John Calvin And George Whitefield
10
JOHN CALVIN AND
GEORGE WHITEFIELD
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Before I deal with the subject which has just been announced, I should like to read a few verses to you from the Book of Judges: “And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:8–10).
The title of my address needs a little explanation because as announced it sounds so pretentious. Those of us who have been in this Conference for the last two days will already have heard five addresses on John Calvin and different aspects of his work, so it looks at first sight as if I am claiming to be one who can not only deal with John Calvin but also throw in Whitefield into the bargain! I want to disabuse your minds of any such notion.
The second misconception into which you may have fallen I also want to dismiss. Some of you may think that, realizing that five men would already have spoken on John Calvin, I came to the conclusion that they would have said everything that could be said, so that little being left for me, I decided to talk about George Whitefield.
That, again, is entirely wrong. The subject of John Calvin and his work, and what he has left to us as a rich heritage, is so great and so vast that it would not have been at all difficult for me to continue the theme of the four hundreth anniversary of the death of John Calvin. The explanation of why I am going to speak on George Whitefield is much more interesting.
We had planned that the whole of the Conference this year should be devoted to the memory of John Calvin, and this meeting was to take that form like all the others. But I received a letter from Mr. Hilton Day, who was then the Minister of the Whitefield Memorial (Presbyterian) Church in Gloucester, pointing out how this year, being the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of George Whitefield, they there felt that something must be done to celebrate this. So he invited me to go down to Gloucester on Wednesday evening, December 16, to speak on the subject of George Whitefield. Why did they choose December 16, which is today? Well, they chose it because Whitefield was born on December 16 two hundred and fifty years ago. I wrote back and said I was extremely sorry, that I could imagine no greater privilege than to speak on George Whitefield, and especially in Gloucester, but, alas, I was committed to this meeting in connection with this Conference. But they very kindly changed their date, and I had the great privilege on Tuesday, December 8, of speaking in the Whitefield Memorial Church in Gloucester on George Whitefield.
But it did not stop at that. All this immediately put into my mind the suggestion that we should devote this meeting tonight to commemorate George Whitefield and his great and glorious services in the eighteenth century, and Dr. Packer and others were very ready to agree with this suggestion. We felt that it would be very wrong, much as we revere the memory of Calvin, to allow this year, and this night of all nights in the year 1964, to pass without saying something about this great and mighty man George Whitefield. The difficulty was to discover how to put this on the program. The subject of all the other papers was to be John Calvin. Suddenly to introduce Whitefield would seem odd to people. So we decided on this compromise, and to announce it as “John Calvin and George Whitefield.”
The connection is not quite as remote as some might imagine. There are many good reasons why these two men should be put together though they were two very different men in many ways. John Calvin was an extremely thin man, almost cadaverous. Whitefield on the other hand was rather stout and portly. John Calvin was what is called a typical introvert. Whitefield, I would say on the whole, was an extrovert. And there are many other differences. But the thing that connects them is the similarities. It is not some chance association based on dates that determines that these two men should be put together.
Here is one point which they have in common, if one may use such an expression—they were both Calvinists. We will leave it like that. What we mean is that they were both Paulinists. But it has become customary to use the term Calvinist. Anybody who knows anything about the eighteenth century will know that the Methodists of that century divided into two groups, into two camps, around the persons of George Whitefield and John Wesley. They did so largely in terms, at the beginning at any rate, of this difference in point of view theologically. George Whitefield was a follower of the teaching of Calvin. He was a truly Reformed man in his doctrine; whereas Wesley was Arminian. So this division came in. Now this clearly links Whitefield with Calvin. Whitefield remained more loyal to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England than did John Wesley. Those Articles have a Calvinistic emphasis, and Whitefield adhered to that, whereas John Wesley departed from that and therefore was mainly responsible for the division. So Calvin and Whitefield had that in common.
But they had other things in common. We heard last night from Dr. Packer about the zeal of John Calvin, and about the stupendous amount of work which he did. It was quite phenomenal: all those Commentaries and the Institutes and all the letters and the tracts and all the rest that he produced. How one man was able to do it all, and to preach so regularly in addition, is very amazing for us to contemplate. Exactly the same thing is true of Whitefield. There is no man who has labored with greater zeal in God’s kingdom than George Whitefield. They are very similar in that respect also.
Another thing they have in common is that they both ended their earthly course around about the age of fifty-five. This is a remarkable thing. John Calvin died just short of fifty-five, and Whitefield died just short of fifty-six. These two men who did such stupendous work both died in their middle fifties.
Another thing they share in common—and I do want to emphasize this—is that they were both men who longed, perhaps more than any of their contemporaries, for unity among evangelicals. In this Conference we have considered that point in connection with Calvin. Calvin was tremendously concerned that all Reformed and Evangelical people should come together in unity. He bemoaned the divisions and the differences that had arisen, and he was prepared to do anything he could—he said he was ready to cross, if necessary, ten seas in order to attend a conference which would help to promote this unity among Reformed Evangelical people. Not unity with Rome, of course, but unity among Reformed Evangelical people.
The same thing is very true of George Whitefield. He had to stand on his principles, his doctrine, as against the two brothers Wesley, but at the same time he bemoaned the division, and he did almost everything a man could do in order to bring the parties together. And toward the end of his life they had come at any rate to the position in which they were preaching in one another’s pulpits, and, by Whitefield’s own request, John Wesley was the man who preached his funeral sermon. That is most interesting, that these two men, Calvin and Whitefield, have this again in common, this great concern about the unity of those who are united in the preaching of the Gospel of Salvation.
Lastly, they are similar in the matter of their tremendous influence upon their contemporaries and subsequent generations. I turn now to that. Somebody may ask, “Why are you commemorating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of George Whitefield?” There are many answers to that question. One is that he was, as our chairman has rightly pointed out, the greatest son of the City of Gloucester. Bishop John Hooper of the sixteenth century was Bishop of Gloucester, Robert Raikes was a Gloucester man, and Tyndale came from that shire. But I was glad to hear Dr. Packer saying that beyond any question the greatest of them all was George Whitefield.
But we are calling attention to him tonight, not for that reason, but because he is, beyond any question, the greatest English preacher who has ever lived. You notice my emphasis! I say the greatest “English” preacher. I am not saying the greatest preacher in the world. There was a contemporary of his two hundred years ago who, I am glad to note, even Bishop Ryle, himself an Englishman, has to grant and to admit was the equal of Whitefield. I am referring to a man called Daniel Rowlands who lived and ministered in Wales in that same eighteenth century. However, it is generally agreed that George Whitefield is beyond any question the greatest English preacher of all time. Let us be accurate. If you say that, and if you put Rowlands in with him, well then I think there are good grounds for saying that these two men were probably the greatest preachers since the days of the apostles. That is not an overstatement, as Ryle would agree.
Whitefield was not only the greatest English preacher of all time, we commemorate his memory because of his profound influence upon the course of history. Dr. Packer said that very thing last night of John Calvin. And it is, of course, true. It is equally true of Whitefield. His influence in England, his influence in Wales, his influence in Scotland, and his influence in America, in particular, is beyond calculation. If the historian Lecky is right in saying what is so often quoted—that it was undoubtedly the Evangelical Awakening that saved this country from a Revolution such as that which was experienced in France in 1789 and following—if that is true, well then George Whitefield more than anybody else is responsible for that fact. That, again, is why we believe it is right to call to mind the memory of this great man, this great preacher.
The Neglect of Whitefield
There is one remarkable fact about this man Whitefield to which I must turn for a moment, and that is the amazing neglect which he has suffered. It would be very interesting to discover what the result would be if I asked everyone present now to write an essay on George Whitefield. How much would you have to say? I venture to assert that he is the most neglected man in the whole of Church history. The ignorance concerning him is appalling. One is constantly discovering this in reading and in listening to people. It has become the habit to refer to the great Awakening and Revival of two hundred years ago as the “Wesleyan” Revival. It is spoken of always in terms of what John Wesley, in particular, did—even Charles has had to suffer. People seem to have the idea that all that happened in the eighteenth century was the sole result of the activity of John Wesley.
I came across an instance of this in a new book on Charles Wesley by Frederick C. Gill. It is called Charles Wesley, the First Methodist. In it there is a typical example of how Whitefield is depreciated. In dealing with the difference of opinion that arose about the doctrine of Election and Predestination and the parting that took place, he says about Charles Wesley, “It was with sorrow that he departed from the convert of his Oxford days.”1 In other words, Whitefield is referred to as a convert of Charles Wesley! Thus throughout the years Whitefield has been either forgotten or depreciated. I am glad to be able to say that the best and most distinguished Methodists are very ready to acknowledge this. The late Dr. J. Ernest Rattenbury was very ready to say that Methodism had never given its due place to the memory of George Whitefield. And Dr. Skevington Wood, a Methodist historian of today, is equally ready to say the same thing.
But the question is, Why has Whitefield been neglected like this? Most people know something about John Wesley—I do not think they know much even about him, but they know something—whereas Whitefield is an unknown man, and the great story concerning him is something that people never seem to have heard. Why is this? The explanation is most important; that is why I read those verses from the second chapter of the Book of Judges. You notice the point which is made: not only did Joshua die but “that generation was gathered unto their fathers”—the contemporaries of Joshua. And then we are told, “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.” That is a most interesting and significant statement. It always seems to me to cast great light upon our present position. When people do not know the Lord, they very soon become ignorant of Church history. Once you lose the knowledge of the Lord you lose an interest in His works.
That, I think, is what has happened during the last hundred years. Knowledge of the Lord always leads to, and stimulates, an interest in Church history. May I suggest in passing tonight that there is something wrong with an evangelicalism that is not interested in Church history? There is something surely wrong with an evangelicalism that seems to think that evangelical history began with the first visit to this country of D. L. Moody about 1873. There is a defect somewhere in our knowledge of the Lord; for once a man has a true knowledge of the Lord he has a lively interest in all the works of the Lord, in all the known and recorded events in the long history of the Christian Church. I think that this is something that should cause us to examine ourselves very seriously. These two things, according to the text, are indissolubly linked together: loss of knowledge of the Lord, loss of knowledge of His servants and His great works through them. Let us examine ourselves at our leisure in the light of that proposition.
But there is a second reason why people are so ignorant about Whitefield, and that is because of his humility. He was, like Calvin, a most humble man. He said, “Let the name of George Whitefield be forgotten and blotted out as long as the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ is known.” Again may I throw out, especially for the members of the Conference, a theological question here? Is there something in the idea that those who tend to follow the teaching of John Calvin are less interested in advertising than those who follow the Arminian teaching espoused by John Wesley? I just put it to you. I just ask you to keep your eyes on the religious journals and papers and see whether there is not something in this suggestion. The teaching of John Calvin humbles man in the first instance; it glorifies God. It makes man feel that he is insignificant, that he is nobody; and however much a man may be privileged or enabled to do, he knows that it is God Who does it. That is the thing in which he is interested. Is that true, I wonder, of the other emphasis and teaching? The fact remains that we know so much less about George Whitefield than we do about John Wesley.
But the main explanation, I have no doubt, of the neglect of Whitefield is this, that he never founded or established a denomination. He may have felt a little toward the end of his life that he was wrong here. It is said that he said before the end that John Wesley was wiser than he had been, that he had “penned his sheep” whereas he had not. However, the fact is that he was not concerned to found or to leave behind him a religious denomination. He was content to preach the gospel, to fertilize every conceivable religious body. So he did not leave behind him a denomination. But John Wesley left a denomination behind him, and he left a denomination with a particular theological outlook, and great attention has been paid to his memory. Books have poured out on John Wesley without ceasing throughout the intervening years; but in the case of Whitefield there was no religious denomination to do so. That is, I think, the main explanation of why he has been so sadly neglected.
The Leader of the Awakening
But why should we take this trouble then to bring to memory again this man, and to put him before ourselves and the religious public? My answer is: because of the phenomenon of the eighteenth-century revival of religion, one of the most amazing episodes in the long history of the Christian Church. I am very ready to agree with those who say that this was probably the greatest manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit since apostolic days. A very good case can be made out for saying that.
If you want to know what I mean you can look at it like this. Consider the state of this country before that Evangelical Awakening and Revival. It was deplorable. I must not go into it, I have not the time. There is a book which deals with it thoroughly. Note the title, England before and after Wesley. How significant it is! Of course it was written by a Wesleyan Methodist—Wesley only counts. But the facts that the author adduces are true. He was a good historian in that sense, but a bad theologian and lacking in understanding of what truly happened. But he was a very good collector of facts. Read that book by J. Wesley Bready and you will see that in almost every conceivable respect this country had sunk to one of the lowest depths that it had ever reached. The Church of England was dead; you know about the pluralities of livings, you know about the drunkenness and the fox-hunting—it has all been described so often. But the other denominations were not much better. They may have been a bit better on the moral side, but the Presbyterian Church of those days had fallen into the heresy of Arianism and eventually disappeared altogether. And the other Nonconformist bodies were in a state of lethargy, holding to a dead orthodoxy.2
Attempts had been made by certain people to stem this tide of degeneration. A man called Boyle established a Lectureship, Bishop Butler produced his Analogy in defense of the gospel, and various others wrote, but they were of no avail whatsoever. Then this great Revival came, and the whole face of England was entirely changed. The Church of England, in many respects, was revived, Nonconformity was revived, a new body came into being called Methodist Societies, and the repercussions in a wider area were really quite amazing and astonishing. The case has often been made out, and it can be proved it seems to me, that the Trade Union movement in this country rose indirectly out of that Revival. It was because men, who had formerly been ignorant and had been living a drunken besotted life, were changed and born again, that they began to realize their dignity as men and to demand education and better working conditions, and so on—that is where the Trade Union movement came from. We know the connection between the abolition of slavery movement led mainly by William Wilberforce and this Revival. He was one of the results of this Revival, and indeed a case is made by some for saying that we would never have had the Reform Bill of 1832 were it not for this great Evangelical Awakening.
Now this is my point: those were some of the profound changes produced by the Evangelical Awakening. Very well; in all that, George Whitefield was the leader, he was the first. This is where the neglect of this man and the corresponding over-prominence of John Wesley is so scandalous. Do not misunderstand me. I am not just indulging in a kind of controversy. This is a matter of sheer justice, and of honesty, and of truth. This is where the neglect of Whitefield is so wrong, and so deplorable; because in all the following instances I am going to give, George Whitefield was the first.
He was actually the first to be converted. The author of the book I have just quoted refers to Whitefield as “Charles Wesley’s convert in Oxford.” The facts are these—that George Whitefield was converted in 1735, whereas Charles Wesley was converted only in 1738. Of course what the man means is that when Whitefield went to Oxford, Charles Wesley and some others had already started the Holy Club and Whitefield was invited to go to the meetings. But that was not his conversion, as I shall show. The first of them to be converted in England was George Whitefield in 1735, the same year in which Howel Harris and Daniel Rowlands were converted in Wales. So he is first even there.
But then he was the first of them to start preaching the true gospel in an awakening manner. Whitefield began to do this in 1736, and one of his greatest years was 1737; whereas we all know that the Wesley brothers only began to preach in an evangelical sense at all after the month of May 1738. So that Whitefield is ahead of them all along the line. In 1737 he was gathering great crowds here even in the city of London, and astonishing results were following.
Then everybody knows that one of the great characteristics of that revival was open-air preaching. These men preached to vast crowds in the open air, twenty thousand and more very often. Who was the first to preach in the open air? The answer is always the same—George Whitefield. George Whitefield was the first to preach in the open air, and he had very great difficulty in persuading both John and Charles Wesley to do the same. They were both much more conservative than Whitefield. He preceded them by several months in this respect and brought great pressure to bear upon them to persuade them to follow him. So you see he is the leader, the pioneer, the first in all these respects.
He was the first of them, also, to order societies—religious societies. He was also the first in works of charity. There is a very famous Methodist school called the Kingswood School, to which most Methodist ministers send their boys to be educated. It was started as a school for the poor children of miners and others. Who founded the Kingswood School? George Whitefield. It was always George Whitefield in the van, he was the leader. I trust that by now I have convinced you that my protest against this disgraceful neglect of this man is more than justified.
But in addition to all this he was the fructifier of the religious Revival in Wales. He was actually the first moderator of what is now known as the Welsh Presbyterian Church. It used to be known as the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church. Whitefield became the first moderator of this church in 1743. We must be accurate. I believe he became moderator for this reason. There were those two great men and great preachers in Wales—Daniel Rowlands and Howel Harris—and the problem was which of the two should be made first moderator. Well, Englishmen have many uses, but on this occasion one of them became very useful! They solved the problem by agreeing that neither of the two Welshmen should be made first moderator, and by putting the Englishman in the position. The two Welshmen were delighted to bow to him as moderator of this first Presbyterian Association in Wales.
He also had tremendous influence in Scotland. Anyone who has ever read about that Communion season at Cambuslang, which is now a part of Glasgow, will know exactly what I mean. His influence in America, again, is something that really baffles description. All the writers, including those who are concerned at the present time to reproduce the writings and the works of Jonathan Edwards, are all careful and honest enough to say that the influence of Whitefield in America about 1740 and onward was simply overwhelming. There was a second “great awakening,” greater, even, than the first that had taken place in 1735.
These are some of the reasons why we are calling attention to this man. He visited America seven times. Some of us find it difficult to cross the Atlantic now, but imagine doing so two hundred years ago! And Whitefield crossed the Atlantic thirteen times. He died there on his last, his seventh visit, so he actually crossed the Atlantic thirteen times. He visited Scotland fourteen times. It is computed that he probably preached eighteen thousand sermons in the thirty-four years of his preaching life.
Whitefield the Man
That is why, I say, it is right that we should commemorate the memory of this man. This man was simply a phenomenon. There was no man who was better known in London two hundred years ago than this man George Whitefield. What are the facts about him? Let me give a brief summary in order to try to give some conception of the phenomenon known as George Whitefield. He was born, as I have reminded you, in Gloucester at The Bell Inn on December 16, 1714. Many of his ancestors had been clergymen in the Church of England, but his father was not. His father was the keeper of this Inn, The Bell Inn in Gloucester, and there he was brought up as a boy. His father died when he was very young, and he tells us in his journal that he fell into many sins, most of the sins that young men tend to fall into. But he was never really happy, he had a tender conscience always. He left school for a while but then he began to feel that this was wrong. During the time when he left school he was just serving, drawing drink in the ordinary way in that public-house, in Gloucester. But his conscience was still troubling him, and he went back to school, and eventually was able to gain an entrance into a college in Oxford. There, as I say, he came under the influence of this Holy Club that had been formed by Charles Wesley and some others and which later was joined by John Wesley.
Having finished his course in Oxford, he was ordained by Bishop Benson, the Bishop of Gloucester at that time, on June 20, 1736, at the age of twenty-one. Now Bishop Benson had made a rule that he would not ordain anybody under the age of twenty-three, but having heard what he had heard about this remarkable young man, and having met him for himself, he decided to break his own rule, and so ordained him though he was only twenty-one.
On June 27, a week after his ordination, he preached for the first time in Gloucester in the Church of St. Mary le Crypt, where he had been baptized as a child and where he had taken his first communion. Naturally this was an event which caused a great deal of interest, and perhaps some excitement. His mother was well known as the keeper of the Inn and so on, and all the relatives and friends and others came to the service, with the result that the church was full. Now this is the interesting thing; immediately in this first sermon he showed that he was a man apart, that there was something quite unusual about him. The effect upon the congregation was tremendous. It was said afterwards, and even reported to the Bishop, that fifteen people had been driven mad by this sermon. Bishop Benson was a very wise man and his reported comment was this: “All he wished and hoped was that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday.” However, he was a wise man, and he realized that here there was a most unusual preacher. Whitefield’s very first sermon marked him out as an entirely exceptional preacher at the age, remember, of twenty-one.
I must not weary you with all the details. He came first to London in the following August, of 1736. His first sermon in London was preached in Bishopsgate. The post he came to was to act as a locum to the chaplain in the Tower of London, but he was given opportunities of preaching elsewhere, and again the moment he began to preach he attracted attention, and he attracted crowds. People had never heard preaching like this. Instead of reading a most prosaic kind of essay which was supposed to do duty as a sermon, here was a man preaching with the whole of his being, with authority and power and conviction—and, immediately, every time he preached the churches were always full, were always packed.
Then after spending about two months here in London, he went down to do a locum for a friend of his in a curacy in Hampshire. There it was exactly the same. As the result of this, of course, he was offered many curacies, and various possibilities and prospects of success and advancement in the Church of England were placed before him. But under the influence of his friends John and Charles Wesley, who were out in Georgia trying to do a bit of missionary work, he felt a call to go to Georgia, and so he decided definitely that this was the one thing he must do. There was not a ship available immediately and there were various arrangements to be made, so he was enabled to go back to Gloucester to pay farewell to his mother and friends and relatives. He preached there, and again it was remarkable. In a sense this proved to be the real turning point in his life and career.
He had some relatives in the neighboring city of Bristol, and he wanted to bid farewell before he left for Georgia. So he went there. Whenever he heard that there was any kind of lecture or preaching in a church on a weekday, he always attended. So, in Bristol he went to a certain church, and there he was sitting in the congregation when the man who was due to preach recognized him and went down to him and asked him if he would preach instead. Whitefield says, “I happened to have notes of a sermon in my pocket so I agreed to preach.” And he did so. That was the beginning, in a sense, of the real phenomenon of George Whitefield. The whole congregation was electrified. He preached in other churches, and they were also crowded. People came from everywhere, and in the churches they would be holding on to the lamps, holding on to the loft, to the gallery—anything in order to be in the building to hear him.
Now this is astounding. He preached in Bristol for the first time in January 1737. Delays occurred, he was still not able to go to Georgia, so he was able to pay a return visit to Bristol in May 1737 and arrived there on May 23. Here is something that will help you to realize what a phenomenon this man was. Remember, he was only a young curate of twenty-two years of age, but this is what he says about his return visit to Bristol: “Multitudes came on foot to meet me, and many in coaches a mile without the City, and almost all saluted and blessed me as I went along the street.”
Can you picture this? A young man of twenty-two! People walking out a mile, travelling in coaches in order to meet him. It was a kind of “royal procession” and all was entirely the result of his amazing and astonishing preaching. And it continued like that—back he went to Gloucester, then to Oxford, and then to London. It is said that between August and Christmas 1737 he preached one hundred times, and he preached on each occasion to crowded audiences. He became one of the most famous men in the whole of London, and the whole of the country. There was a very popular magazine in those days called The Gentleman’s Magazine, and to get your name in it was quite an achievement. Well, in November 1737 there was a poem on George Whitefield in The Gentleman’s Magazine, and he was still only twenty-two years of age. Nine sermons of his were published in 1737, and they had a very great sale indeed.
Then at long last he was able to go to America, and he spent most of 1738 in America. Now this year 1738, remember, is the year in which the two Wesley brothers were converted during the month of May. But Whitefield came back to this country at the end of 1738 for various reasons. Now this brings us to the great year 1739. Going back again to his old haunts—Gloucester, Bristol, and so on—he began to hear about the terrible condition of the miners living in that village of Kingswood then on the outskirts of Bristol. They were living a most depraved kind of life. Whitefield felt concerned about them. They never went near a place of worship, so he began to feel that he must go to them, and he went one day and preached to just about a hundred of them. But the effect again was so tremendous that from there on he began to preach to at least five thousand of them at a time. These men would come up from the pit, they had no time to wash or anything, they just stood and listened, and there he would preach to them. It is said that he was soon preaching to twenty thousand people, all of them standing in the open air and listening to him. And after that, as I have told you, he influenced the brothers Wesley to do the same thing.
But when Whitefield came back from America, he found that a great change had taken place here in London in the attitude of the clergy and ministers to him. He had left on the crest of a wave of popularity, but when he came back, he found that many doors were closed to him. Why?
There were many reasons for this. Some of his converts had been a bit unwise, and they had acted in a way that was not becoming to the gospel, and had antagonized their own clergy and ministers. Moreover, some of the clergy had never really liked his preaching on the absolute necessity of the New Birth. Above all, parts of the Journal which he had begun to keep had been published, and they felt that this was exhibitionism, and that he was saying things that he should not say. These things no doubt, plus a great deal of jealousy, meant that many churches were closed to him. So he was driven to the open air still more. He was refused to be allowed to preach in St. Mary’s Church in Islington; just as he was about to enter the pulpit, they stopped him. But he then decided that he would quietly close that service. He then led the people out, and preached to them in the churchyard. All this aggravated the situation, and the attacks that were made upon him became really quite unbelievable. Attacks were made upon his moral character, and they were even offensive to his personal appearance. Whitefield had the misfortune of having what is called a squint in one eye, and so he was known by the crowd, the popular crowd in London, as “Doctor Squintum.”
However it did not make any difference. The point was that he was this well-known preacher, and that is how his life went on. He would preach on Moorfields Common, he would preach in Marylebone Fields—just north of the present Marylebone Road. He would preach in what was then called May Fair, which we now call “Mayfair.” He used to preach on Kennington Common. He used to preach on Blackheath. Indeed, in any place where there was a great open space Whitefield had but to get up and to preach and thousands crowded to listen to him. His average congregation was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty thousand people at a time, and, remember, they all had to stand. But they stood willingly.
He just went on doing this for the rest of his life. He did this all over England, he did it in Wales as I have told you, he did it in Scotland, he did it in America. Thus this phenomenon continued. When it was heard that he was in the neighborhood and about to preach, shopkeepers shut their shops at once, for they must hear him; business men forgot their business, farmers put down their tools. He could get a congregation of thousands any time of day or night; he could get them and hold them in snow, sleet, frost, rain—it did not matter what the conditions were. In America in one very cold winter they used to stand by the thousand listening to this man preaching the Gospel, and they would travel endless distances in order to get this great opportunity and privilege.
I can sum up the rest of his life by just telling you this—that from that beginning in the open air in that way in 1739 he just went on and on doing this in all these countries until at last in the early morning of September 30, 1770, he breathed his last breath and went on to be with that Lord whom he had longed to see from his earliest days as a young preacher. His end is very characteristic of him. He was not well by now. The amazing thing is that he lived as long as he did. For this man used to preach five or six times a day. That was quite ordinary for him, and thus he put his body under a tremendous strain.
There he was; he had promised to preach in a place called Newbury Port in New England, on Sunday September 30, 1770, and he was travelling in that direction. He had to go through a place called Exeter, and when they heard he was there, they all came crowding out. He must preach to them, and at last they persuaded him to do so. At first he could scarcely speak at all. He was in such a weak physical condition that he really could not articulate. He began slowly, and gradually he began to revive. He ended by preaching to them for two hours. That was George Whitefield. He became filled with power and strength, and the congregation, as usual, were deeply affected.
Then he arrived at the place where he was to stay that Saturday night at Newbury Port, and at last he said he was going to bed. They handed him a candlestick with a candle, but the place was crowded with people. Wherever he went, people crowded around him, asking questions, wanting to have a word from him. This last picture of him is a most wonderful, idyllic picture. He was trying to break away from them, and began mounting the stairs holding the lighted candle in his hand. Then he turned around and spoke to them again, and gave them another exhortation. And he went on doing so until the candle had burnt right out in the socket and he had just got the candlestick in his hand.
At last he got into his bedroom and into his bed. He had a very severe attack of what we would now call cardiac asthma and he died. He just went on, as I say, to be with the Lord whom he loved so much. When you read his wonderful Journals, keep your eye when you do so on the way in which he longed to go to be with the Lord. It was not mere talk; he meant it; he was reprimanded sometimes for saying this, but it was his greatest desire, and at last it was granted. Well, there is the phenomenon that is covered by the name of George Whitefield, and that is why it is good that we remind ourselves of all this.
Here was a man who could preach in that way to all classes. He had a great following among the aristocracy here in London. The Countess of Huntingdon thought there was no man like him as a preacher, and she used to open the rooms in her great house and invite all the leading aristocracy of the age to listen to him; and they all delighted in listening to Whitefield. He was the greatest of these preachers to the aristocracy, but as I reminded you, he was also the greatest preacher to the miners, the greatest preacher to the crowd in Moorfields, Kennington Common, or wherever he happened to be. He could preach to children equally well in the orphanage. What an astounding and amazing man he was!
He was also supreme in the matter of collecting money. He founded an orphanage in Georgia, and it cost a great deal to keep it going. So it became a custom with him to preach a sermon, and at the end of the sermon to take up a collection. He used to get enormous collections of money, and with this money he would also help anybody who was in need, any poor person, anybody in difficulties. The whole of England was talking about him. It was always known when he was in London, and he could attract people of every class or stratum in society.
Explaining This Phenomenal Man
What is the explanation of this phenomenon? It is very difficult for us to conceive it, is it not? We are living in very poor days. What a century that eighteenth century was! Here is the phenomenon; what is the explanation? Let me attempt some kind of analysis.
Let us start with the man himself. The natural man was very interesting. As a boy he is said to have been alert and able and very lovable. But the most outstanding thing about him was his gift of oratory. He showed that when he was quite a boy. He would imitate preachers in the Inn. He was a born actor, and he had wonderful elocution. A man is born an orator. You cannot make orators. You are either an orator or you are not. And this man was a born orator. He could not help it. He was always good at declaiming portions of Shakespearian drama. In school he was generally given a part, or if an address was to be delivered to the notabilities of the City of Gloucester, he was the boy who was chosen because of his amazing elocution and the ease and the grace with which he did it all. He was a born orator, and like all orators, he was characterized by the great freedom and appropriateness of his gestures.
The pedantic John Wesley was not an orator, and he sometimes tended to be a bit critical of George Whitefield in this respect. I remember reading in Wesley’s Journal of how once they both happened to be in Dublin at the same time and how John Wesley went to listen to Whitefield. In his account of the service, Wesley refers to his gestures, and says that it seemed to him that Whitefield was a little bit too much like a Frenchman in a box. He means that Whitefield tended to speak with his hands as much as with his lips and mouth. But that is oratory.
One of the greatest orators of all time was Demosthenes. Somebody asked Demosthenes one day, “What is the first great rule of oratory?” And Demosthenes answered, “The first great rule of oratory is—action; and the second great rule of oratory is—action; and the third great rule of oratory is—action.” An orator is not just a man who moves his lips and his tongue, his whole body is involved. “Action!”
We are living in evil days; we know nothing about oratory. George Whitefield was a born orator. Have you heard what David Garrick is reported to have said? David Garrick was the leading actor in London in those times and whenever he had an opportunity he always went to listen to Whitefield. He was not so much interested in the gospel as in the speaking and in the gestures and so on. Garrick is reported to have said that he would give the whole world if he could only say “Oh!” as George Whitefield said it. And somebody else said that if he could only utter the word “Mesopotamia” like Whitefield he would be completely happy.
I have a still greater authority to quote. One of the great men of the mid-eighteenth century was Bolingbroke. He was an able, cultured man, a man of the world, a very wise man, and again one who was interested in oratory and in speaking. Bolingbroke said of Whitefield, whom he heard many times, that he had a greater “commanding eloquence than any man he had ever heard.” He had heard all the greatest statesmen and political orators and other types of orator also. He put Whitefield’s at the top of the list, as the greatest “commanding eloquence” that he had ever heard. In addition to all this, Whitefield had a warm, sympathetic outgoing nature. There is the natural man.
But that does not explain the phenomenon of George Whitefield. Turn now to the spiritual. Here is the explanation. May I put it in a crude and almost ridiculous manner. God knows what He is doing, and when He chose this man George Whitefield, to whom He had given these natural gifts, He knew what He was doing. George Whitefield underwent a remarkable conversion. It was a long, painful process. There were many steps in it. As I have reminded you, his conscience troubled him as a boy, as a young man, and when he went to Oxford he would not join in the various parties to which he was invited. He would not do so; he was too serious. Then he went to the Holy Club meetings, and they made him still more serious. They did their good works, they had their fast days, and they visited the prisons. . . . But none of it really helped him.
Then he read a book, a famous book written by a Scotsman of the name of Henry Scougal who had lived toward the end of the seventeenth century. The title of the book was The Life of God in the Soul of Man. This had a profound effect upon him. It convinced him that he needed to be born again, that to be a Chris-tian means not that you live a good life, or do this or that, but that you have the life of God in your soul. He realized that he had not got it; and this drove him to the depth of despair. He went through agonies. He used to lie prostrate on the ground in prayer, he would go out and pray in the open air; there was nothing he would not do. He went through this terrible process of conviction of sin; but eventually God graciously smiled upon him.
In other words the conversion of George Whitefield was not a question of “making a decision.” It was not sudden. No, he went through this tremendous agony of conviction, and then the light broke upon him. In addition to this he was given what he called “the sealing of the Spirit” upon the fact that God had forgiven his sins. The Spirit sealed it. “There is no question but that this man received a “baptism of the Spirit.” That is what explains the extraordinary character of his preaching from the very beginning.
But let us remember this. Though that is the beginning, he continued throughout his life to be characterized by a most amazing piety. The prayer life of this man puts us all to shame, and has often made me feel that I know nothing about these matters at all. I have already referred to his humility and saintliness. Nothing shows that more clearly than the way in which he was terrified at the thought of preaching. Though he had been trained for the ministry, and the time had come for him to be ordained, he was terrified of preaching. He felt it was such a sacred task; and who was he to enter into a pulpit and to preach? He felt he would run a thousand miles away in order not to preach. Such was his view of it all, and such was his view of himself and his own unworthiness, that it took a great deal to persuade George Whitefield to enter a pulpit and to preach.
Brethren, is there not a lesson there for some of us? He also hated press notices, and was always annoyed when he received them. He was, in other words, an extraordinarily humble and saintly man. John Wesley pays him the tribute of saying that there was only one man whom he thought he had ever known who was the equal of Whitefield in saintliness—and conceivably he thought this other man was a little higher, he was not sure—and that man was John Fletcher of Madeley. But for John Wesley to say that at the end of Whitefield’s life, and in view of all that had happened between them, is a tremendous tribute to Whitefield’s saintliness and godliness.
I have already emphasized his zeal. I want also to emphasize his brotherly spirit and the element of catholicity that characterized him. I reminded you at the beginning that he, like Calvin, was very concerned about true evangelical unity. There was nothing small about this man; there was nothing narrow about him. He had his strong views. He was ready to differ with his great friends John and Charles Wesley on doctrinal matters and to resist them. But that did not make him rigid and narrow; it did not make a small party man of him. No! I can prove this. In Scotland, for instance, the two brothers Erskine, Ralph and Ebenezer, who had gone out in the first Secession—and who had very good grounds for doing so—tried to persuade Whitefield to preach only for them in Scotland. But he would not do it. He said, if there are men in the Church of Scotland who believe the gospel, and who are ready to open their doors to my preaching of the gospel, I will do so. He would not be tied down by the Erskines. And he preached for Church of Scotland ministers, as I have reminded you, in Glasgow, in Cambuslang, Edinburgh, and various other places. Now this was all the result of the Spirit of God in him—the love and the brotherliness, the large-heartedness, the desire that all who really have an evangelical gospel to preach should be one and should be working together.
Whitefield’s Message
There then is the man. Let me say just a word about his message. He described it as “honest,” he described it as “plain.” He was always direct. What did he preach about? One of his great themes was Original Sin. No man could expose the condition of the natural unregenerate heart more powerfully than George Whitefield.
Then another great theme was regeneration. He says himself that his sermon on “the nature and necessity of the new birth in Christ” began the awakening in London, Bristol, Gloucester, and Gloucestershire. He was himself convinced that it was his famous sermon on this theme that really led to the Great Awakening. It was his leading theme.
Another theme that was prominent in his preaching was this. He believed in the direct, immediate, inward impressions of the Holy Spirit upon a man. Now Jonathan Edwards took him to task about this. There is a very interesting story in the Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards of how Edwards and others once talked to Whitefield about this. Edwards says, “I tried to deal with him on this question of the emphasis that he places on inward impressions.” Whitefield placed great emphasis upon the direct leadings of the Spirit. He believed the Spirit was speaking to him directly, and he acted upon it. Edwards was a much abler man and a much greater genius in an intellectual sense. Edwards was unhappy about this; and it is most interesting, and almost amusing, to notice how Edwards records that it was quite clear that Whitefield was really not listening to what he, Edwards, was saying. However, that was something which Whitefield did preach and did emphasize a great deal.
Then the next great theme, of course, was justification by faith. Some may wonder why I put regeneration before justification by faith. I did so for this reason—that Whitefield preached regeneration before he preached justification by faith. It is most interesting to observe that he underwent a change in this respect. At first his preaching was almost entirely on the corruption of the natural unregenerate heart and the need for the new birth. This was undoubtedly the effect of Scougal’s teaching. In the nine sermons of his that were published in 1737 there is no mention of justification by faith. In his Journals, with reference to the theme of justification by faith, he states significantly, “though I was not so clear in it as afterwards.”3 He admitted himself that he was not as clear on justification by faith in 1737 as he should have been. Later in his Journals, you will find that the two men who had to put him right on that particular aspect of truth were John and Charles Wesley.4 They preached justification by faith from the very beginning; Whitefield did not. And they helped him to come to a better balance in this respect. We must be honest. I have said that Whitefield was not a party man; and I must not be a party man. All honor to John and Charles Wesley for helping Whitefield to see the importance and the place of justification by faith in the preacher’s message.
I have already reminded you of the Calvinistic emphasis in his preaching. He was clear and unequivocal on this.
Another thing that characterized his preaching, especially at the beginning, was his strictures on unconverted preachers. Jonathan Edwards ventured to pull him up on that also; but Whitefield did not listen to him. Whitefield used to denounce an unconverted ministry, and he would do so even when large numbers of ministers were listening to him. Another way in which he put that was to say that, to him, for a man to preach what he called an “unfelt Christ” was a most terrible thing—to preach about Christ without feeling the Christ within. He would denounce without measure men who were guilty of that.
Whitefield’s Preaching
I have said something about the man, I have said something about the message, I end with what was the most characteristic thing of all about this man, namely, his preaching. Do you recognize that distinction and division? I ask the question for this reason. There is nothing that has so often discouraged me, if I may make a personal reference as a preacher, as the failure of people to differentiate between the message and the preaching. There is a tremendous difference between uttering truths and preaching. You may have a correct and an orthodox message, but it does not follow that you are preaching it. The thing that puts Whitefield in a class apart with Rowlands is the preaching.
What do I mean? I mean the way in which the message is presented and conveyed. There were other men at that time, as there have been since, who preached the same message, but it was not the preaching of George Whitefield. How can one describe his preaching? You can only describe it as apostolic and seraphic. I like the remark of an American preacher who heard him a lot and who was responsible for publishing some of his sermons. Commenting upon his style of preaching, he said, “A noble negligence ran through his style.” What does he mean? He means that Whitefield did not sit down and write wonderful literary masterpieces of sermons, with every sentence perfectly balanced, and always finished, and polished and so on. No, he did not do that. He had not got the time to write sermons. He was an extemporary preacher, and there was what this man calls “a noble negligence” in his preaching. He broke the rules of grammar now and again, he did not remember to finish his sentences always, but to those who know anything about preaching that is nothing. “Noble negligence!”—oh that we had a little more of it, and a little less of the polished essays that pass for sermons in this our degenerate age!
But the thing that characterized the preaching was the zeal, the fire, the passion, the flame. He was a most convicting and alarming preacher. You remember what was said about the first sermon in Gloucester. The effect he continued to produce was like that. He could so expose the darkness and the sinfulness of the natural human heart that men were terrified and amazed and in agonies of soul as they listened to him. But that would be followed by a pathos, a love, and a melting quality that were irresistible.
That is preaching! I like Whitefield’s own comment about this matter of preaching. He was asked one day for a copy of the sermon he had preached in order that it might be published, and this was his reply. He said, “I have no objection, if you will print the lightning, thunder and rainbow with it.” You cannot put preaching into cold print; it is impossible. You can put the contents of the sermon, but you cannot put the preaching; you cannot put the “lightning,” you cannot put the “thunder”—the roar of the thunder, the flash of the lightning—you cannot capture the “rainbow.” All that is in the spoken word, in the action, in everything about the preacher. You cannot put that in print. That is why people when they have read the sermons of Whitefield often say, “I cannot understand this. How could the man who produced sermons like this be such a phenomenon, such a wonderful preacher?” If you have ever said that, you are just displaying your ignorance of what is meant by preaching. You cannot put preaching on paper. I hold the view that that has been one of our great troubles since about the middle of the last century or even before. The printing of sermons, the printing of everything that is spoken, can have a devastating effect on preaching as such. Men have their eye upon the people who are going to read it rather than on those to whom they are preaching at the time. Concern about reputation and what the literary and pedantic critics will say, alas, comes in. Let us then remember the words of Whitefield on that matter.
The effect of such preaching of course was simply overwhelming. He tells us himself about what he observed in the past of the poor colliers at Kingswood. These poor men had just come up out of the mines and their faces were quite black with the coal dust as they stood listening to Whitefield. He says, “As I was preaching to them I suddenly began to observe white furrows in their black faces.” What was it? Oh, the tears were streaming down their faces and making furrows in the coal dust and grime. That is preaching! These poor men who knew nothing about doctrine, who knew nothing about anything but sin, who were just living in drunkenness and even in debauchery, listening to this amazing preaching of the Word of God were weeping copious tears. Or take the way in which it is described by the author of the great hymn which begins with the words:
Great God of wonders, all Thy ways
Are matchless, godlike, and divine.
Samuel Davies himself was an astonishing preacher and a great intellect also. He had been in a revival in America in that same century. He was made principal of a college. Samuel Davies and Gilbert Tennant were sent over to this country to collect money for that college. They arrived after a terrible voyage, during which they thought they were going to be shipwrecked many times over. They at last arrived in London on a Saturday morning, and the first question they asked was—“Is Mr. Whitefield in town?” To their delight they were told that he was, and that he was due to preach the next morning, I think it was, in Moorfields. So they made certain that they would be there in very good time to listen to him. Samuel Davies writes the account of the service and this is what he says. He says, “It became clear to me quite soon in the service that Mr. Whitefield must have had an exceptionally busy week; obviously he had not had time to prepare his sermon properly.” He adds, “From the standpoint of construction and ordering of thought it was very deficient and defective; it was a poor sermon. But,” said Samuel Davies, “the unction that attended it was such that I would gladly risk the rigours of shipwreck in the Atlantic many times over in order to be there just to come under its gracious influence.” That is preaching, my friends. Poor sermon, but tremendous preaching.
What do we know about this? Why do we talk about preaching as “giving an address” or “saying a word”? Preaching! That is the thing that produced that tremendous revival under God. You can read the accounts of what Jonathan Edwards and Mrs. Edwards felt under Whitefield’s preaching. Let me tell you what the great Lord Chesterfield said. Chesterfield was a humanist, a typical eighteenth-century man, a “man about town” who wrote a famous book of advice to his son. He used to delight in listening to Whitefield, and he, like others, came under the power of the preaching.
You remember the famous story: Whitefield, one afternoon, was using an illustration to show the perilous danger of the sinner’s position, how the sinner was walking in the direction of Hell without realizing it, and he introduced this picture. He compared the sinner to a blind man being led along by a dog. He had a staff in his hand, and he was being led along by the dog. The dog unfortunately broke loose and ran away, and left the man to grope along with his stick as best he could on his own. Unconsciously, said Whitefield, the poor man wanders to the edge of a precipice, his staff drops from his hand down the abyss, too far to send back even an echo. The blind man reaches forward, cautiously, to recover it; for a moment he poises on vacancy and . . . At that moment Lord Chesterfield sprang to his feet shouting, “Good God! Stop him!” and sprang forward involuntarily to try to stop the blind man from falling over the abyss. That is not only oratory, that is also preaching; and it can affect even a man like Lord Chesterfield in that extraordinary manner.
But the story I like best of all is the story about Benjamin Franklin listening to George Whitefield. Now here was another genius. Benjamin Franklin is famous as a scientist, famous as a man of letters, as one of the leaders in the American Revolution, as the first ambassador sent by the United States, as it became, to represent them in France. He often came here to London. This able, cultured man called himself a Quaker; he was nothing at all from the Christian standpoint. Now Benjamin Franklin used to live in Philadelphia, and at the time of Whitefield’s visits he was a printer. He was an astute business man, and he used to print Whitefield’s sermons and sell them. He never missed an opportunity of listening to Whitefield, and this is what he says concerning one of those occasions.
I have reminded you that Whitefield invariably at the end of a sermon took up a collection for his orphanage in Georgia, and Franklin knew this very well. He had seen it happen many times, and he had often put something into the collection; but he was getting a little tired of doing this. He thought that Whitefield was taking too much of his money. So he says that on this particular occasion as he went to listen to him, he had solemnly decided that he would not give anything at all in the collection at the end. He says, “I had got in my pocket gold, silver and copper; but I decided I would give nothing at all, I had given so often.” But this is what he goes on to say, “As the preacher proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory determined me to give the silver. And he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish—gold and all.” Now that is preaching. This is beyond oratory, this is inspired oratory—oratory inspired by the Holy Ghost, conveying the message of the Word of God and its glorious gospel.
Whitefield’s Lessons for Us
Can I in a few headings indicate what I regard as some of the lessons that George Whitefield has to teach us today? I wish I had time to develop them. The first lesson he teaches us is this: that the position is never hopeless—never. Things could not have been worse than they were in the period leading up to 1736–37—absolutely hopeless, apparently. It was just at that point that God placed His hand on this unknown boy from The Bell Inn, Gloucester—George Whitefield. The sovereignty of God! Do not waste too much of your time in worrying about the future of the Christian Church. Do not listen too much to the mere analysts at the present time who simply describe the position confronting us. It is never hopeless. This was one of the most surprising things that God has ever done.
Second, let us, I hope, once and for ever put an end to that lie which says that Calvinism and an interest in evangelism are not compatible. (I do not like these labels, but as they are used I must use them.) Here is the greatest evangelist England has ever produced, and he was a Calvinist. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the greatest evangelist of the last century, confesses that he had modelled himself—as far as he had modelled himself on anybody—on George Whitefield. And he was a Calvinist. The objection which some of us have to certain aspects of modern evangelism has nothing to do with Calvinism at all. I am certain that John Wesley would object to the things that we object to in modern evangelistic methods quite as much as we do. The objection is not based on Calvinism. That doctrine which emphasizes the glory of God and the total depravity of man and God’s eternal plan and purpose of redemption in the Lord Jesus Christ has always urged and driven its true adherents to evangelism. Whitefield alone is enough to establish that; but he is but an outstanding shining star in a great galaxy.
The third lesson, is the absolute necessity of an orthodox faith. This man preached the gospel as it had been preached by the Apostles, the Reformers, the Puritans. He lived in the Puritans and their writings. He sometimes even preached their sermons when hard-pressed! Wesley says more than once that he found Whitefield clearly preaching Matthew Henry. But there it is. It was the same message, and there it was ready-made in Matthew Henry! But what I am emphasizing is the absolute necessity of orthodoxy, of a belief of the Truth—the Truth that we were reminded of so excellently in Dr. Packer’s address.
But—and, to me, this is the thing that Whitefield tells us more than anything else—orthodoxy is not enough. There were orthodox men in his time, but they were comparatively useless. You can have a dead orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is essential, but orthodoxy alone has never produced a Revival, and it never will. I say as I end that my main justification for speaking on Calvin and Whitefield is this, that in a sense John Calvin always needs George Whitefield.
What I mean is this. The danger of those who follow the teachings of Calvin, and do so rightly, is that they tend to become intellectualists, or they tend to sink into what I would describe as an “ossified orthodoxy.” And that is of no value, my friends. You need the power of the Spirit upon it. To state the Truth is not enough; it must be stated “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” And that is what this mighty man so gloriously illustrates. He was orthodox, but the thing that produced the phenomenon was the power of the Spirit upon him. He says that he felt something even at his ordination, as if he had received a commission from the Spirit Himself. He was always conscious of this—wave after wave of the Spirit would come upon him. No man ever knew more of the love of Christ than this man. It sometimes overwhelmed him, almost crushing him physically. He would be bathed in tears because of it.
This power of the Spirit is essential. We must be orthodox, but God forbid us to rest even on orthodoxy. We must seek the power of the Spirit that was given to George Whitefield. That will give us a sorrow for souls and a concern for souls, and give us the zeal, and enable us to preach with power and conviction to all classes and kinds of men.
Another thing—and this is very important today—he was a great believer in the value of religious societies. There were a number of religious societies in Whitefield’s early days which had been started in the previous century, and he was greatly helped by them. His first sermon on that Sunday, June 27, 1736, in Gloucester was actually on “the value of religious society.” I say that for the encouragement of little groups of evangelical people, for whom I thank God, and whom I know in different parts of this country today, who are meeting together, some of them every week, some of them every month, to study the Scriptures and to pray and to talk together about the things of God. Whitefield believed in the inestimable value of religious societies.
But, first, and I must end with this in the light of what I have been saying and for every other reason, Whitefield I believe is calling us back to preaching. I hope that I am not going to be misunderstood, but nothing can substitute preaching. I am a great believer in reading; I get much of my greatest enjoyment in reading. But reading is no substitute for preaching; and to read a sermon and to listen to it being preached are not the same thing. Thank God the Spirit can use a written sermon, but it does not compare with a preached sermon. There is a real danger today that people may think that reading alone will do or, perhaps listening to a wireless or a television sermonette. No, you need the freedom of the Spirit; you need “the lightning and the thunder and the rainbow.” You cannot get them in books, and you do not get them on your controlled, time-limited programs provided by these modern agencies. No, when the Spirit comes the programs will be forgotten, time will be forgotten, everything will be forgotten except God in His glory, and my soul, and this blessed Savior.
What does Whitefield teach us about the theme of preaching? The theme was, “By grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” That was the glorious message of the eighteenth-century preaching.
May God call us back to preaching! Not a mere mechanical statement of correct beliefs, but let us pray God so to grant us His Spirit that though we may never become, and never shall become it is certain, preachers in the sense that George Whitefield was—well, that at any rate we may be able to preach “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” We are not meant to be imitators, but let us listen to this man as he calls upon us so to a living realization of this Truth, and so to be filled with the Living Spirit of God that with all we are we may tell forth the riches and the glories of His grace. We all, I am certain, thank God for the memory of such a man. May He grant unto us grace to examine ourselves, to examine our ministry, and may He create within us all a longing and a desire to see the manifestation of the right hand of God again in this country in a mighty Revival of religion.