one might almost think was written at Whitefield's side. 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 "preach to the people all the words of this life." It was not an harangue before them. 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 was unto the 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 their minds. 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 beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled 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 stands
The legate of the skies: his theme divine,
His office sacred, his credentials clear.
By him the violated law speaks out
Its thunders; and by him, in strains as sweet
As 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 and grace 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 grace of 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 that he dealt with his hearers, individually and collectively, as immortal beings. To use the language of Isaac Taylor, "he held MAN as 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 listeners such 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 of material and 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."