George Whitefield’s Journals. Banner of Truth Trust. 588 pp. Price £4.50.
We are glad to see these Journals once again reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust. In our view they are quite outstanding. Through reading them one is able to go along with Whitefield as he goes forth with the good seed of the kingdom, scattering it now on this side of the Atlantic and then on the other side, and all the while seeing the seed taking root in the hearts of poor sinners and springing up bearing fruit to life eternal. We see Satan’s kingdom assaulted and Christ’s kingdom advanced. What encouragement ministers of the Gospel in this dark day of ours may find through the perusal of George Whitefield’s Journals, so as to make them ready to cry out: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.”
Whitefield’s was a ministry of unparalleled usefulness in the Church of God. One is almost translated back to apostolic times when the Lord so signally owned the preaching of the Apostle Paul. There is no question but that the extent of Whitefield’s usefulness will not be fully known until the day when all things will be revealed. His Journals, we trust, will continue to be a source of encouragement to the tried servants of God in these days and in the future as they have most surely been in the past. We know of no other volume to equal it in its particular field.
Thoughts on Religious Experience, by Archibald Alexander. Banner of Truth Trust. 338 pp. Price £3.00.
This volume by the noted Archibald Alexander of Princeton has a biographical introduction by W. J. Grier of Belfast. The book contains Alexander’s thoughts on a subject which should be of the greatest interest to Christians everywhere. The work of the Holy Spirit in the soul is altogether wonderful and from it flows the religious experience of the people of God. Alexander covers the whole range of religious experience from the first strivings of the Spirit on to the new birth and also the varied experiences of the children of God in this world. He deals, too, with piety in children, and also with cases of melancholy and of back-sliding. The Christian experience of many noted Christians is given, also many outstanding death-bed experiences. In Chapter 22 he attempts to describe the experience of the soul after death but very soon goes on to admit: “But methinks we are in danger of indulging our imaginations too far, and of transferring to a heavenly state too many of the feelings and associations of our earthly condition.” The concluding part of the volume is taken up with pastoral letters addressed to the aged, the young, Christian mothers and bereaved persons.
We wish for the book a continued wide circulation.
D.B.M.