CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

{ PT.  2 } - They did His work in the old apostolic way--by becoming the evangelists of their day. They taught one set of truths. They taught them in the same way--with fire, reality, and determination, as men fully convinced of what they taught. They taught them in the same spirit--always loving, compassionate, and like Paul, even weeping--but always bold, unflinching, and without fearing the face of man. They taught them with the same plan--always acting on the offensive, not waiting for sinners to come to them, but going after and seeking sinners. They did not sit idle until sinners offered to repent, but they assaulted the high places of ungodliness like men storming a breach, giving sinners no rest as long as they stuck to their sins. The movement of these courageous evangelists shook England from one end to the other. At first, people in high places tended to despise them. The educated people mocked at them as fanatics. The clever people made jokes and invented irreverent nam...

  { PT.  2 } - Neither did the change come from the Church of England as a body. The leaders of that venerable group were utterly unequal to the times. Left to herself, the Church of England would probably have died of dignity and sunk her anchors. The change did not come from the Dissenters either. Content with their barely won triumphs, that worthy body of men seemed to rest upon their oars. In the full enjoyment of their rights of conscience, they forgot the great vital forefathers--and their own duties and responsibilities. Who, then, were the reformers of the eighteenth century? To who are we indebted, under God, for the change that took place? The men who were used by God to bring about deliverance for us a hundred years ago were a few individuals, most of them clergymen of the Established Church, whose hearts God touched about the same time in various parts of the country. They were not wealthy or highly connected. They did not have money to buy followers, and they did ...