Joseph Belcher

“ 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. ”

“ This gentleman had lately become a village preacher and a visitor of prisons, like his brother. Under these circumstances he was addressed by Whitefield, in his own peculiar and energetic style: "What said our Lord to Martha? 'Did I not say unto thee, If thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?' Blessed, for ever blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for what he hath done for your dear brother. A preaching, prison-preaching, field-preaching esquire, strikes more than all the black gowns and lawn sleeves in the world. ”

“ With what frequency and cheerfulness did he ascend the desk, the language of his actions being ever, 'Wist ye not that I must be about my Master's business?' With what divine pathos did he plead with, and persuade by the most engaging [446] incitements, the impenitent sinner to the practice of piety and virtue. Filled with the spirit of grace, he spoke from the heart; and with a fervency of zeal perhaps unequalled since the apostles, ornamented the celestial annunciations of the preacher with the graceful and most enticing charms of rhetoric and oratory. ”

“ It is in the grandeur and singleness of purpose that the charm of Whitefield's preaching seems to have consisted. You feel that you have to do with a man who lived and spoke, and who would gladly [473] have died, to deter his hearers from the path of destruction, and to guide them to holiness and peace. His gossipping stories, and dramatic forms of speech, are never employed to hide the awful realities on which he is intent. Conscience is not permitted to find an intoxicating draught in even spiritual excitement, or an anodyne in glowing imagery. ”

“ Are we not too fearful to break in with the thunders of a violated law upon those who are at ease in Zion? I do not ask for a gross, revolting method of describing the punishment of the wicked, as if the preacher delighted in harrowing up the feelings of his audience. This is as disgusting as if, in order to keep men from crime, our judges and magistrates were ever and anon giving a minute detail of the process of an execution, and the convulsive pangs of an expiring wretch suspended to the beam of the gibbet. We ask not for a harsh, scolding, and denunciating style of preaching ”

“ And we all, as ministers and as members, must rise up in the vigor of piety and the fervor of prayer. We must rise up from the slumbers of selfishness, and tear off the fetters of the world, and act as those who believe in the existence of an eternal heaven and an eternal hell, and that all souls will be found in the one or in the other—as those who have a great work to do, and but a short and uncertain time to do it in. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our public assemblies were then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God's service, every one eagerly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth. The assembly were, from time to time, in tears, while the word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for their neighbors. ”

“ Surely people do not know that amiable and exemplary man, or else, I cannot but think, instead of depreciating, they would applaud and love him. For my part, I never beheld so fair a copy of our Lord, such a living image of the Saviour, such exalted delight in God, such enlarged benevolence to man, such a steady faith in the divine promises, and such a fervent zeal for the divine glory; and all this without the least moroseness of humor, or extravagance of behavior, sweetened with the most engaging cheerfulness of temper, and regulated by all the sobriety of reason and wisdom of Scripture ”

“ It has been well said by a living American writer, that "Whitefield was, in sacred eloquence, what Handel was in sacred music. There was an air, a soul, and a movement in his oratory, which created indescribable emotion in his vast assemblies, and if Handel, with a thousand auxiliary voices and instruments, astonished the multitude in Westminster Abbey, even to raising them on their feet, by the performance of his Messiah, Whitefield did greater wonders in his single person by preaching the Messiah to the immense crowds in Tottenham Court-road and Moorfields." ”

“ Clear, but cold, is too descriptive of much modern preaching. It is the frosty moonlight of a winter's night, not the warm sunshine of a summer's day. A cold preacher is likely to have cold hearers. Cold! What, when the love of God, the death of Christ, the salvation of souls, the felicities of heaven, and the torments of hell are the theme? Enthusiasm here is venial, compared with lukewarmness.
"Need I say that earnestness was characteristic of Whitefield's preaching? Yes, that one word, perhaps, more than any other in our language, is its epitome. ”

“ The very earth would seem to be shaken with the thunder of his eloquence; the heavens [464] seemed, in the bold metaphor of Isaiah, to "drop down from above, and the skies to pour down righteousness," when he set the trumpet of the gospel to his lips, and made the notes of salvation or perdition ring in the ears of dying men. Such unwonted sounds startled the multitude into life, rousing energies that were forthwith enlisted either for or against the mighty cause which he advocated, with the boldness and fervor of one who had received immediate commission from heaven. ”

“ On another occasion, near the same city, and probably in the field to which we have already referred, under the shade of a venerable tree, in a lovely meadow, a poor unhappy man, thinking to turn him into ridicule, placed himself on one of the overhanging boughs, immediately above the preacher's head, and with monkey-like dexterity mimicking his gestures, endeavored to raise a laugh in the audience. Guided by the looks of some of his hearers, Whitefield caught a glance of him, but without seeming to have noticed him, continued his discourse. ”

“ In short, I like New England exceedingly well; and when a spirit of reformation revives, it certainly will prevail here more than in other places, because they are simple in their worship, less corrupt in their principles, and consequently easier to be brought over to the form of sound words, into which so many of their pious ancestors were delivered. Send forth, O Lord, thy light and thy truth, and for thine infinite mercy's sake, show thou hast a peculiar delight in these habitable parts of the earth. Amen, Lord Jesus, amen, and amen. ”

“ Do you not begin to long to see him more than ever? Do you not groan in this tabernacle, being burdened? Courage, courage; he that cometh will come, and will not tarry. Oh that patience may have its perfect work! Many in this metropolis seem to be on the wing for God; the shout of a king is yet heard in the Methodist camp. Had I wings, I would gladly fly from pole to pole; but they are clipped by thirty years' feeble labors. Twice or thrice a week I am permitted to ascend my gospel throne. ”

“ Believing himself to be the messenger of God, commissioned to call sinners to repentance, he spoke as one conscious of his high credentials, with authority and power; yet in all his discourses there was a fervor and melting charity, an earnestness of persuasion, an outpouring of redundant love, partaking of the virtue of the faith from which it flowed, insomuch that it seemed to enter the heart which it pierced, and to heal it as with a balm. ”

“ He expresses the highest love and concern for the souls of men; and speaks of Christ with the most affectionate appropriation—'My Master! My Lord!' He is no enemy to the innocent freedoms and liberties of the gospel; nor does he affect singularity in indifferent things. He spends not his zeal in trifles, but says, 'The kingdom of God consists not in meats and drinks; but in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' He breathes a most catholic spirit, and prays most earnestly that God would destroy all that bigotry and party zeal which has divided Christians. ”

“ His thoughts were possessions, and his feelings were transformations; and he spoke because he felt, his hearers understood because they saw. They were not only enthusiastic amateurs, like Garrick, who ran to weep and tremble at his bursts of passion, but even the colder critics of the Walpole school were surprised into momentary sympathy and reluctant wonder. Lord Chesterfield was listening in Lady Huntingdon's pew when Whitefield was comparing the benighted sinner to a blind beggar on a dangerous road. ”

“ After a preaching paroxysm, Whitefield lay panting on his couch, spent, breathless, and deathlike; after his morning sermon in the foundry, Wesley would mount his pony, and trot and chat, and gather simples, till he reached some country hamlet, where he would bait his charger, and talk through a little sermon with the villagers, and remount his pony and trot away again. In his aërial poise, Whitefield's eagle eye drank lustre from the source of light, and loved to look down on men in assembled myriads ”

“ Eternity will be too short to speak his praises." The physician coming in, he said to him, "Oh, what a mercy is it to be interested in the atoning blood of Jesus. I come to the Lord as a vile sinner, trusting in the merits and precious blood of my dear Redeemer. O grace, grace, free grace!" His last words were, "I am going from weeping friends to congratulating angels, and rejoicing saints in glory. He is coming. Oh, speed thy chariot wheels; why are they so long in coming? I long to be gone!" He left in his church more than two hundred communicants. ”

“ Keen of London, he wrote from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, September 23, just one week before his death, "By this time I thought to be moving southward. But never was greater importunity used to detain me longer in these northern parts. Poor New England is much to be pitied; Boston people most of all. How grossly misrepresented! What a mercy that our Christian charter cannot be dissolved! Blessed be God for an unchangeable Jesus! You will see, by the many invitations, what a door is opened for preaching the everlasting gospel. ”

“ Let not infidels tell us, that the religion of these men and of those times was mere enthusiasm, and that the temporal interests of men were neglected in professions of high regard for those of a spiritual character. Let such men know that within two years of the opening of Tottenham Court-road chapel, not only did the congregation build a parsonage-house for their minister, but twelve almshouses for as many poor widows. The Tabernacle has always acted with equal generosity. In proportion to their means, few congregations in the world have exceeded these two in works of benevolence. ”

“ He lived in communion with God—more in heaven than on earth. He was much at the foot of the throne, and got his strength there; he prevailed with men, because he had prevailed with God. His whole soul was filled with life, and fired with love, from being in habitual contact with the cross.
"And we must pursue the same course, and try to do the same thing. We have the power, and we must bring it forth and use it. God has given the machinery, and it is for us to set it in motion. The world is perishing, and we must save it; it is dying, and we must give it life. ”

“ Adaptation! did not Whitefield move this kingdom almost to its centre, and equally so our then great transatlantic colony to its extremities, fascinating alike the colliers of Kingswood and the citizens of the metropolis; and by this mighty theme enable myriads to burst the chains of sin and Satan, and to walk abroad disenthralled by the mighty power of redeeming grace? ”

“ As the ship did not sail, I preached at Somerset in the morning to a large congregation in the fields; and expounded in the evening at Mr. Harvy's house, around which stood many hundreds of people. But in the morning and evening how did the poor souls weep. Abundance of prayers and blessings were put up for my safe passage to England, and speedy return to the Bermudas again. May they enter into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. With all humility and thankfulness of heart will I here, O Lord, set up my Ebenezer, for hitherto surely hast thou helped me. ”

“ Now is your time to prove the strength of Jesus yours. If opposition did not so much abound, your consolations would not so abound. Blind as he is, Satan sees some great good coming on. We never prospered so much at Oxford as when we were hissed at and reproached as we walked along the streets, as being counted the dung and offscouring of all things. That is a poor building which a little stinking breath of Satan's vassals can throw down. ”

“ Whitefield wrote him: "I wish you joy of the late high dignity conferred upon you—higher than if you were made the greatest professor in the university of Cambridge. The honorable degrees you intend giving to your promising candidates, [allowing some of his fellow-students to preach in the various places which he had visited,] I trust will excite a holy ambition, and a holy emulation; let me know who is first honored. As I have been admitted to the degree of doctor for near these thirty years, I assure you I like my field preferment, my airy pluralities, exceedingly well. ”

“ I am sick and well, as I used to be in England; but the Redeemer fills me with comfort. I am determined, in his strength, to die fighting.... I have almost a continual burning fever. With great regret I have omitted preaching one night to oblige my friends, and purpose to do so once more, that they may not charge me with murdering myself. But I hope yet to die in the pulpit, or soon after I come out of it.... Since my last, I have been several times on the verge of eternity. At present I am so weak that I cannot preach. It is hard work to be silent, but I must be tried every way. ”