himself in terror, and uttered the most alarming peals of divine indignation. What we need for our ministry is this mixture of tenderness and solemnity, which entered so deeply into the ministry of Christ, and was so characteristic of his servant, whose labors we this day commemorate and commend."
Hear also the Rev. John Glanville, the present successor of Whitefield in the Tabernacle at Bristol: "And such preachingmust continue, if the world is to be saved. Nothing but this is suited to man's necessities; nothing else can meet man's miseries. The battle must be fought with the old, well-tried, but not worn-out weapons. God has provided them, and we must use them. We require nothing else; the world has not outgrown the old gospel, so as to need something new to soothe its sorrows and satisfy its wants.
"Not that ministers can now produce the effect Whitefield did. He was a man standing alone. The charm and power of his preaching have never been explained. It was all fire and flame, shooting out red-hot thunderbolts against the citadels of sin. It was an undivided soul, solemnly consecrated to one object—an entire life, zealously employed in one thing. As he preached, every feature spoke, the whole manbecame vocal, and the truth of God stood out in its full proportions and beauty, in the bright and broad daylight of heaven. So unreserved was his self-consecration, that every thing was deemed impertinent which obtruded upon, or interfered with the one great end of his existence. He lived in communion with God—more in heaven than on earth. He was much at the foot of the throne, and got his strength there; he prevailed with men, because he had prevailed with God. His whole soul was filled with life, and fired with love, from being in habitual contact with the cross.
"Andwemust pursue the same course, and try to do the same thing. We have the power, and we must bring it forth and use it. God has given the machinery, and it is for us to set it in motion. The world is perishing, and we must save it; it is dying, and we must give it life. God from his eternal throne calls us—Christ from his bleeding cross speaks to us—voices from the abodes of sin, and the regions of despair, sound in our ears. And we all, as ministers and as members, must rise up in the vigor of piety and the fervor of prayer. We must rise up from the slumbers of selfishness, and tear off the fetters of the world, and act as those who believe in the existence of an eternal heaven and an eternal hell, and that all souls will be found in the one or in the other—as those who have a great work to do, and but a short and uncertain time to do it in. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old."