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Overview
George Whitefield proclaimed the Christian message to more people in history than anyone else, before or since, who spoke with an unaided voice. A preacher of revival almost from his childhood, when he prophesied his own destiny, he had a profound impact on the social, religious and political life of both Britain and America. He crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, and merged as a celebrity figure, whose message captivated both rich and poor alike. Whitefield heralded a new kind of revival that was both spiritually powerful and entertaining at the same time. He was also a man of contradictions. He loved the Anglican liturgy but would happily break canon law. He was a devoted Puritan yet he was also able to befriend those with more liberal morals, Above all, Whitefield was a driven man, and his overwhelming passion was to preach New Birth in Christ - the theme he was to speak on over a thousand times. He valued education, opposed slavery, cared for orphan children and changed the course of both British and American history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780745980287 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Lion Hudson LTD |
| Publication date: | 06/21/2019 |
| Edition description: | New edition |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
From Rebellious Youth to Ordination
George Whitefield was born the youngest of seven children at the Bell Inn in the city of Gloucester on 16 December 1714. His father, Thomas, had previously worked for a Bristol wine merchant during which time he married Elizabeth Edwards. Then at some earlier point his parents moved to Gloucester and took over the running of the hostelry in Southgate Street. The Bell comprised of the main inn, outhouses, stables, several shops, land, and a garden worth £130 per year. The city skyline, noted for its church spires, was dominated by the cathedral, which, during the eighteenth century, became a focus of choral music with soloists sometimes coming from as far away as London. The city, which had just over 1,000 houses, and a population a little over 5,000 in 1710, was a centre of corn trading. However, as larger ships were built Gloucester's port began to lose its importance to that of Bristol, which had the capacity to accommodate them. Despite this, Gloucester continued to be a growing centre of commerce which attracted many visitors. By 1720 the Saracen's Head in Eastgate Street was able to offer stables for sixty horses. It is a significant fact that at this time many wealthy families in Gloucestershire kept black African slaves; this may well have impacted on Whitefield's later controversial advocacy of slavery in the American colonies.
George, it should be said, had clerical blood in his veins. His great-grandfather, Samuel Whitefield, had been rector of North Ledyard in Wiltshire and then moved on to become incumbent of the parish of Rockhampton in Gloucestershire where his son, also Samuel, succeeded him as incumbent.
Very little information about Whitefield's infancy has come to light. It is known from extant records that he enrolled at a school run by the cathedral in 1726. The main source of his early years is a brief autobiographical sketch of his life entitled A Short Account of God's Dealings with the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield. This was supplemented by A Further Account of God's Dealings which covered the time from his ordination to his embarking on a ship bound for Georgia in 1737. The "Short Account" was written in 1740 at an early point in his ministry and gives some fairly detailed accounts of the misdemeanours of his youth, some of which he toned down in a later edition. At the time of writing the first account Whitefield was only at the beginning of his ministry but already he had become a celebrity preacher. He was keen that the people who hung on his every word should not cherish unreal opinions of him. At the outset he tells his readers that in most of the biographies of other men that he had read the writers "have given us the bright, but not the dark side of their character. This, I think, proceeded from a kind of fraud, lest mentioning a person's faults should encourage others to sin." Whitefield justified this baring of his soul on a biblical ground recalling that the sacred writers give an account of their failings as well as their virtues. In particular he mentioned Peter who was not ashamed to confess that he had denied his Master three times with oaths and curses. Nor, he pointed out, did the Gospel writers avoid telling us that Jesus had cast out seven devils from Mary Magdalene. So, he concluded, "I have ... follow[ed] their good example" and "simply told what I was by nature, as well as what I am by grace."
From a young age George remembered his mother telling him that she had endured fourteen weeks of sickness after she had brought him into the world and "that she expected more comfort from me than any other of her children". These expectations coupled with experience of working in the inn later stirred his desire to be a wholehearted follower of Christ. Notwithstanding these aspirations George was able to recall and recount a number of aspects of misspent youth.
I can truly say, I was froward from my mother's womb. I was so brutish as to hate instruction, and used purposely to shun all opportunities of receiving it. I can date some very early acts of uncleanness ... Lying, filthy talking, and foolish jesting I was much addicted to, even when very young. Sometimes I used to curse, if not swear. Stealing from my mother I thought was no theft at all, and I used to make no scruple of taking money out of her pocket before she was up. I have ... more than once spent the money I took from the house, in buying fruits, tarts etc., to satisfy my sensual appetite. Much money have I spent in plays, and in the common entertainments of the age. Cards and reading romances were my heart's delight.
In December 1724, when Whitefield was about ten years old, his mother was remarried to a Mr Capel Longdon, who was a near neighbour. It proved to be a disastrous union and Elizabeth finally left her husband in 1728. Notwithstanding this hardship George's mother always took great care over her young son's education and when he was twelve years old he was sent to the Crypt School in Gloucester where he became an avid reader. George was clearly a bright child but his education was of short duration owing to his mother's reduced circumstances. He later wrote, "My mother was very careful of my education and always kept me in my tender years, for which I can never sufficiently thank her." Whitefield recalled that during his time at school he was blessed with a retentive memory and was very good at elocution. He also became especially fond of reading plays and acting in them, skills which were later to prove highly valuable in his dramatic preaching and public speaking. It also enabled him to be confident in conversation and at ease with all sections of society from mine workers to London aristocrats and Oxford dons.
With the passing of time it became clear to the young Whitefield that his mother's circumstances were insufficient to give him a university education. He therefore left off learning Latin and began to help her run the hostelry. He wrote, "I put on my blue apron and my snuffers, washed mops, cleaned rooms, and in one word, became a professed and common drawer for nigh a year and a half."
After this early period of George's "servile employment" his mother decided to leave the inn. The business was then placed in the hands of his younger brother who had recently married, with George appointed as his assistant. Unfortunately the situation became difficult with George falling out with his sister-in-law and it was eventually agreed that he should go and stay with his older brother in Bristol. There, in St John's Church, he related how "God was pleased to give me great foretastes of His love" and filled him "with such unspeakable raptures" that he "was carried out beyond [him]self." These were accompanied with "great hungerings and thirstings after the blessed Sacrament". By this he referred to his strong desire to receive Holy Communion, a practice that became his lifelong habit. In consequence of this experience he wrote many letters, including one to his mother, telling her that he would never go into public employment again. At this same time he found a "great delight" in the writings of medieval mystic, Thomas à Kempis, and must have wondered at his beautifully written The Imitation of Christ. He also read at this time Thomas Ken's Manual for Winchester Scholars, "a book which much affected me".
After about two months away in Bristol George returned to Gloucester where he recalled "Alas! All my fervour went off." Much of his days reverted to "reading plays and in sauntering from place to place". In short it was, he said, "a proper season for Satan to tempt me. During this time all George's efforts to obtain an apprenticeship in the city came to nothing and it struck him that God was going to provide some other way he could not comprehend. And so it proved!
Oxford bound!
A young student who had been one of Whitefield's friends at the Crypt School chanced to pay a visit to his mother. During the course of their conversations he mentioned that he was a servitor at Pembroke College, Oxford, and explained how in this position he had been able to pay his way by performing the duties of a domestic servant for his fellow wealthier students. George vividly recalled that, on hearing this, his mother cried out, "This will do for my son" and turning to him said, "Will you go to Oxford George?" His reply was, "I will with all my heart."
George's mother shared the same friends who had sponsored this young undergraduate student. They promised to do their best to get him a servitor's place in the same college. In little more than a week Elizabeth Whitefield approached her son's Master at the Crypt who proved to be much in favour of this proposed move. George who at once returned to his studies had clearly not lost his Latin and surprised his master by an almost faultless translation of the first passage he was given. Now with his eyes set on Oxford George recalled that "I learned much faster than I did before."
Although the young Whitefield made great strides with his studies his behaviour didn't follow suit. "All this while," he wrote, "I continued in secret sins and at length got acquainted with such a set of debauched, abandoned, atheistical youths, that if God by his free, unmerited, and especial grace, had not delivered me out of their hands, I should long since have sat in the scorner's chair and made a mock at sin." Among other ills he got drunk on at least two occasions, took part in lewd conversation and struggled with "his corrupt passions"; probably a reference to his strong sexual desires. Whitefield also recalled having fallen into "abominable sin" which Kidd has suggested was likely to have been masturbation.
Shocked at having been "overtaken in liquor" and finding himself at the beginning of his seventeenth year and now an "upper boy in the school", George resolved to take himself in hand. He began to study with even greater determination and was especially diligent in reading his Greek New Testament. One night, while in this new frame of mind, George was running an errand for his mother when he had "a very strong impression that I should preach". However, on his return he found his mother was less than impressed with this idea and told him to hold his tongue. George was undeterred and started to receive Communion each month and attended public worship as often as he could. One of his brothers told him he was just having another phase, which would soon pass away when he reached Oxford. George was glad of the caution which led him to start praying for perseverance against the temptations with which he was struggling.
Pembroke at last
George, however, remained steadfast in his new-found resolve and recorded in his autobiography that "Being now near eighteen years old, it was judged proper for me to go to the university God had sweetly prepared for me." He arrived in Oxford near the close of 1732. His mother's Gloucester friends had indeed paved the way, commending him to the master of Pembroke and providing him with the sum of ten pounds. At the time of his arrival Pembroke College, which had been founded in 1624, had a community of about sixty fellows and scholars. On beginning his tasks as a "servitor" in the college George soon found that the work in his mother's public house had prepared him well for his new tasks. His diligent and prompt attendance to the needs of his wealthier fellow students meant "that many who had it in their power chose me as their servitor". His income together with some "little presents made by my kind tutor" meant that he had only a small debt to repay at the time of his graduation.
Despite his brother's derisory remark that his recent habit of attending daily worship was just a phase George resisted the invitations of his fellow students "to go out amongst them". Indeed he strengthened his devotional life buying a copy of William Law's Serious Call to a Devout Life, through which "God worked powerfully on my soul". He also began the practice of singing the psalms and praying three times a day, as well as receiving the sacrament at a parish church near the college.
The Holy Club
Twelve years before Whitefield entered the university John Wesley had studied at Christ Church. He had completed his Master of Arts degree and been elected a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford in 1726, being ordained deacon the following year. His younger brother Charles became a student at Christ Church in 1726, graduating with an MA in 1733 and being ordained in 1735. In the summer of 1729 the two brothers began meeting together with Robert Kirkham, William Morgan, Benjamin Ingham, and others to read pious works together. They met at set times for prayer and conversation in various college rooms and began the practice of visiting the poor and some of the prisoners in Oxford gaol. In 1732 John Wesley drew up a set of General Rules for self-examination, which other members of the group (later becoming known as the "Holy Club") began to use for themselves.
Having read William Law's Serious Call, Whitefield was anxious to progress in his Christian commitment when at Oxford. Once, in Pembroke College, he was keen to find out about the Holy Club and he sought them out for their company. Whitefield was particularly impressed when he chanced to see "the Methodists" as they were derisively called, go through a mocking crowd to receive Holy Communion at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. He wrote that "his soul was a thirst for some spiritual friend to lift up my hands when they hung down, and to strengthen my feeble knees".
Surprisingly it was more than twelve months before Whitefield at last had an opportunity to meet some of the Holy Club members. He sent a note to Charles Wesley concerning a poor woman in one of the workhouses who had made an unsuccessful attempt to cut her throat. In reply he received an invitation to come to breakfast the following morning. He later reflected, "I thankfully embraced the opportunity; and, blessed be God, it was one of the most profitable visits I ever made in my life." Wesley loaned him Professor August Hermann Francke's Treatise against the Fear of Man and another book entitled The Country Parson's Advice to His Parishioners, a work "which was wonderfully blessed to my soul". Francke's book instilled in Whitefield a strong courage which enabled him to withstand opposition and persecution for the rest of his days. He noted in his manuscript diary for 8 March 1736, "Glad sweet communion in God in Frank's Pietas Hallensis. I hope God will enable me in some measure to follow that good man's steps."
A short time later Charles put into Whitefield's hands Henry Scougal's book, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Scougal had been a young and distinguished professor in the University of Aberdeen. From this volume which had first been published in 1677, Whitefield realized that what Scougal described as "falsely placed religion" precisely described his own experience of "going to church, doing hurt to no one, being constant in the duties of the closet [by which he meant private personal prayer], and now and then reaching out ... to give alms to their poor neighbours". Mystified Whitefield remarked that "I never knew what true religion was, till God sent me that excellent treatise by the hands of my never-to-be-forgotten friend."
As he took in Scougal's words his heart shuddered "like a poor man who is afraid to look into his ledger, lest he should find himself a bankrupt". He was pulled apart within and found himself debating whether to throw the book to one side or search further. He took the latter course and held the book in his hand and prayed out loud, "Lord, if I am not a Christian, for Jesus' sake show me what Christianity is, that I may not be damned at last." He read on a little further and found that those who knew anything about real Christianity know that it is "a vital reunion with the Son of God – Christ formed in the heart". In that moment as he read those words "a ray of divine light was instantaneously darted in upon my soul, and from that moment, but not till then, did I know that I must be a new creature". In the 1756 revised edition of his A Short Account Whitefield further reflected on this moment of his conversion and wrote:
God was pleased ... to enable me to lay hold on His dear Son by a living faith, and by giving me the Spirit of adoption, to seal me as I humbly hope, even to the day of everlasting redemption. But Oh! With what joy unspeakable – even joy that was full of, and big with glory, was my soul filled, when the weight of sin went off, and an abiding sense of the pardoning love of God, and full assurance of faith broke into my soul! ... At first my joys were like a spring tide and, as it were, overflowed the banks; afterwards it became more settled – and blessed be God, saving a few casual intervals, has abode in my soul ever since.
Whitefield always dated his conversion from this moment which seems to have taken place in 1735, about seven weeks after Easter. He referred to it as "a day to be had in everlasting remembrance". This was three years before John Wesley had a similar experience and "felt his heart strangely warmed" in the Moravian Chapel in Aldersgate Street in the city of London. It means that Whitefield was probably the first among the Holy Club to gain a deep experience of the "new birth". Some have wondered why it took such a length of time before the Wesleys came to share Whitefield's new-found joy for themselves. The most likely explanation was that they had left Oxford for the American colonies. Be that as it may Whitefield appears from this moment to have retained an almost physical sense of the presence of God. For him the reality of Christ was "like a Spring tide, overflowing at the banks". Twenty years on he wrote that this presence remained "and increased in my soul ever since".
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "George Whitefield"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Nigel Scotland.
Excerpted by permission of Lion Hudson Limited.
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Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface 11
Chapter 1 From Rebellious Youth to Ordination 17
Chapter 2 Georgia Missionary 40
Chapter 3 The Great Outdoors 61
Chapter 4 Awakening in America 82
Chapter 5 Catalyst of Revival in Scotland 107
Chapter 6 Howell Harris and the Countess 131
Chapter 7 Trapped in the Homeland 159
Chapter 8 The Grand Itinerant 183
Chapter 9 Preacher Extraordinaire 197
Chapter 10 Social Gospeller 218
Chapter 11 Theologian and Churchman 243
Chapter 12 A Fervent Spirituality 270
Chapter 13 Last Days and Assessment 299
Bibliography 322
Index 326
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