CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  14 } - Rather, spur me on, I beg you, with an Awake, you sleeper, and begin to do something for your God. Language like this, no doubt, seems foolish and artificial to the world, but the well-instructed Bible reader will see in it the heartfelt experience of all the holiest saints. It is the language of men like Richard Baxter, David Brainerd, and Robert Murray McCheyne. It is the same mind that was in the inspired apostle Paul. Those who have the most light and grace are always the most humble.                            George Whitefield was a men of burning love for our Lord Jesus Christ. That name which is above every name ( PHILIPPIANS  2:9 ) stands out incessantly in all his correspondence. Like fragrant ointment,it gives a sweat savor to all his communications. He never seems weary of saying something about Jesus. My Master, as George Herbert said, was never out of his mind for long. His love, His atonement, His precious blood, His righteousness, His

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  13 }                                  I believe we will always find that just in proportion as preachers have approached that wondrous combination of rare gifts that Whitefield possessed, just in that very proportion have they attained what one defines true eloquence to be: a strange power of making themselves believed. Whitefield's Inner Life and Personal Character The inner life and personal character of this great spiritual hero of the eighteenth century is a part of my subject on which I will not dwell at any length. In fact, there is no necessity to do so. He was a remarkably straight-forward man. There was nothing about him requiring apology or explanation. His faults and good qualities were both as clear and plain as noonday. I will therefore be content to simply point out the most noticeable features of his character, as far as they can be gathered from his letters and the accounts of his contemporaries.                                HE WAS A MA

  { CHAPTER  4 } - I will now ask you to add to this analysis of Whitefield's preaching that even by nature he possessed several of the rarest gifts that quip a person to be an orator. His action was perfect--so perfect that even David Garrick, the famous actor, gave it unqualified praise. Whitefield's voice was as wonderful as his action--so powerful that thirty thousand people could hear him at the same time, and yet his voice was so musical and well-toned that some said he could raise tears by his pronunciation of the word Mesopotamia. His manner in the pulpit was so wondrously graceful and fascinating that it was said that no one could hear him for five minutes without forgetting that he squinted. His fluency and command of proper language were of the highest order, prompting him to always use the right word in the right place. Add these gifts to the things already mentioned, and then consider whether there is not sufficient cause in our hands to account for his power and p

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  6 }                                     

  { PT.  5 } - Above all, George Whitefield was the very first Englishman who seems to have thoroughly understood what Dr. Chalmers appropriately called the aggressive system. He was the first to see that Christ's ministers must do the work of fishermen. They must not wait for souls to come to them, but they must go after souls and compel them to come in ( LUKE  14:23 ). He did not sit quietly by his fireside, like a cat on a rainy day, mourning over the wickedness of the land. He went forth to face the devil in his high places. He attacked sin and wickedness face to face, and give them no peace. He dived into holes and corners after sinners! He hunted out ignorance and wickedness wherever they could be found. In short, he set on foot a system of action which, up to his time, had been comparatively unknown in this country. However, it is a system that, once begun, has never stopped being used down to the present day. City missions, town missions, district visiting societies, open-a

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  14 } - I am not come here to preach to stocks and stones! I have come to you in the name of the Lord God Almighty, and I must, and will, have an audience! The hearers were stripped of their apathy at once. Every word of the sermon after this was heard with deep attention, and the American gentleman never forgot it.                                                                        ONE MORE FEATURE IN WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING DESERVES   SPECIAL NOTICE, AND THAT IS THE IMMENSE AMOUNT OF EMOTION AND FEELING THAT IT ALWAYS CONTAINED. It was not uncommon for him to weep profusely in the pulpit. Cornelius Winter, who often accompanied him in his latter journeys, went so far as to say that he hardly ever knew him to get through a sermon without some tears. There seems to have been nothing of pretense in this. He felt intensely for the souls before him, and his feelings found an outlet in tears. Of all the ingredients of his success in preaching, I suspect tha

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  10 } - You were quickly swept off your feet by his energy before you had time to think about what you would do.We can be sure that this was one secret of his success. We must convince people that we are sincere ourselves if we want to be believed. The difference between one preacher and another is often not so much in the things said as in the way they are said. It is recored by one of Whitefield's biographers that an American gentleman once went to hear him for the first time because of the report he heard of Whitefield's preaching powers. The day was rainy, the congregation comparatively thin, and the beginning of the sermon rather heavy. Our American friend began to say to himself, This man is no great wonder after all. He looked around and saw the congregation as little interested as himself. One old man in front of the pulpit had fallen asleep. Whitefield suddenly stopped. His countenance changed. Then he suddenly broke forth in an altered tone:

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  12 }                                           The beggar was deserted by his dog near the edge of a cliff, and he had nothing to aid him in groping his way except his staff. Whitefield so warmed with his subject and enforced it with such descriptive power that the whole audience was kept in breathless silence, as if they saw the poor old man. After a while, when the beggar was about to take the fatal step that would have hurled him down the precipice to certain destruction, Lord Chesterfield actually made a rush forward to save him, exclaiming aloud, He is gone! he is gone! The noble Lord Chesterfield had been so completely carried away by the preacher that he forgot that it was only a depiction of the events.                                ANOTHER LEADING CHARACTERISTIC OF WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING WAS HIS TREMENDOUS EARNESTNESS. One poor uneducated man said of him that He preached like a lion! George Whitefield succeeded in showing people that he at leas

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  11 }                                  FOR ANOTHER THING, WHITEFIELD WAS AN ESPECIALLY BOLD AND DIRECT PREACHER. He never used that indefinite expression we, which seems so common to English pulpit oratory and which only leaves a hearer's mind in a state of hazy confusion. He met men face to face, like one who had a message from God to them: I have come here to speak to you about your soul. The result was that many of his hearers often used to think that his sermons were meant particularly for them. He was not content, as many are, with sticking on a small piece of application at the end of a long sermon. On the contrary, a constant vein of application ran through all his sermons. This is for you, and this is for you. His hearers were never let alone.  ANOTHER OUTSTANDING FEATURE OF WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING WAS HIS REMARKABLE POWER OF DESCRIPTION. The Arabians have a proverbs that says, He is the best orator who can turn men's ears into eyes. Whitef

  ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  10 }                                    Oh, the righteousness of Jesus Christ! he would often say. I must be excused if I mention it in almost all my sermons. Preaching of this kind is the preaching that God delights to honor. It must be preeminently a manifestation of truth.                                                      FOR ANOTHER THING, WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING WAS ESPECIALLY CLEAR AND SIMPLE.  His hearers, no matter what they thought of his doctrine, could never fail to understand what he meant. His style of speaking was simple, plain, and conversational. He seemed to abhor long and involved sentences. He always saw his target and went directly at it. He seldom troubled his hearers with complicated arguments and complex reasoning. Simple Bible statements, relevant illustrations, and applicable anecdotes were the more common weapons that he used. The result was that his hearers always understood him. He never shot above their heads. Here again is

  { PT.  9 } - It is not verbatim as I delivered it. In some places, it makes me speak false concord, and even nonsense. In other places,  the sense and connection are destroyed by injudicious, disjointed paragraphs, and the whole thing is entirely unfit for the public review. I will say, though, that with all their faults, Whitefield's printed sermons will still be of benefit to those who read them. The reader must remember that they were not carefully prepared for publication like the sermons of Melville or Bradley, but were poorly written down, punctuated, and paragraphed, and you must read them with this continually in mind. Moreover, you must remember that English composition for speaking to hearers and English composition for private reading are almost like two different languages, so that sermons that preach well read badly. Remember these two things, and judge accordingly, and I am sure that you will find much to appreciate in many of Whitefield's sermons. For my own pa