Who was George Whitefield?

In this day of revival efforts, American and Welsh, Mr. W. Wale has reproduced for the first time since 1756 the journals of one more blessed thus than any since his day, as Wh. too led the way in preaching the simple gospel wherever he found an open door, but chiefly out of doors. By none was he more opposed and reviled than by his own fellow-churchmen, though he never left the Anglican Establishment and always claimed to be an English clergyman. It is clear however that he was regardless of the parochial system and the Canons, valuing chiefly the Articles, but in heart owning every soul that loved the Lord, and seeking the salvation of the lost wherever he found them, not only over Great Britain and Ireland, etc., but in America which he visited at least seven times when the voyage was incomparably more tedious and trying than of late years. He knew little beyond the glad tidings, and God's love both sovereign and in relationship, with its obligations and effects on the heart and the walk. But his devoted and self-denying zeal in that service of the Lord had no superior if equal in modern times. And his journals vividly reflect his heart and his labours, whatever the few drawbacks which one has no care to specify as is easily done by those who are immeasurably inferior in weightier matters.

George Whitefield was admitted a poor scholar or servitor of Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1733 (as he was born in Gloucester in 1711), and soon joined the Wesleys and their few associates in the University, earnest but dark spiritually and called Methodists even then, knowing truth no better than T. à Kempis and the heterodox W. Law. By Bp. Benson of Gloucester he was ordained deacon in 1736. His preaching from the very first made an extraordinary impression; yet then more from his impassioned earnestness than from his growing sense of grace in which he ere long far outran J. and C. Wesley and almost all the rest of his friends. No doubt his most powerful, flexible, and expressive voice concurred with his warm affections to form a vessel suited to his gift from above. He was even before J. W. in preaching in the open air, as he did first on Hannam Mount to the colliers of Kingswood, near Bristol. Later at Blackheath and at Kennington it is said that he was heard by not less than 30,000 at one time. Even the grossest infidels like Bolingbroke, Chesterfield and Hume listened with awe and emotion; and great were the results among the anxious and the simple.

The Journals do not carry us down to the rupture with Wesley who clung to Arminianism; but its warmth cooled down so far that Whitefield spoke of his desire that Wesley should preach his funeral sermon, as Wesley did for his long-severed friend. Yet in fact Whitefield died near Boston, Mass., on the 30th Sept., 1770, worn out even at that early age by toils beyond man's endurance with impunity. His sermons give but a faint sense of his preaching; but three volumes of his letters extend to the week of his death, and with his discourses and tracts, make up six volumes, published in 1771.

Just about this time, a young man from Gloucester-as earnest and sincere as themselves, joined the little community-George Whitefield. He was descended from a respectable family; but his father, who was a wine merchant, ultimately kept the Bell Inn at Gloucester. There the future great preacher was born in 1714. For some time before meeting with the Wesleys, he had been the subject of much anxiety on matters of religion, and, like the Wesleys, he had been greatly perplexed by Thomas a Kempis, and also by Law's "Serious Call." But as we cannot pursue in detail the deep exercises through which they passed, and their subsequent course, we would only add that, ere long, they were led, by God's Holy Spirit and the plain truths of scripture, to know the gospel for their own peace and joy, and to preach it to others.

Being clergymen of the church of England, they were privileged to preach in the churches this new gospel-immediate pardon and salvation through faith in Christ, without works of human merit. But this was too simple and too scriptural to be tolerated, and in a short time almost every pulpit in England was closed against them. Thus driven outside, they were compelled to preach in the open air, and thereby inaugurated open-air preaching which has since become so common. In Moorfields, on Kennington Common, and such like places they preached in town and country to audiences numbering from ten to twenty thousand. By the grace of God these "twin apostles" of England-Wesley and Whitefield-continued faithful and devoted to the end of their career.

They were used of God to rescue the English people from the depths of moral darkness, leading thousands, both in this country and in America, to the feet of Jesus. Men of all ranks acknowledged the force of their appeals-colliers and carpenters, ploughmen and philosophers; and many of the nobility yielded their hearts to the power of the truth. But their record is on high, and there the fruits of their labours shall abide throughout eternity. Whitefield died in America in 1770; and Wesley in London in 1791, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.*

At last, the hand of God was gently laid upon him, and this divine chastening sufficed to draw the weak and ignorant sufferer to a knowledge of God's love in Christ. For weeks and months, he thus learned in the school of God, and then his soul emerged from the mists of earth, into the brightness of a new and divine position, for George Whitefield had, at length, obtained peace in believing.

When convalescent, the young man went to his own home, and there gave himself to the study of the word of God. Then he began to feed upon Christ, and his soul learned the liberty which results from the ungrieved action of the Holy Spirit. All seemed new, and he owned now that a few weeks' study of the Scriptures, taught him more than all the writings of man he had ever perused. Whitefield found out too, what it was to have God's thoughts instead of his own, thus tasting the sweetness of communion.

But we must now take our leave of the boy George, for at this stage, he had reached the years of manhood, and the restless strivings of his youth gave place to active faith, in riper years. Ere long, he awoke the British Isles by the earnestness of his gospel preaching and burning love for souls. The power of God was with him, and in days when open-air gatherings for the gospel were rarely to be seen, Whitefield's zeal brought thousands to listen, and many to be blessed. Multitudes of souls dead in sin were reached, and numbers of sleeping Christians woke up, to find that God expects reality.

Thus George Whitefield became an honoured servant of the living God � a man in earnest, having one purpose in life, and he nobly fulfilled his aim. Willing to be anything that he might win souls for Christ, he was an out-and-out man in his onward course, and the seal of God's approval of his faithfulness was given in the awakening of thousands to a sense of their need. Wherever he turned his steps with God's glad tidings, in England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales, multitudes flocked to listen, and hung with marked attention on his wonderful message from God. Across the wide Atlantic too, he carried the glad news, bringing blessing to souls, not only in America, but on board the vessel that carried him thither.

As all of these seven Churches of Asia have their counterpart in successive stages or periods in the history of Christendom, we believe that the Philadelphian period has had its prophetic fulfilment in the revival period of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Following the time of cold, lifeless formalism that seemed to settle down over all Protestant Christendom, which we have seen set forth in the Sardis condition, God began to work afresh in mighty power. There were great awakenings all over northern Europe and the British Isles . Later the same mighty power of God wrought in America . Spirit-filled men of God went about calling on sinners to repent and saints to awaken from their lethargy. Finding the churches closed to them, men like the Wesleys and George Whitefield preached in the open air to audiences of ten to twenty thousand and led thousands in England and America out of moral darkness to Christ during the eighteenth century.

But admitting all this, I still believe what is needed for successful evangelization is not so much a great quantity of truth as an intense love for souls. Look at that eminent evangelist George Whitefield. What think you was the secret of his success? No doubt you have looked into his printed sermons. Have you found any great breadth of truth in them? I question it. Indeed I must say I have been struck with the contrary. But oh! there was that in Whitefield which you and I may well covet and long to cultivate. There was a burning love for souls — a thirst for their salvation — a mighty grappling with the conscience — a bold, earnest, face-to-face dealing with men about their past ways, their present state, their future destiny.

Take any truth you please. Take, for example, the glorious truth of the Lord's coming. How is a man most likely to affect his hearers by the presentation of this truth? Unquestionably by being deeply affected himself. If the heart be under the power of that solemn word, "the Lord is at hand" — if this fact be realized in all its solemnity as to the world, and in its sweet attractiveness as to the believer individually and the Church collectively, then it will assuredly be presented in a way calculated to move the hearts of the hearers. It is easy to see when a man feels what he is saying. There may be a very clear and clever exposition of the doctrine of the second advent, and of all the collateral truths; but if it be cold and heartless, it will fall powerless on the ears of the audience. In order to speak to hearts, on any subject, the heart of the speaker must feel it. What was it that gave such power to Whitefield's discourses? It was not the depth or the range of truth contained in them, as is manifest to any intelligent reader. No. The secret of their mighty efficacy lay in the fact that the speaker felt what he was saying. Whitefield wept over the people, and no marvel if the people wept under Whitefield. He must be a hardened wretch indeed who can sit unmoved under a preacher who is shedding tears for his soul's salvation.

"According to your faith be it unto you," is a divine principle for blessing between the needy soul and a giving God. Whitefield expected blessing, and the Lord gave it, first a retired place for prayer, then a way to the hearts of many, and eventually opportunities in which to minister to the sick, and the frequent preaching of the gospel, till the blessing of the Lord had spread over the ship. Looking back on this voyage, he thus wrote in after years: "A consciousness that I had in view the glory of God, and the good of souls, from time to time, afforded me unspeakable satisfaction."

This is only one example, among many, of the way in which Whitefield began on barren soil, labouring with God, in patient perseverance, till the blessing came down in rich abundance through the Word. At Bristol, his open-air preaching to twenty thousand colliers, moved hearts there, and melted to tears multitudes unaccustomed to weep and mourn over sin. In other large cities and towns, he attracted immense crowds, always to pour forth the burden of his heart, which was the need of lost and ruined souls "Ye must be born again."

Whitefield was greatly ridiculed because of the constant reiteration of this all-important truth, and if he knew popularity, he also experienced persecution.

As on all such marvellous visitations of the Holy Spirit, multitudes from all parts crowded to see the Lord's great work. During the month of August when the sacrament of the supper was dispensed, about thirty thousand people were gathered together, and fourteen ministers were engaged in preaching on the green, and in dispensing the elements to one company after another inside the church. George Whitefield was one of the ministers, and appointed to preach in the evening. The tent stood on the margin of a little stream; in front of this rose a green bank in the form of an amphitheatre. About ten o'clock at night Whitefield rose to give the last address for the day. It was indeed nature's temple, as the preacher observed, built by God Himself for so great a concourse to worship in. As his deep voice in impassioned eloquence rolled over the vast multitude, it was answered by sighs and sobs, and soon the tens of thousands were melted in tears.

In years he was but a youth, yet his deep tones, his wonderful eloquence, with his remarkable appearance, appalled the clergy and delighted the people. In the spirit of a John the Baptist he called upon the people to repent, and turn to the Lord, and not infrequently assailed the unpopular vices of the clergy.

Beneath him, crowding every bench, sat men of all ranks and conditions, and as the calm face of the ocean reflects the sky that is hung above it, so did the upturned faces respond to the varied emotions of the fervid preacher. With what delight did he tell out in simple, clear, yet earnest words, the story of a "free salvation" � a gift sent down from God to be received without money and without price! How thrillingly tender grew his tones as with winning words of love, he beseeched men in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God!