Very powerful chapter from the pastor who was used in the revival that commenced in the pulpit of Robert M. McCheyne when he was away from his church. "To carry forward and extend a revival while all the ordinary means of grace must be regularly and zealously maintained, there must be an instancy also out of season . Some have unreasonably objected to the
using of any means beyond the usual Sabbath -day ministrations and the orderly round of visitation, as endangering due respect to the instituted regularly recurring means of grace : and such persons are so wedded
to form , and so punctilious as to hours and seasons of public meetings, that the inroads made upon time and privacy of study by any thing like an awakening of numbers to a sense of their spiritual danger, would be
an annoyance to them . Now , my friends, while every studious and prayerful means should be used to conduct the preaching of the word—the devotional exercises in public, and the pastoral visitations, in the most pointed, lively, scriptural, and edifying manner, giving to these the full force of all the preacher's head and heart, and best manner of address — there must be beyond these, and in addition to all the ordinary means, a patient and instant waiting upon cases of the convinced and anxious -that they may be instructed and edified;" |
