RESULTS OF WHITEFIELD'S WORK.

519

(2.) That a great number of his converts were ministers properly trained for their ministerial work, who handed the truth down to children's children. In the neighbourhood of Boston in America alone there were at one time twenty ministers who owned him as their spiritual father. Some of them had a spiritual history not much less wonderful than his own. Such was the case with a young man at Norwich in England, who went to hear Whitefield preach, that he might be able to tell his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, what the great Methodist was like; for a fortune-teller had informed him that he should live to be an old man, and see these distant descendants. He got the information in sport, but it turned to good account. The early parts of Whitefield's sermon made no impression upon him; but when Whitefield abruptly broke off, paused for a few moments, then burst into a flood of tears, and lifting up his hands and eyes, exclaimed, O my hearers, the wrath to come! the wrath to come! the wrath to come!' the words sunk into his heart. For days and weeks he could think of little else; then came the change in character and the change in life. He was only one of many.

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Other

(3.) That he was the first of the evangelical clergy in the Church of England; and had they formed a separate sect, instead of a party in a church, no one would have asked what are the results of his labours. This is the party which holds Whitefield's legacy to mankind strictly in the letter-sometimes not more than that. parties again, to whose faith and practice he would have taken serious exception, have imbibed his spirit of zeal and love, and closely resemble him in all that makes his character noble and his life beautiful. It is confessedly difficult to trace spiritual influences through all their subtle operations, and upon this point I would speak with caution and reserve; yet it cannot be denied that not a few who would disclaim all connexion with him, even

the most remote, owe to him and to the early Methodists their spiritual life. One party may savour of Rome, and the other of rationalism; but the sincere attention of both to religion is infinitely better than the formality and utter godlessness which prevailed when Whitefield lifted up his voice in the fields. The whole Church of England has been moved by the wave which first lifted on its breast only a small section of her people, though parties have drifted in different directions.

(4.) That he helped to revive the churches of the Dissenters. His own chapels fell into their hands; and in many of their favourite preachers, down even to the present day, it would not be difficult to trace the influence of his popular oratory. But their present leaders, their men of middle age, are far removed from his theological standpoint, while they cherish the thoughts and the heavenly influence which made his ministry so mighty. They proclaim an atonement for sin, while discarding his gross conceptions of the nature of atonement; they insist upon a personal and vital union of spirit with Jesus Christ; they invoke the help of the Holy Ghost, feeling that without His power upou preacher and hearer no spiritual good can be done. But they say little about predestination, and nothing at all about Christ's having died for an elect world.

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(5.) That the Church of Scotland was made alive again by his numerous visits to Scotland, and his impassioned appeals to the slumbering and the dead. Wesley could do nothing north of the Tweed; the people were 'unfeeling,'' dead stones,' decent and serious but 'perfectly unconcerned,' they heard much, knew everything, and felt nothing;' he did not hesitate to say that 'the hand of the Lord was almost entirely stayed in Scotland.' It might have occurred to him that where his friend had so signally succeeded and he had as signally failed, some fault might possibly attach to himself. Scotch journeys

RESULTS OF WHITEFIELD'S WORK.

521

were nearly always an unmixed joy to Whitefield because of the good he did; and it is noticeable that thirty years ago, the foremost ministers and the great bulk of the members of the Scotch Church assumed the position of the English Dissenters, and made of themselves a Free Church.'

(6.) That the Church in Wales, of all denominations, received a remarkable impetus from Methodism, and that Whitefield was the first to join hands with the earnest men of the Principality. The early representations of the Methodists as to the religious condition of the country cannot be relied upon, but the following comparative table has been carefully prepared by Dr. Rees, and published in his volume on Nonconformity in Wales.' It gives the number of Nonconformist congregations in Wales as 110 in 1716, 105 in 1742, 171 in 1775, 993 in 1816, 2927 in 1861. The great increase between 1775 and 1816 was owing to the separation of the Calvinistic Methodists from the Established Church, which took place in 1811; and from 1816 to 1861 the increase is the result of the zeal and labours of the churches, crowned with the blessing of God. Broadly stated, the result of Methodism in Wales has been the changing of a nation of ignorant irreligious Churchmen into a nation of conscientious Nonconformists, who adhere to their convictions in spite of much persecution and disadvantage. Whitefield neither desired nor sought the nonconformity; but, as in the case of Scotland, an intense religious life would have freedom of action.

(7.) That in America he founded the Presbyterian church of Virginia,' and helped more than any man to triple the ministers of the New York Synod within seven years, and to bring into existence a hundred and fifty congregational churches in less than twenty years.3

1 The Great Awakening.' By Joseph Tracy, pp. 374-384.
3 Ibid. p. 389.

2 Ibid.

P. 386.

His labours materially aided the building of Princeton College and Dartmouth College. They also produced the same effect upon church government in America which we have seen to have been produced in Scotland, England and Wales. The spiritual life would not be fettered; and the union between church and state was broken.2

What did Whitefield accomplish? He founded churches and inaugurated religious revolutions by a sermon. His last sermons-those which he preached within a few days of his death-touched the heart of a young man named Randall; his death sealed all the holy impressions as with the mark of God; and that young man shortly afterwards founded the Free-Will Baptist Church, now fifty thousand strong, in the United States.3 His works do follow him.

Could his hand add one word to this record of his life and its fruits, it would be this-Grace! Grace! Grace!' For his sake, then, and especially for the sake of Him who came bringing grace and truth with Him, it shall be inscribed as the last word here-GRACE.

1 History of Methodism,' p. 397.

2 Ibid. p. 370.

• Ibid.