CHAPTER XVIII.
CHARACTER OF WHITEFIELD AS A PREACHER—CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATIONS.
In suggesting a few of the characteristics of Whitefield's preaching, we are very greatly indebted to an excellent anonymous writer in the London Evangelical Magazine for 1853. We consider as among the reasons of his success, and as worthy of our imitation,
First, the prominence given to the leading truths of salvation, and the constant exaltation of Christ in them. There needs no minute inquiry, or great analytical care, to ascertain what was the pervading theme of this popular minister: it was "Christ, and him crucified," and the glorious truths that hover around the cross, and derive from it their being and lustre. There was no other subject, in Whitefield's estimation, that was worthy of preëminence, and to unfold, elucidate, and apply it, was the great design of his labors. He saw in it such a wonderful adaptation to the necessities and condition of fallen humanity, that he stood in the midst of its wants and woes with all the confidence of a good physician who had a sovereign and sufficient remedy to propose. He knew that there was no case which it could not meet, no moral disease from which it would not recover, no spiritual need which it would not supply; and therefore, however far gone men might be from original righteousness, however hardened in sin, sunk in iniquity, or however elevated by the delusions of a false morality and fancied self-righteousness, he propounded this as the only and all-sufficient antidote, at once to destroy and heal, to kill and to make alive. As to the spurious production of a rationalistic theory on the one hand, or the prescriptions of ceremonial virtue and sacramental grace on the other, he knew them not. He saw at once their hollowness and insufficiency, and would not mock the necessities of our fallen nature, or aggravate the wounds which sin had made by a proposal of them. His acquaintance with the human heart was deep, and his knowledge of the different modifications of the original disease was so great, that he despaired of relief from any expedients save that which infinite Wisdom had devised, and which "the gospel of the grace of God" revealed. Philosophy with all its discoveries, and reason with all its powers, the law with all its authority, and virtue with all its rewards, he knew could only, like the priests and the Levites, have passed the patient by, and left him to despair, till a greater than they should arrive, and say, "I will come and heal you." On that adorable Personage, therefore, and the wonders of his skill and love, he delighted to dwell. Every sermon was full of Christ; every discourse was odorous of him. From whatever part of revealed truth he derived his text, and with whatever peculiar development of man's moral physiology he had to do, there was something to suggest, to demonstrate the need, or the suitableness, or the all-sufficiency of the Saviour of the world. To set him forth, in the glories of his wonderful person, the variety of his offices, the perfection of his righteousness, the completeness of his atonement, and the plenitude of his grace, was his perpetual aim. To these he gave continual prominence, at all times, and in every place. There was no reserve, no equivocation, no partial statement on such themes. It was a full, clear, consistent gospel. From his lips the gospel gave no "uncertain sound." This made him a welcome messenger of glad tidings to all. This gave him a key to the hearts of many, who, as they stood around him, and wondered at him, like those five thousand whom the Redeemer fed with "five loaves and two small fishes," found all their appetites suited, and all their necessities supplied. It was the magic power which arrested them; the centre of gravitation which attracted them; the bread of life which fed them. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness," so now was the Son of man lifted up by the ministry of this his devoted herald; and far as the camp extended, and wide as the circumference of poison and death was spread, the wounded looked thereon and lived. A restorative virtue issued from it. The hardest heart was softened. The most obstinate in rebellion was overcome. The blindest saw. The moral lepers were cleansed. The broken in heart were made whole, and the spiritually dead were raised to life. "This was the Lord's doing, and it was marvellous in their eyes." They beheld the man. They heard him preach. They felt the power. It was because He was exalted among them who had said, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
Secondly, the glow of feeling, the melting compassion, which pervaded his own soul. Oh, it is supremely delightful and deeply affecting to observe the tender affection and melting pathos with which Whitefield propounded and proclaimed the precious truths and everlasting verities of the gospel to his fellow-men. He stood among them as one of their race, one of their number, conscious of the common misery into which all had fallen, and weeping over the miseries and ruin in which by nature they were alike involved. As he opened up the treasures of infinite mercy, and the riches of redeeming love to their view, he wept to think how long they had been unknown or despised by many, and with what base ingratitude thousands would probably still turn away from them. As one who saw their immortal being in jeopardy, and their souls standing on the verge of irretrievable ruin, he hastened, with joy in his countenance and tenderness in his heart, to tell them of One who was "mighty to save," and that "now was the accepted time, and now the day of salvation." Not as one who had a cold lecture on ethics to deliver, or a dissertation on philosophy to expound, or a problem in mathematics to solve, did he proceed to such a work; but as one who felt the weight of his great commission, and knew the worth of never-dying souls. The evil of sin, the danger of impenitence, the powers of the world to come, the glories of heaven, and the unutterable miseries of the regions of woe, were visibly present to his own mind; and of these, "out of the abundance of his heart," he spoke to others. He could not be calm, he could not be apathetic on such themes as these.
"Passion was reason, transport temper, here."
And with much of the melting tenderness of Him who wept over Jerusalem, he spoke of these things to all that resorted to him. What moving words did he utter on Blackheath hill, in the Tabernacle pulpit, and on Kingswood mount! His vivid eye beamed with the glow of tenderness, and his tears, as he spoke, oft-times moistened his little Bible or bedewed the ground. In his printed sermons, which doubtless are but feeble specimens of his free and fervent manner, there are strains of tender pathos and impassioned oratory, which it is almost impossible to read even now without being moved to share in his feelings and in the emotions which they must have enkindled around; and in the perusal of which we wonder not that, in all the circumstances, the place in which he stood was a Bochim—a place of weeping. Oh, the melting power, the exquisite pathos, the tender expostulation of this preëminent man, and unrivalled preacher of the gospel of our salvation! We wish we could catch them now—that all preachers possessed them; that the rising ministry especially would emulate him in these things. Whitefield showed his intense feeling, not from the mere power of ratiocination, or from the poetic memento, or for the sake of producing effect by the tears that were unfelt, or which only flowed from the surface; but from the meltings of a tender heart, influenced by a Saviour's love, and overflowing with the commiseration of a benign compassion for dying multitudes around. Doddridge's beautiful hymn,
"Arise, my tenderest thoughts, arise,"