CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18th CENTURY ( CHAPTER 4 ) - { PT. 13 }


 ( 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 MAN OF DEEP AND GENUINE HUMILITY. - No one can read his fourteen hundred letters without noticing this. Again and again, at the very height of his popularity, we find him speaking of himself and his works in the lowliest terms. God be merciful to me a sinner, he wrote on September 11, 1753, and give me, for His infinite mercy's sake, a humble, thankful, and resigned heart. Truly I am viler than the vilest, and I stand amazed at His using such a wretch as I am. Let none of my friends, he wrote on December 27, 1753, cry to such a sluggish, lukewarm, unprofitable worm, Spare yourself.    

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