George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

RELIGION AND MORALITY 47
to know is a holy method of dying to ourselves, and of living to
God.'
The prophets themselves, to whom, in ancient time, was
committed, among other exalted duties, the task of guarding the
morality of the Hebrew nation, of protesting against every use
of the ceremonial law and of the temple service which would
degrade religion into a superstition, and the apostles, who
never failed to link the plainest and humblest of duties with the
loftiest doctrines they taught, were not more jealous that reli-
gion and morality should not be divorced from each other, than
were Whitefield and the Wesleys. The ground of the moderns
was taken up clearly and boldly by Whitefield in his sermon
just referred to, and throughout his whole life was never for a
moment forsaken. The great strength of the new movement
lay, not in the advocacy of any peculiar doctrine, but in the
union of doctrine and precept, of privilege and responsibility.
It was a true expression of the apostle's argument to the Church
at Rome—the doctrine of grace united with purity of life. So
far from its resting alone or principally upon a particular doc-
trine, Whitefield and Wesley were divided upon doctrine, the
one holding with Arminius, the other with Calvin; yet their
work, even after the rupture between them, was not hindered
or destroyed, but carried forward with as much vigour and as
much to the profit of mankind as ever. Some would have
morality without religion, but these men proclaimed every-
where that religion is the root of morality ; that every man needs
the renewing power of the Spirit of God in his heart ; and that
the 'fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.'
Whether friends and enemies did Whitefield a service by
forcing him to publish, has been much questioned ; indeed,
nearly every one has condemned the step. Franklin thought
that he did himself an abiding injustice, because his power lay