Welcome to the audio ministry of Christ Baptist
Church in the County of Derbyshire, here in
the rural heart of the United Kingdom.
Thank you for choosing to listen to this
narration about the life and ministry of George
Whitfield, taken from the book, Christian Leaders of
the Eighteenth Century, by Bishop J.
C.
Ryle.
The book, containing biographies by Bishop Ryle of
eleven men, was first published in 1885, but
has since been reprinted by the Banner of
Truth Trust.
We very much hope that you will be
encouraged, and indeed blessed, by listening to this
audio presentation.
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would love to hear from you, then you
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Chapter 1 Who were the men that revived
religion in England a hundred years ago?
What were their names, that we may do
them honour?
Where were they born?
How were they educated?
What are the leading facts in their lives?
What was their special department of labour?
To these questions I wish to supply some
answers in the present and future chapters.
I pity the man who takes no interest
in such inquiries.
The instruments that God employs to do His
work in the world deserve a close inspection.
The man who did not care to look
at the ram's horns that blew down Jericho,
the hammer and nail that slew Cicero, the
lamps and trumpets of Gideon, the sling and
stone of David, might fairly be set down
as a cold and heartless person.
I trust that all who read this volume
will like to know something about the English
evangelists of the eighteenth century.
The first, and foremost, whom I will name,
is the well-known George Whitefield.
Though not the first in order if we
look at the date of his birth, I
place him first in the order of merit,
without any hesitation.
Of all the spiritual heroes of a hundred
years ago, none saw so soon as Whitefield
what the times demanded, and none were so
forward in the great work of spiritual aggression.
I should think I committed an act of
injustice if I placed any name before his.
Whitefield was born at Gloucester in the year
1714.
That venerable county town, which was his birthplace,
is connected with more than one name which
ought to be dear to every lover of
Protestant truth.
Tyndale, one of the first and ablest translators
of the English Bible, was of Gloucester-Chamann.
Hooper, one of the greatest and best of
our English reformers, was Bishop of Gloucester, and
was burned at the stake for Christ's truth
within view of his own cathedral in Queen
Mary's reign.
In the next century, Miles Smith, Bishop of
Gloucester, was one of the first to protest
against the Romanising proceedings of Lord, who was
then Dean of Gloucester.
In fact, he carried his Protestant feelings so
far that, when Lord moved the communion table
in the cathedral to the east end and
placed it for the first time altar-wise
in 1616, Bishop Smith was so much offended
that he refused to enter the walls of
the cathedral from that day till his death.
Places like Gloucester, we need not doubt, have
a rich entailed inheritance of many prayers.
The city where Hooper preached and prayed, and
where the zealous Miles Smith protested, was the
place where the greatest preacher of the gospel
England has ever seen was born.
Like many other famous men, Whitfield was of
humble origin, and had no rich or noble
connections to help him forward in the world.
His mother kept the Bell Inn at Gloucester,
and appears not to have prospered in business.
At any rate, she never seems to have
been able to do anything for Whitfield's advancement
in life.
The inn itself is still standing, and is
reputed to be the birthplace not only of
our greatest English preacher, but also of a
well-known English prelate, Henry Philpott, Bishop of
Exeter.
Whitfield's early life, according to his own account,
was anything but religious, though like many boys
he had occasional prickings of conscience and spasmodic
fits of devout feeling.
But habits and general tastes are the only
true test of young people's characters.
He confesses that he was addicted to lying,
filthy talking, and foolish jesting, and that he
was a Sabbath-breaker, a theatre-goer, a
card-player, and a romance-reader.
All this, he says, went on till he
was fifteen years old.
Poor as he was, his residence at Gloucester
procured him the advantage of a good education
at the free grammar school of that city.
Here he was a day-scholar until he
was fifteen.
Nothing is known of his progress there.
He can hardly, however, have been quite idle,
or else he would not have been ready
to enter a university afterwards at the age
of eighteen.
His letters, moreover, show an acquaintance with Latin,
in the shape of frequent quotations, which is
seldom acquired, if not picked up at school.
The only known fact about his school-days
is this curious one, that even then he
was remarkable for his good elocution and memory,
and was selected to recite speeches before the
corporation of Gloucester at their annual visitation of
the grammar school.
At the age of fifteen, Whitfield appears to
have left school, and to have given up
Latin and Greek for a season.
In all probability, his mother's straightened circumstances made
it absolutely necessary for him to do something
to assist her in business and to get
his own living.
He began, therefore, to help her in the
daily work of the bell-inn.
At length, he says, I put on my
blue apron, washed cups, cleaned rooms, and in
one word became a professed common-drawer for
a nigh a year and a half.
This state of things, however, did not last
long.
His mother's business at the bell did not
flourish, and she finally retired from it altogether.
An old school-fellow revived in his mind
the idea of going to Oxford, and he
went back to the grammar school and renewed
his studies.
Friends were raised up who made interest for
him at Pembroke College, Oxford, where the grammar
school of Gloucester held two exhibitions, and at
length, after several providential circumstances had smoothed the
way, he entered Oxford as a servitor at
Pembroke at the age of eighteen.
Whitfield's residence at Oxford was the great turning
-point in his life.
For two or three years before he went
to the university, his journal tells us that
he had not been without religious convictions, but
from the time of his entering Pembroke College
these convictions fast ripened into decided Christianity.
He diligently attended all means of grace within
his reach.
He spent his leisure time in visiting the
city prison, reading to the prisoners and trying
to do good.
He became acquainted with the famous John Wesley
and his brother Charles, and a little band
of like-minded men, including the well-known
author of Theron and Aspasio, James Hervey.
These were the devoted party to whom the
name Methodists was first applied, on account of
their strict method of living.
At one time he seems to have greedily
devoured such books as Thomas Acampis and Castanus's
Spiritual Combat, and to have been in danger
of becoming a semi-papist, an ascetic or
a mystic, and of placing the whole of
religion in self-denial.
He says in his journal, I always chose
the worst sort of food.
I fasted twice a week.
My apparel was mean.
I thought it unbecoming a penitent to have
his hair powdered.
I wore woollen gloves, a patched gown, and
dirty shoes.
And though I was convinced that the kingdom
of God did not consist in meat and
drink, yet I resolutely persisted in these voluntary
acts of self-denial, because I found in
them a great promotion of the spiritual life.
Out of all this darkness he was gradually
delivered, partly by the advice of one or
two experienced Christians, and partly by reading such
books as Scroogle's Life of God in the
Heart of Man, Law's Serious Call, Baxter's Call
to the Unconverted, Alain's Alarm to Unconverted Sinners,
and Matthew Henry's Commentary.
Above all, he says, my mind being now
more opened and enlarged, I began to read
the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside
all other books, and praying over, if possible,
every line and word.
This proved meat indeed, and drink indeed to
my soul.
I daily received fresh life, light, and power
from above.
I got more true knowledge from reading the
book of God in one month than I
could have ever acquired from all the writings
of men.
Once taught to understand the glorious liberty of
Christ's gospel, Whitefield never turned again to asceticism,
legalism, mysticism, or strange views of Christian perfection.
The experience received by bitter conflict most valuable
to him.
The doctrines of free grace, once thoroughly grasped,
took deep root in his heart, and became,
as it were, bone of his bone, and
flesh of his flesh.
Of all the little band of Oxford Methodists,
none seemed to have got hold so soon
of clear views of Christ's gospel as he
did, and none kept it so unwaveringly to
the end.
At the early age of twenty-two, Whitefield
was admitted to holy orders by Bishop Benson
of Gloucester, on Trinity Sunday, 1736.
His ordination was not of his own seeking.
The Bishop sent for him, gave him five
guineas to buy books, and offered to ordain
him, although only twenty-two years old, whenever
he wished.
This unexpected offer came to him when he
was full of scruples about his own fitness
for the ministry.
It cut the knot and brought him to
the point of decision.
I began to think, he says, that if
I held out longer, I should fight against
God.
Whitefield's first sermon was preached in the very
town where he was born, at the church
of St. Mary the Crypt, Gloucester.
His own description of it is the best
account that can be given.
Last Sunday, in the afternoon, I preached my
first sermon in the church of St. Mary
the Crypt, where I was baptised, and also
first received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
Curiosity, as you may easily guess, drew a
large congregation together upon this occasion.
The sight at first a little awed me,
but I was comforted with a heartfelt sense
of the Divine Presence, and soon found the
unspeakable advantage of having been accustomed to public
speaking when a boy at school, and of
exhorting the prisoners and poor people at their
private houses while at the university.
By these means I was kept from being
daunted overmuch.
As I proceeded I perceived the fire kindled,
till at last, though so young, and amidst
a crowd of those who knew me in
my childish days, I trust I was enabled
to speak with some degree of gospel authority.
Some few mocked, but most seemed for the
present struck.
And I have since heard that a complaint
was made to the bishop that I drove
fifteen people mad the first sermon.
The worthy prelate wished that the madness might
not be forgotten before next Sunday.
Almost immediately after his ordination, Whitfield went to
Oxford and took his degree as Bachelor of
Arts.
He then commenced his regular ministerial life by
undertaking temporal duty at the Tower Chapel, London,
for two months.
While engaged there he preached continually in many
London churches, and, among others, in the parish
churches of Islington, Bishopsgate, St. Dunstan's, St. Margaret's,
Westminster, and Bow, Cheapside.
From the very first he obtained a degree
of popularity such as no preacher, before or
since, has probably ever reached.
Whether on weekdays or Sundays, wherever he preached
the churches were crowded, and an immense sensation
was produced.
The plain truth is that a really eloquent,
extemporer preacher, preaching the pure gospel, with most
uncommon gifts of voice and manner, was at
that time an entire novelty in London.
The congregations were taken by surprise, and carried
by storm.
From London he removed for two months to
Dummer, a little rural parish in Hampshire, near
Basingstoke.
This was a totally new sphere of action,
and he seemed like a man buried alive
among poor, illiterate people.
But he was soon reconciled to it, and
thought afterwards that he reaped much profit by
conversing with the poor.
From Dummer he accepted an invitation, which had
been much pressed on him by the Westleys,
to visit the colony of Georgia in North
America, and assist in the care of an
orphan-house which had been set up near
Savannah for the children of colonists.
After preaching for a few months in Gloucestershire,
and especially at Bristol and Stonehouse, he sailed
for America in the latter part of 1737,
and continued there about a year.
The affairs of this orphan-house, it may
be remarked, occupied much of his attention from
this period of his life till he died.
Though well-meant, it seems to have been
the design of very questionable wisdom, and certainly
entailed on Whitfield a world of anxiety and
responsibility to the end of his days.
Whitfield returned from Georgia at the latter part
of the year 1738, partly to obtain priest's
orders, which were conferred on him by his
old friend Bishop Benson, and partly on business
connected with the orphan-house.
He soon, however, discovered that his position was
no longer what it was before he sailed
for Georgia.
The bulk of the clergy were no longer
favourable to him, and regarded him with suspicion
as an enthusiast and a fanatic.
They were especially scandalized by his preaching the
doctrine of regeneration, or the new birth, as
a thing which many baptized persons greatly needed.
The number of pulpits to which he had
access rapidly diminished.
Church wardens, who had no eyes for drunkenness
and impurity, were filled with intense indignation about
what they called breaches of order.
Bishops who could tolerate Arianism, Socionism, and Deism,
were filled with indignation at a man who
declared fully the atonement of Christ and the
work of the Holy Ghost, and began to
denounce him openly.
In short, from this period of his life,
Whitefield's field of usefulness within the Church of
England narrowed rapidly on every side.
The step which at this juncture gave a
turn to the whole current of Whitefield's ministry
was his adoption of the system of open
-air preaching.
Seeing that thousands everywhere would attend no place
of worship, spent their Sundays in idleness or
sin, and were not to be reached by
sermons within walls, he resolved, in the spirit
of holy aggression, to go out after them
into the highways and hedges, on his master's
principle, and compel them to come in.
His first attempt to do this was among
the colliers at Kingswood near Bristol, in February
1739.
After much prayer, he one day went to
Hannam Mount, and standing upon a hill, began
to preach to about a hundred colliers, upon
Matthew 5, verses 1-3.
The thing soon became known.
The number of hearers rapidly increased, till the
congregation amounted to many thousands.
His own account of the behavior of these
neglected colliers, who had never been in a
church in their lives, is deeply affecting.
Having, he writes to a friend, no righteousness
of their own to renounce, they were glad
to hear of a Jesus who was a
friend of publicans, and came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
The first discovery of their being affected was
the sight of the white gutters made by
their tears, which plentifully fell down their black
cheeks as they came out of their culpits.
Hundreds of them were soon brought under deep
conviction, which, as the event proved, happily ended
in a sound and thorough conversion.
The change was visible to all, though numbers
chose to impute it to anything rather than
the finger of God.
As the scene was quite new, it often
occasioned many inward conflicts.
Sometimes, when twenty thousand people were before me,
I had not in my own apprehension a
word to say either to God or them.
But I was never totally deserted, and frequently,
for to deny it would be lying against
God, was so assisted that I knew by
happy experience what our Lord meant by saying,
Out of his belly shall flow rivers of
living water.
The open firmament above me, the prospect of
the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands,
some in coaches, some on horseback, and some
in the trees, and at times all affected
and in tears, was almost too much for,
and quite overcame me.
Two months after this, Whitfield began the practice
of open-air preaching in London on April
27, 1739.
The circumstances under which this happened were curious.
He had gone to Islington to preach for
the vicar, his friend Mr. Stonehouse.
In the midst of the prayer, the churchwardens
came to him and demanded his license for
preaching in the Diocese of London.
Whitfield, of course, had not got this license
any more than any clergyman not regularly officiating
in the diocese has at this day.
The upshot of the matter was that, being
forbidden by the churchwardens to preach in the
pulpit, he went outside after the communion service
and preached in the churchyard.
And, he says, God was pleased so to
assist me in preaching, and so wonderfully to
affect the hearers, that I believe we could
have gone singing hymns to prison.
Let not the adversaries say, I have thrust
myself out of their synagogues.
No, they have thrust me out.
From that day forward he became a constant
field preacher, whenever weather and the season of
the year made it possible.
Two days afterwards, on Sunday, April 29, he
records, I preached in moorfields to an exceeding
great multitude.
Being weakened by my morning's preaching, I refreshed
myself in the afternoon by a little sleep,
and at five went and preached at Kennington
Common, about two miles from London, where no
less than thirty thousand people were supposed to
be present.
Henceforth, wherever there were large open spaces around
London, wherever there were large bands of idle,
godless, Sabbath-breaking people gathered together, in Hackney
Fields, Marylebone Fields, Mayfair, Smithfield, Blackheath, Moorfields, and
Kennington Common, there went Whitfield and lifted up
his voice for Christ.
The gospel so proclaimed was listened to and
greedily received by hundreds who never dreamed of
going to a place of worship.
The cause of pure religion was advanced, and
souls were plucked from the hand of Satan
like brands from the burning.
But it was going much too fast for
the church of those days.
The clergy, with a few honourable exceptions, refused
entirely to countenance this strange preacher.
In the true spirit of the dog in
the manger, they neither liked to go after
the semi-heathen masses of population themselves, nor
liked anyone else to do the work for
them.
The consequence was, that the ministrations of Whitfield
in the pulpits of the Church of England
from this time almost entirely ceased.
He loved the church in which he had
been ordained, he gloried in her articles, he
used her prayer-book with pleasure, but the
church did not love him, and so lost
the use of his services.
The plain truth is, that the Church of
England of that day was not ready for
a man like Whitfield.
The church was too much asleep to understand
him, and was vexed at a man who
would not keep still and let the devil
alone.
The fact of Whitfield's history from this period
to the day of his death are almost
entirely of one complexion.
One year was just like another, and to
attempt to follow him would be only going
repeatedly over the same ground.
From 1739 to the year of his death,
1770, a period of thirty-one years, his
life was one uniform employment.
He was eminently a man of one thing,
and always about his master's business.
From Sunday morning to Saturday nights, from the
first of January to the thirty-first of
December, accepting when laid aside by illness, he
was almost incessantly preaching Christ, and going about
the world entreating men to repent and come
to Christ and be saved.
There was hardly a considerable town in England,
Scotland, or Wales, that he did not visit
as an evangelist.
When churches were opened to him, he gladly
preached in churches.
When only chapels could be obtained, he cheerfully
preached in chapels.
When churches and chapels alike were closed, or
were too small to contain his hearers, he
was ready and willing to preach in the
open air.
For thirty-one years he laboured in this
way, always proclaiming the same glorious gospel, and
always as far as man's eye can judge
with immense effect.
In one single Whitsuntide week, after preaching in
Moorfields, he received one thousand letters from people
under spiritual concern, and admitted to the Lord's
table three hundred and fifty persons.
In the thirty-four years of his ministry,
it is reckoned that he preached publicly eighteen
thousand times.
His journeyings were prodigious, when the roads and
conveyances of his time are considered.
He was familiar with perils in the wilderness
and perils in the seas.
If ever man was in modern times, he
visited Scotland fourteen times, and was nowhere more
acceptable or useful than he was in that
Bible-loving country.
He crossed the Atlantic seven times, backward and
forward, in miserable slow sailing-ships, and arrested
the attention of thousands in Boston, New York,
and Philadelphia.
He went over to Ireland twice, and on
one occasion was almost murdered by an ignorant
popish mob in Dublin.
As to England and Wales, he traversed every
county in them, from the Isle of Wight
to Burycon Tweed, and from Lamb's End to
the North Foreland.
His regular ministerial work in London for the
winter season, when field preaching was necessarily suspended,
was something prodigious.
His weekly engagements at the Tabernacle in Tottenham
Court Road, which was built for him when
the pulpits of the established church were closed,
comprised the following work.
Every Sunday morning he administered the Lord's Supper
to several thousand communicants at half-past six.
After this he read prayers, and preached both
morning and afternoon.
Then he preached again in the evening at
half-past five, and concluded by addressing a
large society of widows, married people, young men
and spinsters, all sitting separately in the area
of the Tabernacle, with exhortations suitable to their
respective stations.
On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings he
preached regularly at six.
On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday evenings
he delivered lectures.
This, it will be observed, made thirteen sermons
a week.
And all this time he was carrying on
a large correspondence with people in almost every
part of the world.
That any human frame could so long endure
the labours that Whitfield went through does not
seem wonderful.
That his life was not cut short by
violence, to which he was frequently exposed, is
no less wonderful.
But he was immortal till his work was
done.
He died at last, very suddenly, at Newbury
Fort in North America, on Sunday, September 29,
1770, at the comparatively early age of fifty
-six.
He was once married to a widow named
James of Abergavenny, who died before him.
If we may judge from the little mention
made of his wife in his letters, this
marriage does not seem to have contributed much
to his happiness.
He left no children, but left a name
far better than that of sons and daughters.
Never, perhaps, was there a man of whom
it could be so truly said that he
spent and was spent for Christ than George
Whitfield.
The circumstances and particulars of this great evangelist's
end are so deeply interesting that I shall
make no excuse for dwelling on them.
It was an end in striking harmony with
the tenor of his life.
As he had lived for more than thirty
years, so he died, preaching to the very
last.
He literally almost died in harness.
Sudden death, he had often said, is sudden
glory.
Whether right or not, I cannot help wishing
that I may go off in the same
manner.
To me it would be worse than death
to live, to be nursed, and to see
friends weeping about me.
He had the desire of his heart granted.
He was cut down in a single night
by a spasmodic fit of asthma, almost before
his friends knew that he was ill.
On the morning of Saturday 29th September, the
day before he died, Whitfield set out on
horseback from Portsmouth in New Hampshire, in order
to fulfil an engagement to preach at Newbury
Port on Sunday.
On the way, unfortunately, he was earnestly importuned
to preach at a place called Exeter, and
though feeling very ill, he had not got
the heart to refuse.
A friend remarked before he preached that he
looked more uneasy than usual, and said to
him, Sir, you are more fit to go
to bed than to preach.
To this Whitfield replied, True, Sir, and then
turning aside, he clasped his hands together, and
looking up, said, Lord Jesus, I am weary
in thy work, but not of thy work.
If I have not yet finished my course,
let me go and speak for thee once
more in the fields, seal thy truth, and
come home and die.
He then went and preached to a very
great multitude in the fields, from the text
to Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5, for the
space of nearly two hours.
It was his last sermon, and a fitting
conclusion to his whole career.
An eyewitness has given the following striking account
of this closing scene of Whitfield's life.
He rose from his seat and stood erect.
His appearance alone was a powerful sermon.
The thinness of his visage, the paleness of
his countenance, the evident struggling of the spark
in a decayed body for utterance, were all
deeply interesting.
The spirit was willing, but the flesh was
dying.
In this situation he remained several minutes, unable
to speak.
He then said, I will wait for the
gracious assistance of God, for he will, I
am certain, assist me once more to speak
in his name.
He then delivered perhaps one of his best
sermons.
The latter part contained the following passage, I
go, I go to a rest prepared.
My son has given light to many, but
now it is about to set, no, to
rise to the zenith of immortal glory.
I have outlived many on earth, but they
cannot outlive me in heaven.
Many shall outlive me on earth and live
when this body is no more, but there,
O thought divine, I shall be in a
world where time, age, sickness and sorrow are
unknown.
My body fails, but my spirit expands.
How willingly would I live forever to preach
Christ, but I die to be with him.
How brief, comparatively brief, has been my life
compared to the vast labors which I see
before me yet to be accomplished.
But if I leave now, while so few
care about heavenly things, the God of peace
will surely visit you.
After the sermon was over, Whitfield dined with
a friend, and then rode on to Newbury
Port, though greatly fatigued.
On arriving there he supped early and retired
to bed.
Tradition says that as he went upstairs, with
a lighted candle in his hand, he could
not resist the inclination to turn round at
the head of the stair and speak to
the friends who were assembled to meet him.
As he spoke, the fire kindled within him,
and before he could conclude, the candle which
he held in his hand had actually burned
down to the socket.
He retired to his bedroom to come out
no more alive.
A violent fit of spasmodic asthma seized him
soon after he got into bed, and before
six o'clock the next morning the great
preacher was dead.
If ever man was ready for this change,
Whitfield was that man.
When his time came, he had nothing to
do but to die.
Where he died, there he was buried, in
a vault beneath the pulpit of the church
where he had engaged to preach.
His sepulchre is shown to this very day,
and nothing makes the little town where he
died so famous as the fact that it
contains the bones of George Whitfield.
Such are the leading facts in the life
of the Prince of English Evangelists of a
hundred years ago.
His personal character, the real extent of his
usefulness, and some account of his style of
preaching are subjects which I must reserve for
another chapter.