Potrait of Revival: George Whitefield in England
One of my favorite preachers of all time, George Whitefield (1714-1770) traveled seven different times to the American colonies during the First Great Awakening. As a young man in his mid twenties thousands thronged to hear him preach. Born in Gloucester, his father, proprietor of the Bell Inn, died when George was two years old. As a young lad Whitefield’s interest in acting helped to develop what would become his unusual oratorical skills. He was passionate for his schoolmaster’s plays. The famous actor Garrick said Whitefield could move people to tears by the way he said “Mesopotamia.”
Whitefield entered Pembroke College at Oxford University on November 7, 1732. His seriousness and his refusal to join in the levity of the majority of students welled up a desire to be acquainted with Holy Club. Charles Wesley invited young George to join their group. By then these “Bible Bigots” or “Bible Moths,” as the club was also called, were a subject of great derision by the student body at large. They were encouraged by the example of the Apostle Paul and by A. H. Francke’s Against the Fear of Man.
These men were committed both to personal piety and serious scholarship. Would that God would raise up a generation of such as these!
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Quotes from Whitefield:
–On a burden for lost people: You blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction!
–On Preaching: I did not come to tickle your ears; no, but I came to touch your hearts.
–On Personal Witnessing: God forbid that I should travel with anybody a quarter of an hour without speaking of Christ to them.
–On scholarship: The only way to be a true scholar is to be striving to be a true saint.
–On facing difficulty: O may God put me into one furnace after another, that my soul may be transparent; that I may see God as He is.
–On a disciplined life: There is not a thing on the face of the earth that I abhor so much as idleness or idle people.
Taken from Christian History Vol. XII no. 2, 6, 28.
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Whitefield read Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man. He wrote of its impact: “God showed me that I must be born again, or be damned! I learned that a man may go to church, say prayers, receive the sacrament, and yet not be a Christian.. . .. . . God soon showed me, for in reading a few lines further, that ‘true Christianity is a union of the soul with God, and Christ formed within us,’ and form that moment, and not till then, did I know I must become a new creature.”
For a year Whitefield earnestly travailed for salvation. But in the spring of 1735 he settled the matter, and was never the same. He was twenty years old. He began immediately to tell everyone he could about the joy of salvation. Soon a group of people he led to Christ formed a society.
Whitefield was ordained into the Anglican ministry on June 20, 1736. The Wesleys had sailed to Georgia, so the younger Whitefield became the leader of the Holy Club. John wrote to Whitefield from Georgia, asking him to help the work in the New World. Unable to deport immediately, for almost a year Whitefield preached to burgeoning crowds in England. He was already growing in popularity in his homeland. His sermons were characterized not by pomp or sensationalism, but by biblical content, doctrinal emphasis and simplicity, accompanied by an enthusiastic delivery which often included tears. His oratorical skills would prove a valuable ally.
Finally, on December 30, 1737, he boarded the Whitaker with General Oglethorpe (Georgians would know that name). As they were in the harbor about to embark, John Wesley returned on The Samuel from America. Three ships journeyed together. Whitefield soon gained the confidence of those on board to the point that he would stand and preach to all three boats at once, displaying his unique vocal ability. While on board Whitefield recorded this prayer: “God, give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye, and then let men or devils do their worst!”
This first of seven visits would only last five months. The trip did burden Whitefield to raise money for an orphanage for the many children whose parents had died in the severity of the new land. The orphanage Bethesda, “House of Mercy,” would be a model of benevolent enterprise. On the return Whitefield’s ship was ravaged by a storm. Another boat came by. Learning of Whitefield’s presence, the sound boat invited him aboard. Whitefield’s integrity is seen in his response. He refused to leave his ship because he believed a Christian should not leave danger if others remained to endure it.
As Whitefield joined these brothers and others of the Holy Club, the spiritual intensity was obvious. On several occasions they spent entire nights in prayer. Though many years his junior, Whitefield preceded John Wesley in gathering massive crowds to his preaching, he was the first at field preaching, and demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities.
Howell Harris, who became a revival leader in the Calvinistic Methodist Church in Wales, had begun the practice of preaching in the open air. A layman, Harris followed his powerful conversion with preaching at first to people in homes. Soon he began preaching at any public event he attended. The blessing of God marked his preaching. He called it “exhorting,” because he was unordained, but Gospel preaching it was! Whitefield met Harris and was influenced by him.
In 1737, while still in his early twenties, Whitefield preached to packed churches in England while others were turned away by the hundreds and even thousands. The growing spiritual hunger could not be satisfied by services in the church buildings alone.
He was not only a preacher to the masses, but to the aristocracy as well. His growing popularity necessitated up to four sermons on Sundays by the young Whitefield. Such a pace doubtless contributed to his constant health woes which plagued the evangelist throughout his ministry. Constables had to be placed at the door in some churches to maintain order due to the crowds. Even more had to be turned away.
At first Wesley and Whitefield were invited to many churches to preach. However, their message of justification by faith received less than enthusiastic responses by many clergymen, and invitations soon declined. As Wesley saw that the Anglican churches would not be his chief sphere of witness he adapted by going to the various religious societies of the day. Whitefield shifted his attention to field preaching, a practice John Wesley would soon adopt. Whitefield first preached out of doors near Bristol. Jealousy among other ministers led to closed doors in the churches in that city. So, he went to a notorious area of the city called Kingswood and preached in the open air. Kingswood was a rough, four-thousand-acre district at the edge of Bristol where coal miners lived. The miners did not mix with the other laboring classes. People shuddered at their presence, referring to the miners as “heathen” and “savages.” “Why go to America to preach to the Indians?” some queried Whitefield. “Go to Kingswood, to the Colliers.”
For six weeks Whitefield preached at Kingswood, and thousands were gripped by the Holy Spirit. Although he did not create the method of field preaching, he certainly took it to its zenith. And, his influence on the Wesleys to follow him in the practice served to legitimize the approach. Whitefield struggled at first with the concept. On February 17, 1739, he began the practice out of concern for the outcasts of society, as noted in his Journal:
My bowels have long since yearned toward the poor colliers, who are very numerous, and as sheep having no shepherd. After dinner, therefore, I went upon a mount, and spake to as many people as came unto me. They were upwards of two hundred. Blessed be God that I have now broken the ice! I believe I was never more acceptable to my Master than when I was standing to teach those hearers in the open fields. Some may censure me; but if I thus pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Often Whitefield preached outside so early in the morning his hearers had to bring lanterns. His critics referred to such preaching as “that mad Trick.”
John Wesley soon followed Whitefield in the practice, though not without a struggle over the practice himself. Whitefield invited John to preach for him in March. After some hesitancy Wesley preached his first field sermon on March 31, 1739. Field preaching went against Wesley’s background and personality. In a biography focusing on Wesley’s evangelism, Wood stated that only God’s grace could convince Wesley to do such a task, adding that “for every age God has a program of evangelism. This was His way of reaching the masses in the eighteenth century.” Through field preaching these men reached many people that could be reached in no other way. While many criticized such a strange method, Wesley said it should be judged by its fruits.
Soon George Whitefield and John Wesley focused his ministry on those not touched by the established church: the colliers, the tinners, the left-outs of society. Whitefield became persecuted by the owners of taverns on one side, due to the loss of business his ministry caused, and by the Anglican clergy on the other, because of his message.
If Whitefield preached today, would we support him, or would we oppose his ministry?