23. Whitefield Remembered 197
23
Whitefield RememberedOn Tuesday, October 2, tears flowed irrepressibly as the funeral service of the incomparable evangelist was conducted in the First Presbyterian Church of Newburyport, Massachusetts. The service was one of natural sorrow and yet of Christian triumph as believers again experienced the certainty that George Whitefield was "present with the Lord."
Whitefield had assured Trustee Keen that if he died abroad, he wanted the official service in England to be conducted by John Wesley. Accordingly, Wesley preached first in the Chapel and then in the Tabernacle, paying affectionate tribute to his associate's qualities and accomplishments. He mentioned especially Whitefield's active ministry, his tenderheartedness, charitableness, friendliness, purity, and courage. He concluded with the statement, "Have we read or heard of any person, who called so many thousands, so many myriads of sinners to repentance." And numerous tributes to his abilities, his zeal, and his preeminent winning of souls were spoken or written by various friends around the world.
Charles Wesley, undoubtedly the man who knew him best, wrote An Elegy on the Late Rev George Whitefield, M.A., 536 lines in length. Even during the period of their separation, Charles had been influenced by Whitefield's forgiving nature and innate friendship, and it was these qualities, together with his relentless labor and transcendent preaching, which Wesley enlarged throughout his poetic tribute. We have already seen several of its lines, and now we notice the following further passage:
Lover of all mankind, his life he gave,
Christ to exalt, and precious souls to save:
Nor age nor sickness could abate his zeal
To feed the flock, and serve the Master's will,
Though spent with pain, and toils that never ceased,
He laboured on, nor asked to be released:
Though daily waiting for the welcome word,
Longing to be dissolved and meet his Lord,
Yet still he strangely lived, by means unknown,
In deaths immortal till his work was done,
And wished for Christ his latest breath to spend,
That life and labour might together end.1
William Cowper, who was a contemporary of Whitefield, in his poem "Hope" described the hostility he had long borne from the world, and then remarked,
He loved the world that hated him: the tear
That dropped upon his Bible was sincere;
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife,
His only answer was a blameless life,
And he that forged and he that threw the dart,
Had each a brother's interest in his heart.2
The Rev. Henry Venn left a statement as to the immensity of Whitefield's labors: "One cannot but stand amazed that his mortal frame could, for the space of thirty years, sustain the weight of them.... Who would think it possible that a person ... should speak in the compass of a single week (and that for years) in general forty hours, and in very many weeks, sixty, and that to thousands; and after this labour, instead of taking any rest, should be offering up prayers and intercessions, with hymns and spiritual songs, as his manner was, in every house to which he was invited."3
Sir James Stephen said, "If the time spent in travelling from place to place and some brief intervals of repose and preparation be subtracted, his whole life may be said to have been consumed in the delivery of one continuous or scarcely interrupted sermon."4
Moreover, it is evident that Whitefield's congregations, both in the individual instances and as to the totality of his lifetime (in those days before the electrical amplification of sound), were the largest ever reached by the human voice in the history of mankind.
We notice also the breadth of his appeal. He had the hearing of the coal miners of Kingswood and the slaves of America, and they understood his message. John Foster states that his preaching ". .. had the effect of giving his ideas a distinct and matchlessly vivid enouncement; insomuch that ignorant and half-barbarous men, seemed in a way that amazed even themselves, to understand Christian truths on their first delivery."5 He was equally understood by children as by adults, and Howell Harris tells of going "To hear Bro Whitefield preach to little children, many hundreds of them, in their own infant language."
Yet he also preached with full effect, as we have seen, to the learned and sophisticated nobility of England. We have but to recall the tributes paid by such ones as the Duchess of Marlborough, the Earl of Chesterfield, Lord Bolingbroke, David Hume, and numerous others in England. And likewise we think of Benjamin Franklin, Governor Belcher, and Jonathan Edwards as indicating the intellectual strength of those who heard him with profit in America.
Whitefield also held to an exceptionally steady course, moving neither to the right hand nor to the left from the first to the last. Bishop Ryle points out that this was true concerning his doctrinal convictions. "Whitefield never turned again to asceticism, legalism, mysticism or strange views of Christian Perfection.... Of all the little band of Oxford Methodists, none seems to have got hold so soon of clear views of Christ's gospel and none kept them so unwaveringly to the end."6
This was also true of the overall purpose of his life. Isaac Taylor, a writer who invariably expressed himself with great carefulness, declared, "It would not be easy to name an instance, surpassing that of Whitefield, of a thorough uniformity of conduct and intention, held to from the moment of a man's coming before the world, to the very last hour of his life."
But what were Whitefield's faults? During his early twenties he placed too much emphasis on impressions rather than on the clear statements of Scripture. Likewise, he too easily accepted the criticisms made against certain ministers and repeated them. These tendencies, however, he soon overcame. His chief fault was his condoning the practice of slavery, the one dark blot on his otherwise spotless record.
Indeed, George Whitefield was a holy man. When Christians think of lives eminent for holiness, they usually recall such men as David Brainerd, Robert Murray McCheyne, and Henry Martyn. But Whitefield fully deserves a place among these men of God. The fruit of the Spirit—"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance"—was abundantly characteristic of his life. He not only spent the hour from 4 till 5 in the morning in communion with God, but he lived in the spirit of prayer throughout the day, and prayer proved indeed his "native air."
We must also inquire, What were Whitefield's accomplishments? Throughout his lifetime and for several years after his death he was known as "the leader and founder of Methodism." Yet, as we have seen, he willingly relinquished his position as the head of the Calvinistic branch of the movement and served thereafter as "simply the servant of all."
Whitefield also taught the evangelical world a new manner of preaching. In a day when ministers in general were lacking in zeal and were apologetic in preaching, he preached the gospel with aggressive zeal and undaunted courage. He set mankind on fire wherever he went, and numerous men, learning from his example, began to preach after the same manner. For a hundred years his style of direct application was practiced in the overwhelming majority of Protestant pulpits.
He likewise held to the fundamentals of the faith. He believed in the inerrancy of the Bible, the Deity, virgin birth, atoning death, and literal resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that salvation is not by works but by grace. These truths he declared so consistently that they gradually filtered into a vast multitude of consciences, and for at least a century after his death they were preached in the greater number of churches in both Britain and America.
Of course, John and Charles Wesley, Lady Huntingdon, Howell Harris, John Cennick, and numerous others gave their full strength in the religious revival that then transformed the English-speaking world. It was a work of which J. R. Green stated,
... a religious revival burst forth . . . which changed in a few years the whole temper of English society. The Church was restored to life and activity. Religion carried to the hearts of the people a fresh spirit of moral zeal, while it purified our literature and our manners. A new philanthropy reformed our prisons, infused clemency and wisdom into our penal laws, abolished the slave trade, and gave the first impulse to popular education.7
But as Bishop Ryle says, "Whitefield was entirely chief and first among the English Reformers of the 18th century." He initiated almost all of its enterprises—the open-air preaching, the use of lay preachers, the publishing of a magazine, the organizing of an association, and the holding of a conference. And by his thirteen crossings of the ocean, he provided the international scope of the movement. Among his accomplishments there must be recognized the host of men and women he led to Jesus Christ and the large part he played in this great work of revival on both sides of the Atlantic.
John Greenleaf Whittier, the American Quaker poet, lived not far from Newburyport, Massachusetts. He commemorated Whitefield in his poem "The Preacher," in which he says,
Under the church in Federal Street,
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet,
Walled about by its basement stones,
Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.
Long shall the traveller strain his eye
From the railroad car as it passes by,
And the vanishing town behind him search
For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church,
And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade,
And fashion and folly and pleasure laid,
By the thought of that life of pure intent,
That voice of warning yet eloquent,
Of one on the errands of angels sent.
And if , where he laboured, the flood of sin,
Like a tide from the harbour bar sets in,
And over a life of time and sense,
The church spires lift their vain defence . . .
Still, as the gem in its civic crown,
Precious beyond the world's renown,
His memory hallows that ancient town.8