9. Laboring in the Great Awakening 83

9

Laboring in the Great Awakening

 

Some critics have assumed that Whitefield's ministry was conducted without any planning and that he went hither and yon directed only by his whims. A little knowledge of his life, however, proves the very opposite, and the order and arrangement of his journeyings is especially manifest in this year in America.

Using Savannah as his base he ranged out, first performing the labor in the Middle Colonies that we have just seen—the Spring Tour. Then followed his ministry in and around Charleston—the Summer Tour, and finally the Fall Tour, in which he preached first in New England and then all the way back to Georgia. It was a wisely-planned year of labor which enabled him to effectively reach the populated areas of America.

While Whitefield had been preaching in the Middle Colonies, a series of strong attacks had been made on him by Commissary Garden of St. Philip's Church, Charleston. A commissary was commissioned by a bishop to act in his place, and Garden was prepared to exercise all possible authority.

Whitefield's un-Anglican actions (i.e., his refusal to conform to the parish system ordained by the Church, and his preaching for men of other denominations) had already aroused Garden's ire. Garden was equally repulsed by Whitefield's Letter to the Slave Owners, and to this was now added another, A Letter to Archbishop Tillotson, in which Whitefield declared that "the Archbishop knew no more of true Christianity than Mahomet." In turn, Commissary Garden leaped into action and published Six Letters to the Rev George Whitefield, and in these he revealed his outrage.

It should be explained that although Archbishop Tillotson had been dead for nearly half a century, his memory was highly regarded and his writings were still widely-read. But Whitefield had become aroused by the statement of a wealthy planter, Hugh Bryan, that he had been kept for years in darkness through reading the archbishop, and therefore the evangelist made his strong statement.

Charleston contained numerous citizens who stood strongly in favor of the Tillotsonian vogue in religion. The city was also a commercial center for many planters whose wealth was derived from the labor of the slave. Accordingly, a great number of men and women were violently angry on account of Whitefield's two Letters, and Commissary Garden, in his Six Letters to Whitefield, sought to make himself spokesman for their hostility, as well as his own.

Garden's thought and manner are evident in the following excerpts: "Alas! the fire you have kindled is that of slander and defamation,—a fire which no devil in hell, nor Jesuit on earth, will ever go about to extinguish, but will fagot and foment it with all their might, as too effectively serving their interests." "In your mountebank way you have David-like, as you fancy, slain your Goliath [Tillotson] but his works and memory will long survive after you and your dirty pamphlets are sunk into oblivion." He declared that the slaveowners should sue Whitefield for slander, and he sought to make a mockery of Whitefield's charges of cruelty to the slaves by asserting, "I have heard the report of your cruelty to the poor orphans under your care, not only in pinching their bellies, but in giving them up to taskmasters or mistresses who plow upon their backs and make long furrows in a very inhuman manner."¹

Whitefield made no reply to Garden's Letters, but his cause was taken up by Rev. Josiah Smith, minister of Charleston's Independent Church. Smith preached a sermon entitled "The Character, Preaching, Etc., of the Rev Mr Whitefield," and it was published, including a recommendatory preface by two prominent New England ministers, Cooper and Colman. These widely-esteemed men said of Whitefield,

 

 

... he is the wonder of the age; and no man more employs the pens and fills the conversation of people, than he does . . . none more admired and applauded by some, condemned and reproached by others.²

 

Smith opened his sermon with the assertion that Whitefield's preaching was always doctrinal, and he listed the doctrines the evangelist proclaimed. Then he went on to state,

 

 

I need not say, nor can my pen describe, his action and gesture, in all their strength and decencies. He is certainly a finished preacher, and a great master of pulpit oratory, though a noble negligence runs through his style. His discourses were very extraordinary, when we consider how little they were premeditated, and how many of them he gave us in the little while he was with us. .. .³

 

Smith goes on to speak of Whitefield's holiness of life, his power in prayer, the graciousness of his manner, his selflessness, his diligence, and his charity. "Strolling and vagabond orphans, poor and helpless, without father, without mother, without purse and without friend, he seeks out, picks up and adopts into his family . . . what brighter evidence of pure religion is there than this, 'to visit the fatherless in their affliction!'"

Smith's sermon described a ministry so magnificent that it made Garden's opposition appear trivial and jaundiced. And such was the situation when, at the pressing invitation of numerous citizens, Whitefield arrived at Charleston. The date was July 1740.

In keeping with his custom of attending the Church of England, on the Sunday morning he went as an ordinary worshiper to St. Philip's. Garden delivered a virulent attack against him and then refused him the Sacrament. Whitefield filled the rest of the day and also the following week with preaching.

The next Sunday saw him again at St. Philip's. This time Garden had ransacked church history to find fanatics to whom to liken him, and after mentioning several he produced one that was familiar and repulsive to all. This was the Dutarts, a Charleston family who had practiced weird religious rites, lived as outlaws, and had been guilty of notorious incests and murders. Garden had served as chaplain at their hangings, and it was to these people that he likened Whitefield.⁴

Although no ecclesiastical court had ever been held outside of England, Garden convened one. He intended to utilize his full authority against Whitefield and to expel him from the ministry. Clothed in ecclesiastical splendor, Garden sat as the judge with clergymen on each side. The proceedings were marked by all possible pomp and display of authority. But on the third day of the trial Whitefield seized the initiative, and declared that Garden did not possess the authority to try him. After announcing his appeal to the High Court in Chancery in London, he walked out of the court.

Upon reaching London in the following year (we anticipate our story), he; repeatedly attempted to have the High Court consider the matter. But the English judges would not take Garden's petty court seriously, and they refused to hear the case.

But Garden acted. "A year and a day" after convening his court he convened it again. This time, "in a cloud of high-sounding words" he suspended Whitefield from the ministry and "declared him to be denounced . . . openly and publicly in the face of the Church."⁵ Whitefield paid not the least attention to Garden's excommunication, except to state, "I pitied, I prayed for him, and wished the Lord would convert him."

Whitefield's experiences in Charleston, however, had a lasting effect upon him. He preached in one or two churches of the Church of England, but it was especially in Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist churches that he was welcomed. He had warm fellowship with several of their ministers, and from this time forward while in America he increasingly forsook his practice of attending the Church of England on Sunday mornings.

The Baptists of the Southern Colonies in particular benefitted from Whitefield's influence. Baptist churches and Baptist people were few in the South at the time, unbelief was entering among them, and a zeal for soul-winning was rare. But moved by Whitefield's ministry many of these churches became firm in the faith, and a new fervor began to characterize them. They increased in number with great speed as men—many of them farmer-preachers—preached the gospel in tents, in barns, and in the open air. Souls in great numbers were won to Christ.

Moreover, while Whitefield was at Charleston, Commissary Garden confronted him with a copy of Wesley's sermon "Against Predestination."⁶ This was Whitefield's first realization that, contrary to his expressed desire, Wesley was circulating this divisive document, and he could see that the day was approaching when it would be necessary for him to write a reply.

And further disappointment awaited him: he received an answer to his proposal of marriage. He merely tells us, "I find from Blendon letters that Miss E D- is in a seeking state only." Apparently either the parents or Elizabeth had written to say that she was not a sufficiently mature Christian to undergo all the trials he had listed. But the Delamottes, with the rest of the Fetter Lane Society, had become Moravians and were now opposed to the Wesleys, and we must suppose to some degree to Whitefield too. Moreover, Elizabeth was now keeping company with another young man, William Holland, the one spoken of as reading from Luther on the evening John Wesley was converted, and within five months Elizabeth and Holland were married. Our hearts go out to Whitefield in this further disappointment, and we feel for him as following his mention of the "Blendon letters" he says, "Just now I have been weeping, and much carried out before the Lord."

In this sense of deep disappointment he returned to Bethesda.

After a few days spent in superintending the work of the Orphan House, Whitefield set out on his Fall Tour—that of New England. He had been invited by the governor and the secretary of Massachusetts, by a number of laymen, and by several ministers.

And now, as always, Boston people thronged to hear him. Civic officials of today would not allow such crowding as was practiced under Whitefield's ministry in the churches. Time after time humanity pressed into the pews, filled the aisles and the stairways, and covered the pulpit area. But in a congregation that had gathered ahead of time at the New South Church and was waiting for Whitefield to arrive, someone broke a board to form a makeshift seat, and a cry went up that the gallery was falling. Immediately the place was in a panic as people rushed to get to the doors, and many fell and were trampled upon. Some even threw themselves out of the windows. Five were killed and several seriously injured.

Whitefield was severely disturbed by the tragedy, but looking to God for help he led the congregation to the Boston Common where he preached on the text, "Go out into the highways and the hedges, and compel them to come in." He continued his ministry, preaching morning and afternoon each day, and each evening he ministered to the crowd that surged into the house in which he lodged. On that Wednesday he preached twice to the students at Harvard College, and on Sunday he took his first collection in New England, receiving nearly £200.

During these days in Boston, Whitefield was shown admiring attention by the Honorable Jonathan Belcher, governor of Massachusetts. Belcher was a man of large wealth, and his life had been lived after the fashion of the aristocracy of England. But he now urged Whitefield, ". . . do not spare the rulers, any more than ministers, no not the chief of them. . . . Pray, Mr Whitefield, that I may hunger and thirst after righteousness."

As Whitefield went to his farewell service—a great open-air meeting on the Boston Common—the governor drove him in his carriage. The congregation, estimated in a newspaper as twenty-three thousand, was larger than the entire population of the city, and was undoubtedly the largest crowd ever assembled in America till that time. When his ministry was concluded Whitefield declared, "I hope a glorious work is now begun, and that God will raise up some faithful labourers to carry it on."

Thomas Prince, an earnest Boston minister, stated that before Whitefield's arriving, ". . . the general decay of piety seemed to increase among us . . . few came to me in concern about their souls. And so I perceive it was with others. . . . But upon Mr Whitefield's leaving us great numbers were so happily concerned about their souls . .. our assemblies, both on Lectures and Sabbaths, were surprisingly increased."⁷ A regular meeting that proved to be always crowded began to be held on Tuesday evenings, "the first stated eveningLecture in these parts of the world."

Upon leaving Boston (October 13, 1740) Whitefield came in four days to Northampton, the site of the ministry of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards. Edwards, the eminent pastor whose ministry had already been used of God in sending revival to Northampton, had especially urged him to visit his town. Edwards had written:

 

Northampton in New-England, Feb 12, 1740.

 

Rev. Sir.

 

My request to you is that in your intended journey through New England . . . you would be pleased to visit Northampton. .. . I apprehend, from what I have heard, that you are one that has the blessing of heaven attending you wherever you go, and I have a great desire, if it be the will of God, that such blessing as attends you and your labours may descend on this town.. . .

It has been with refreshment of soul that I have heard of one raised

up in the Church of England to revive the mysterious, spiritual, despised and exploded doctrines of the Gospel, and full of a spirit of zeal for the promotion of real, vital piety, whose labours have been attended with such success. Blessed be God that hath done it! who is with you, and helps you, and makes the weapons of your warfare mighty. . . .

I desire that you and Mr. Seward would come directly to my house. I shall account it a great favour and smile of providence to entertain such guests under my roof.. ..

I am Rev Sir Unworthy to be called your fellow labourer, Jonathan Edwards8

 

Whitefield's visit to Northampton lasted from Friday afternoon till Sunday evening. He reported,

 

Mr Edwards is a solid, excellent Christian, but at present weak in body. I think I have not seen his fellow in all New England. When I came into his pulpit, I found my heart drawn out to talk of scarce anything beside the consolations and privileges of saints, and the plentiful effusion of the Spirit upon believers.⁹

And concerning the Sunday he wrote,

Preached this morning and good Mr Edwards wept during the whole time. . . . The people were equally affected; and in the afternoon, the power increased yet more.¹⁰

 

Mrs. Edwards was also much taken with Whitefield's ministry. She wrote to her brother, the Rev. James Pierrepont of New Haven, stating,

It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible. I have see upward of a thousand people hang on his words with breathless silence, broken only by an occasional half-suppressed sob. He impresses the ignorant, and not less the educated and refined .. . our mechanics shut up their shops, and the day-labourers throw down their tools to go and hear him preach, and few return unaffected. . . . Many, very many persons in Northampton date the beginning of new thoughts, new desires, new purposes, and a new life, from the day they heard him preach of Christ. . . . ¹¹

Loath to part with Whitefield, Edwards accompanied him for the next two days as he rode to East Windsor, the home of his father, the Rev. Timothy Edwards. After preaching to his people Whitefield said, "His wife was as aged, I believe, as himself, and I fancied I was sitting in the house of Zacharias and Elizabeth. I parted from him and his son with regret."

Two days after leaving Edwards, Whitefield came to Middletown. One of his hearers, Nathan Cole, an unlettered farmer, wrote an account which demonstrates how the mere announcement "Whitefield will preach!" brought virtually the whole countryside hurrying to hear him. Cole wrote.

 

one morning all on a Suding there came a messanger & said mr whitefield is to preach at middletown this morning at 10 o'clock, i was in my field, dropt my tool & run home and throu my house and bad my wife to get ready quick & run to my pastire for my hors with all my might fearing i should be too late to hear him & took up my wife and went forward as fast as I thought ye hors could bear & when my hors began to be out of breth would get down and put my wife on ye saddel and bid her ride as fast as she could and not Stop for me except i bad her & so would run until I was almost out of breth & then mount my hors again. . . .

i saw before me a cloud or fog .. . as i came nearer ye road i heard a noise something like a low rumbling thunder & presently found out it was ye rumbling of horses feet. . . . i could see men and horses slipping along.... i found a vacance between two horses to slip in my hors & my wife said law our cloaths will be all spoiled .. . and when we gat down to ye old meeting house there was a great multitude. .. . I looked towards ye great river I see ye fery boats running swift forward and backward—when I see mr whitefield come up upon ye scaffold he looked almost angellical, a young slim slender youth before thousands of people and with a bold undainted countenance & my hearing how god was with him everywhere. .. . it solemnized my mind & put me in a trembling fear . . . for he looked as if he was clothed with authority .. . & a sweet solemnity sat upon his brow. . . . my old foundation was broken up and I see my righteousness would not save me.¹²

 

While Cole has thus given us an insight into how Whitefield's great congregations were gathered, another hearer has shown how he could use the circumstances of the moment to illustrate the gospel. This hearer, describing one of Whitefield's services in Boston, tells of the approach of a storm as the evangelist began his sermon. "See that emblem of human life," he said as he pointed to a flitting shadow. "It passed for a moment and concealed the brightness of heaven from our view; but it is gone. And where will you be, my hearers, when your lives have passed away like that dark cloud? Oh, my dear friends .. . in a few days we shall all meet at the Judgement-Seat of Christ. We shall form part of that vast assemblage which will gather before His throne."

Whitefield went on to plead with his hearers, directing his words to "false and hollow Christians," then to "rich men," and finally to the "sinner." After urging, "Let not the fires of eternity be kindled against you!," pointing to a flash of lightning he cried, "See there! It is a glance from the angry eye of Jehovah! Hark!" he continued, raising his finger in a listening attitude as the thunder broke in a tremendous crash, "It is the voice of the Almighty as He passed by in His anger!"

 

As the sound died, Whitefield covered his face with his hands and fell on his knees, lost in prayer. The storm passed rapidly away, and the sun, bursting forth, threw across the heavens the magnificent arch of peace. Rising and pointing to it the young preacher cried, "Look upon the rainbow, and praise Him who made it.... It compasseth the heavens about with glory, and the hands of the Most High have bended it."¹³

Whitefield was asked for permission to publish the sermon, but recognizing that the natural elements were essential to his meaning he replied, "Yes, if you include the lightning and thunder."

During these days, he was still receiving letters from John Wesley. Wesley constantly mentioned the points of difference and sought to provoke Whitefield into disputing about them. In a reply written on September 25, 1740 Whitefield stated,

 

 

I think I have for some time known what it is to have righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. These I believe are the privileges of the sons of God: But I cannot say I am free from indwelling sin. .. . I am sorry, honoured Sir, to hear by many letters, that you seem to own a sinless perfection in this life attainable. .. . I do not expect to say indwelling sin is destroyed in me till I bow my head and give up the ghost. I know many abuse this doctrine, and perhaps willfully indulge sin. . . .¹⁴

 

This letter reveals Whitefield at his strongest in dealing with Wesley. He stands firmly for his convictions, yet his manner is courteous and the opposite of contentious.

A glaring error, however, has been made in this matter. An Englishman to whom Whitefield refers as "young W—" wrote frequently to Whitefield at this time, constantly disputing with him. He was probably a youth who had been converted in one of Whitefield's Religious Societies in Bristol. Whitefield replied, commencing, "Dear Brother W—, What mean you by disputing in all your letters? May God give you to know yourself, and then you will not plead for absolute perfection or call the doctrine of election a 'doctrine of devils.' . . . Remember you are but a babe in Christ, if so much. Be humble, talk little, think and pray much. . . ."¹⁵

Whitefield thus gave the young fellow a necessary reprimand. But eighty years later Robert Southey, not taking care to investigate the matter, jumped to the conclusion that this letter was written to Wesley. Although Whitefield had addressed it to "Mr W—, at Bristol" Southey published it as to "Mr Wesley at Bristol," and he went on to charge that Whitefield had acted as though he were superior and had treated Wesley in a mean fashion. Several authors have copied this error from Southey.

Whitefield preached at both Harvard and New Haven (Yale) Colleges, asserting that they were now studying books of a harmful nature and declaring a minister's need to be a converted man. A few weeks later Dr. Colman said of Harvard, "The College is entirely changed. The students are full of God. Many of them appear truly born again. The voice of prayer and praise fills their chambers. .. . I was told that not seven out of a hundred in attendance remain unaffected."

Likewise concerning Yale, Jonathan Edwards reported,

 

 

The awakening was ... for a time very great and general at New Haven; and the College had no small share in it. The students in general became serious, many of them remarkably so. . . . There have been manifestly happy and abiding effects of the impressions then made on many members of that College.

 

One of the students influenced at Yale was David Brainerd. Like many students, he went to something of an extreme in his attitudes, and he stated of one professor, "He has no more grace than this chair!" For this assertion he was expelled, but notwithstanding this action he went forth into a life of extraordinary usefulness as a missionary to the Indians. It has long been regretted that before his death he ordered the burning of the portion of his Diary that reported his experiences during his days at the college.

Upon leaving New England, Whitefield set out for Georgia, preaching as he traveled. In every place he ministered to tremendous congregations, and everywhere the spiritual excitement that had been aroused throughout the Colonies characterized great numbers of people.

On January 16, 1741 he set sail for England. He had been in America for fourteen and a half months, and although, as always, he made no estimate of the number of persons who had professed conversion, the abundance of transformed lives was widely manifest.

After Whitefield left for the homeland, the work in America was carried on by other men. Jonathan Edwards continued to perform his remarkably rich ministry and to give calm counsel in writing and preaching to the whole work of the Awakening. Gilbert Tennent went, as Whitefield had suggested, to Boston where he conducted a ministry of great zeal and power. Numerous pastors, being invited to church after church as evangelists, continued the work that had been commenced, and churches that previous to Whitefield's coming had been merely following a religious schedule were now alive with spiritual fervor. The movement was later termed "The Great Awakening," and despite certain setbacks it remained in power for several years.

John Greenleaf Whittier, in his poem on Whitefield, described his ministry and its effect, saying,

So the flood of emotion deep and strong

Troubled the land as it swept along,

But left a result of holier lives,

Tenderer mothers and worthier wives,

The husband and father whose children fled

And sad wife wept as his drunken tread

Frightened peace from his roof-tree's shade,

And a rock of offence his hearthstone made,

In a strength that was not his own began

To rise from the brute's to the plane of man.

Old friends embraced, long held apart,

By evil counsel and pride of heart,

And penitence saw through misty tears,

On the bow of hope on its cloud of fears,

The promise of Heaven's eternal years,

The peace of God for the world's annoy,

Beauty for ashes, and oil of joy.

↑ Back to top