Silas Told

A man named Silas Told, once a sailor and a profane man, was converted through the preaching of John Wesley. He became one of the first Methodist school teachers. Later he devoted much of his life to serving in many of the prison houses in London. He would preach to many of the inmates in all the prisons of London, and he would ride in the death carts with the prisoners who were going to execution. He led many to faith in Christ on those final rides. One example is the story of Mrs. Brownrigg who murdered her apprentice girl named Mary Clifford. Silas led her to Christ, rode with her in the death cart as crowds screamed, hurled taunts, and threw rubbish at her. He stayed by her side until the moment of her execution.

Ben Franklin on George Whitefield

One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, although not a Christian by any means (he was a deist at best), often heard George Whitefield preach. The two of them became well acquainted. Franklin made the following comments regarding Whitefield's preaching:

"He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words and sentences so perfectly, that he might be heard and understood at a great distance, especially as his audiences, however numerous, observ'd the most exact silence. He preached one evening from the top of the Court House steps, which are in the middle of Market-street, and on the west side of Second-street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were filled with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market-street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front-street, when some noise in that street obscur'd it. Imagining then a semi-circle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were filled with auditors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might well be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to twenty-five thousand people in the fields."

Whitefield on Election

In his Works George Whitefield makes the following comments on the doctrine of election:

"The doctrines of our election, and free justification in Christ Jesus are daily more and more pressed upon my heart. They fill my soul with a holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Saviour.

I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave freewill in man and make him, in part at least, a Saviour to himself. My soul, come not thou near the secret of those who teach such things . . . I know Christ is all in all. Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Oh, the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the saints' final perseverance! I am persuaded, till a man comes to believe and feel these important truths, he cannot come out of himself, but when convinced of these, and assured of their application to his own heart, he then walks by faith indeed! . . . Love, not fear, constrains him to obedience."

Martyrdom of Vincentius

Thomas Brooks tells the following story:

"Vincentius, who by his patience and constancy madded his tormentors; wherefore they stripped him stark naked, whipped his body all over to a gore of blood, sprinkled salt and vinegar over all his wounds, set his feet on burning coals, then cast him naked into a loathsome dungeon, the pavement whereof was sharp shells, and his bed to lie one a bundle of thorns. All which this blessed martyr received, without so much as a groan, breathing out his spirit in these words, 'Vincentius is my name, and by the grace of God I will still be Vincentius, in spite of all your torments.' Persecution brings death in one hand and life in the other; for while it kills the body it crowns the soul."

A Little Food for Thought

This past Sunday evening at Ballantyne Presbyterian Church we ordained and installed our Associate Pastor Robert Arendale. It was a great event with many eyes drawn to Jesus. The office of pastor/teaching elder is a high calling: Thomas Goodwin famously said that "God has only one Son, and he made him to be a preacher." May we deal with our new Associate Pastor as one of high calling, and one that has been placed in our midst by God.

Horatio Spafford

Horatio Spafford lost almost everything in the great fire of Chicago in 1873; it was a financial disaster for him. After the fire, he decided to send his family to England, and so he put his wife and four children on the SS Ville de Havre. Deep in the Atlantic Ocean, the ship collided with another ship, the SS Lochearn. Over 200 people died in the accident, most by drowning . . . including Spafford's four children. When she got to England, Spafford's wife sent him a telegram with the words "Saved Alone." Spafford caught the next ship to England in order to be with her. The story goes that when the ship came to the point of the drowning, Spafford sat down and composed the following lines:

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
'It is well, it is well with my soul.'"

William Carey's Tombstone

William Carey the great missionary to India had the following inscribed on his grave-marker:

William Carey

Born August 17th, 1761

Died June 1834

A wretched, poor and helpless worm,

on Thy kind arms I fall.