Chapter XI: France, Rome, and Hell
XI
France, Rome, and Hell
The English and French, traditional enemies for centuries, were at it again in Europe in the mid-1750s. Although various and complex issues drew other countries into the war, from 1756 to 1763 these two nations, in their efforts to dominate Europe and America, engaged in what many historians refer to as the first genuine world war. Whitefield worried about protecting his parish—the whole world—as it faced renewed threats of French-Catholic control.
As the tit-for-tat conflict with the French spiraled down into outright war, Whitefield dug out his notes on anti-Catholic sermons and declared his concern for the welfare of the colonists, “O America, how near dost thou lie upon my heart! GOD preserve it from popish tyranny and arbitrary power!” In this and other such statements, Whitefield reveals his own civil millennialism—a theology that connected the natural world with a spiritual dimension. For Whitefield, evil political ambitions were manifestations of the antichrist in the hearts of leaders. In light of his self-proclaimed duty to preach against arbitrary power, Whitefield wrote, “O that we may be enabled to watch and pray against all the opposition of Antichrist in our hearts. Whitefield viewed arbitrary power as the central indication that the antichrist was influencing the heart of a religious or political leader. Roman Catholicism was its religion, and the nation of France was its political face. So thoroughly did Whitefield believe that Roman Catholicism should be resisted that he made a point of it in his will. He created a list of speech topics for his orphan school at Bethesda, entitled “Subjects for Annual Prizes at the Orphan-house.” Among these oratorical contests for the students, Whitefield rewarded the best “oration on the glorious Revolution, and the infinite Mercy of GOD, in delivering Great Britain from Popish Tyranny and Arbitrary Power.” He wished the children in his care to learn British history, develop a strong connection between the politics and religion, and to understand the evils of arbitrary power.
In 1754 George Washington led a failed attempt to capture a French fort at Pittsburgh, opening the American theater of the conflict. In the colonies, historians have labeled the conflict the “French and Indian Wars,” but it was actually part of the larger global struggle. By 1756 both nations, England and France, were aggressively executing their war plans on both sides of the Atlantic, but not many American colonists were passionate about the war effort. Since all the fighting up to that point had been out in western Pennsylvania, New Englanders did not get involved, and Presbyterians of the middle and southern colonies seemed to care even less. Washington had a tough time securing supplies for his expedition. The colonial governors had a sizable problem trying to find recruits to man the armies.
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In 1756 Whitefield again lent his hand to the government and went to work as a propagandist in the war effort. The work was not simply as a public relations mercenary. Whitefield genuinely was concerned for America and the stability of the British Empire:
What shall I say? Had I wings, how gladly would I fly to my dear America? But alas! the glittering sword is now unsheathed, and I fear it would not be proper for me to cross the water now. However, all the provinces are continually upon my heart: night and day do I remember them before GOD.
He published an enlistment sermon, which was released concurrently in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Edinburgh, and London in 1756. Since Whitefield had granted General Pepperell’s request for an enlistment sermon a decade earlier to promote the Louisburg expedition, it is not unreasonable to suggest that his noble acquaintances in London may have persuaded him to preach for the country once again. Whitefield’s sermon, “A Short Address to Persons of all Denominations, Occasioned by the Alarm of an Intended Invasion, in the Year 1756,” played an essential role in motivating the Christian community to make the war their business. The sermon went through five editions and was the number two best-seller in the American colonies. The top-selling colonial publication was William and Elizabeth Fleming’s gripping account of their capture by a Native American “regiment” in service of the French, describing their escape and flight back to civilization. This book was also clearly intended to promote the war effort by publicizing the atrocities of the French and Native American coalition.
Whitefield opens “A Short Address” with a humble request to add his voice to public discourse concerning the recently declared war with France. He applauds the calling of a public day of prayer and defends it as a reasonable response to the French military threat. The first section of the sermon points to the biblical example of how a plot against the Jews was thwarted by a public fast. Appealing to the consistency of God, Whitefield reasons that if the Jewish public fast brought God to their cause in ancient times, then a public fast would do the same for Great Britain today. Next, Whitefield lays responsibility for the war at the feet of the French for breaking a treaty. He reminds his listeners that God once honored the prayer of a Turkish general who fought against the Crusaders after the Christians broke a treaty. How much more would God support a Christian nation after their evil enemy broke a treaty? This is followed by examples of other famous people who prayed and fasted before battle to ensure their success.
Recognizing that many Christians in his audience do not support the war effort, Whitefield counters “pacifism” by asserting that God is no pacifist and that people who oppose war must view the situation from the perspective of a court of law:
For if God himself is pleased to stile himself a Man of War, surely in a just and righteous Cause (such as the British War at present is) we may as lawfully draw our Swords, in order to defend ourselves against our common and public Enemy, as a civil Magistrate may sit on a Bench, and condemn a public Robber to Death.
Whitefield attempts to recast the terms of the war with the magistrate/robber metaphor. If he could convince his audience that indeed the French were acting illegally, then the metaphor would call for action. He reminds his audience of the Church of England pronouncement that Christians may serve in wars at the command of the king. Moreover, he warns of the consequences of neglecting to serve: if the French are not engaged in battle, they may steal Pennsylvania from Britain’s dominion.
Since the French started the war, and since, as Whitefield says, “civil and religious liberties are all … lying at Stake,” Christians are obligated to defend their country and would incur the “curse of Meroz” should they fail to embrace the war effort. Here Whitefield launches into a fascinating line of argument. The curse of Meroz refers to a biblical curse pronounced by the prophetess Deborah upon the residents of the Hebrew town of Meroz, whose men refused to fulfill their duty to join in battle against the enemies of Israel:
Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof: because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
The curse served many purposes in American history, and its use here further points to Whitefield as a leader in shifts in public patterns of thought. In 1742 Jonathan Edwards introduced the curse to eighteenth-century Americans by invoking it against Old Light ministers and their followers. He used it metaphorically to criticize so-called Christians who failed to support the Awakening revival. But here, Whitefield invokes the curse literally, viewing the British as God’s chosen people and the French as God’s enemies. He applies the curse to would-be pacifists. Whitefield’s use of it during the eighteenth century appears to be the curse’s first application to support war and inspired a series of sermons by other notable ministers. Samuel Finley, a Log College minister, made the curse the theme of an entire sermon, published a year later in 1757. Samuel Davies, another Presbyterian, drew upon it as well. Both of these men were friends of Whitefield and likely had his sermon in their libraries.
Eventually, in 1774, the curse of Meroz would resound to empower the rhetoric of American revolutionaries. As one historian concludes, “When fighting on the side of God against the devil, even the most extreme measures of defense are not only sanctioned but mandated in the appeal to natural law or God’s law.”1 Whitefield’s use of the curse appears to be the first instance in which it was employed as a literal appeal to fight the French. Certainly, he was the first to publish and widely disseminate what became one of the favored Bible passages of ministers during the Revolutionary War.
“A Short Address” depends upon the curse of Meroz, as Whitefield holds it over the head of his audience and explains the Christian’s obligation to fight God’s enemies. As he continues, Whitefield further justifies the war with France by reminding his audience of its political links to Roman Catholicism. He repeats his arguments from “Britain’s Mercies” that the Roman Catholic’s elevation of the pope to world religious leadership was really the earthly manifestation of antichrist. Whitefield exclaims that dying in battle would be a better fate than “hearing that a French Army, accompanied with a Popish Pretender, and Thousands of Romish Priests” had conquered Britain.
Whitefield launches into the next part of the sermon pointing out the liberty and freedom enjoyed by British subjects:
But surely we must have eyes that see not, and ears that hear not, as well as hearts that do not understand, if we do not know, and see, and feel, that in respect to our civil and religious liberties, we are undoubtedly the freest people under heaven. And I dare appeal to the most ungrateful and malicious male-content, to produce any æra in the British annals, wherein we have enjoyed such a continued series of civil and religious liberty, as we have been favoured with for these twenty-eight years last past, under the mild and gentle administration of our dread and rightful Sovereign King George.
Whitefield calls George II a “Nursing Father to People of all Denominations.” He claims that George II deserves the title “GEORGE THE GREAT” for creating such a friendly environment for religious freedom. Whitefield’s portrait of a good king is contrasted with those practicing arbitrary power. He condemns “men of lax Principles, loose Lives, and broken Fortunes,” who would “break through all Restraints of Gratitude, Loyalty and Religion” to support any shift in power that would advance their own wealth or social standing.
From this point, Whitefield illuminates the evil designs of the Roman Catholics he accused of motivating the French government to war. With graphic language he continues: “savage Popish Priests,” a “cruel Popish Queen,” “cruel Papists,” “voracious Popish Priests,” and phrases such as “Rome, glutted, as it were, with Protestant Blood,” “ravenous Wolves pursuing the harmless and innocent Flocks of Sheep,” and “their bloodthirsty and cruel Hands.” Whitefield finally binds them all together in a full expression of civil millennialism at the end of the sermon, saying, “We need not fear what France and Rome, and Hell, with all its united Force, can do unto, or plot against us.” Finally, Whitefield appeals to his audiences to place their trust in God, to fear not “the malicious Efforts and Designs of Men and Devils.”
Military sermons became an essential part of his ministry. “Britain’s Mercies” and “A Short Address” were his two best-selling sermons after 1742. Whitefield’s messages were just right for the situation, as their popularity testified. Once again, he had powerfully reinforced the us versus them logic template that judged the Catholics and Protestants, French and English. He shared his ideas with the entire nation through publishing and a national preaching tour.
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In spite of the French activity in the colonies, the political situation for Americans was solidifying as moderates from both New and Old Light factions worked together to back the governors in the war effort. The colonists remained largely satisfied under British rule until after the death of George II. Talk of the radicals overturning the glorious New England tradition had ceased, and instead ministers exhorted their people to support the war effort. Whitefield’s promotion of the war was critical to American development due to his role as an opinion leader. French conquest of America was simply unacceptable, and many American ministers, following Whitefield’s lead, threw their weight into the effort as a chance to bring down the “papal” antichrist and to serve the “Publick Good.” Gilbert Tennent exhorted people to “Let the WELFARE of so many of your fellow subjects, the welfare of the PROTESTANT INTEREST, the welfare of the church of Christ, animate your hearts.”
Not only among the Protestants did the war tend to unite the British colonies against the French, but other public networks had begun to promote colonial unification as well. In 1754 Benjamin Franklin published a famous editorial cartoon depicting a snake chopped into sections, each section representing a colony or region, and with the caption “JOIN, or DIE.” We should recall Whitefield’s close friendship with Franklin as we notice Franklin’s steady move from business into American politics as his career progressed. Franklin likely appreciated the political involvement that he saw in Whitefield’s ministry.
Ben Franklin and George Whitefield became very good friends as the years passed. Their relationship began as Whitefield employed Franklin, a Philadelphia printer at the time, to publish sermon editions for sale in America. Franklin’s early comments about the sound and strength of Whitefield’s voice, as well as his persuasive power in asking for donations, shows Franklin’s early fascination with him. Whitefield stayed at Franklin’s home when he came through Philadelphia over the years, and presumably Whitefield returned the favor in England. The idea that formed their common interest, aside from publishing, was the nature of true Christianity. Franklin saw the real thing in Whitefield. His letters to Whitefield lamented the lack of charitable action among professing Christians:
Your great master thought much less of these outward appearances and professions, than many of his modern disciples. He preferred the doers of the word, to the mere hearers; the son that seemingly refused to obey his father, and yet performed his commands, to him that professed his readiness, but neglected the work.
Franklin recognized a man who backed up his words with actions, dedicating himself to public causes rather than to his own private gain. He stated that Whitefield “was in all his Conduct a perfectly honest Man.” Throughout their lives, Whitefield encouraged Franklin to profess his brand of Christianity, writing, “I do not despair of your seeing the reasonableness of Christianity.” Later Whitefield wrote:
I would now humbly recommend to your diligent unprejudiced pursuit and study the mystery of the new-birth. It is a most important, interesting study, and when mastered, will richly answer and repay you for all your pains.
But Franklin typically responded that he did not doubt that a fair and just God would accept him into heaven. He never converted to Christianity to Whitefield’s public satisfaction, though it is likely Whitefield was privately assured his friend would join him in heaven one day. Their friendship was such that as each man grew older, Franklin expressed his wish that the two could begin the American experiment anew, starting a colony in Ohio with a contingent of religious and industrious settlers. Franklin’s dream did not materialize.
Whitefield had been calling for unity among churches in America for seventeen years at this point. He understood how deep divisions between believers would ultimately hurt the cause of Christ. Franklin translated these same ideas directly into political appeals. The famous saying, “We must all hang together or we will all hang separately” also reveals the “us/them” logic template in Franklin’s mind as the Revolution neared. It is safe to speculate that Franklin and Whitefield found much to talk about as Whitefield’s connections with British nobility and his involvement in British public opinion deepened.
After 1756, Whitefield devoted himself to his duties in London for a time. He established a chapel at the Moorfields, funded by Lady Huntingdon, and continued preaching sermons to England’s elite. The Bethesda Orphanage in Georgia was on secure financial ground for the first time due to his purchase of slaves to work on the plantation grounds connected to the orphanage. With its trustworthy manager, the orphanage did not need Whitefield’s close attention any longer. He also made preaching tours throughout Scotland, Wales, and England over the next few years and opened a second chapel in London on Tottingham Court Road, also funded by Lady Huntingdon.
The Long Acre Affair
In early 1756, a Church of England bishop applied some pressure to Whitefield to limit where he could preach. Whitefield had accepted an invitation to preach in a London meeting house called Long Acre. But Dr. Zachary Pearce, the bishop of Bangor, wrote Whitefield and forbade him to minister at Long Acre, claiming he was not licensed to preach there. Whitefield could expertly handle such Church of England harassment, as he had been doing for years, and sent a letter back to the bishop arguing for the legality of his preaching. But Pearce held firm, and their debate took an ugly turn. In light of escalating hostilities with France, Whitefield wrote to the bishop:
Controversy, my Lord, is what I abhor, and as raising popular clamours, and ecclesiastical dissentions must be quite unseasonable, especially at this juncture, when France and Rome and hell ought to be the common butt of our resentment … I trust the irregularity I am charged with, will appear justifiable to every true lover of English liberty.
Whitefield pressed the issue, casting Pearce’s actions as unpatriotic and repressive of civil liberties. He argued vigorously, explaining that he was within his rights to preach at Long Acre. In each written exchange, he mentions patriotic issues and shows the hypocrisy of the bishop:
I am glad, my Lord, of an opportunity of preaching, though it should be in a meeting-house; and I think it discovers a good and moderate spirit in the Dissenters, who will quietly attend on the church service, as many have done, and continue to do at Long-Acre chapel, while many, who I suppose style themselves her faithful sons, by very improper instruments of reformation, have endeavoured to disturb and molest us.
Here Whitefield is contrasting the “moderate spirit in the Dissenters” with the Church of England, whose members “disturb and molest” worshippers at a licensed meeting house. But Whitefield goes deeper in the next letter, using language that parallels arguments made by Thomas Jefferson about the right of citizens to break oppressive or unjust laws.
Your Lordship knows full well, that canons and other church laws are … agreeable to the liberties of a free people; but when invented and compiled by men of little hearts and bigoted principles, on purpose to hinder persons of more enlarged souls from doing good, or being more extensively useful, they become mere bruta fulmina; and when made use of only as cords to bind up the hands of a zealous few, that honestly appear for their King, their country, and their GOD … in my opinion, they may very legally be broken.
Whitefield had been escalating his argument, making the bishop look foolish for opposing him. But when Whitefield threatened to take the entire matter public, things got downright nasty. Since the bishop could not argue Whitefield into silence, he hired some thugs to disrupt the meetings. During the next worship service, Whitefield reported that people were hired to make an “unhallowed noise” to interfere with the meetings. Since the perpetrators were members of the bishop’s vestry, Whitefield requested that he put a stop to the commotions during their services. But the next night, the noise was even worse, and a large stone was cast through a window, injuring a person. Whitefield wrote to the bishop again asking them to stop. The next night, the disturbance and stone throwing escalated further. Whitefield describes it:
It deserves no milder a name than premeditated rioting. Drummers, soldiers, and many of the baser sort, have been hired by subscription.—A copper-furnace, bells, drums, clappers, marrowbones and cleavers, and such like instruments of reformation, have been provided for, and made use of, by them repeatedly, from the moment I have begun preaching, to the end of my sermon. By these horrid noises, many women have been almost frightened to death, and mobbers encouraged thereby to come and riot at the chapel door during the time of divine service, and then insult and abuse me and the congregation after it hath been over. Not content with this, the chapel windows, while I have been preaching, have repeatedly been broken by large stones of almost a pound weight (some now lying by me) which though levelled at, providentially missed me, but at the same time sadly wounded some of my hearers.
Whitefield threatens to publish the matter and take the rioters to court. Bishop Pearce cited his upper-class right as a “peer”—a member of the House of Lords—that none of the letters could be publicly released. Privately, the bishop’s response was increased intimidation.
An exasperated Whitefield wrote to the Countess of Huntingdon and at least two other persons in the upper classes to acquaint them with the matter: “I have had three anonymous letters sent me, threatening a certain, sudden, and unavoidable stroke, unless I desist from preaching, and pursuing the offenders by law.” Apparently, his friends intervened. As they prepared to go to court, a judicial pardon was offered to anyone who would ferret out the author of the threat. The fear of the justice system put a stop to the harassment, and at least one of the perpetrators repented and began attending services at the chapel. With pressure applied to him from above, Bishop Pearce presumably called off his dogs.
At the resolution of the conflict, Whitefield mused to a friend about the deeper issue involved and the depth of his commitment to it:
Our cause, in my opinion, is the cause of GOD, and the cause of civil and religious liberty; and if death itself should be permitted to befall me for defending it, I hope, through CHRIST strengthening me, it would be gratefully received.
Within his letters, and as evidenced by his choices on political issues, Whitefield shows that he sincerely added a mission to defend liberty to his priestly calling to preach the new birth. He was willing to die in the cause, if need be.
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After the Long Acre affair settled down, the Countess of Huntingdon financed the construction of a chapel near the London theater district. Whitefield began preaching regularly at the new Tottingham Court chapel, which aggravated the carnival entertainers and the theater community, who viewed him as competition. Whitefield competed for their audiences and solicited donations from them—money that would likely have gone to entertainment. A conflict broke out when Whitefield warned against the evil of attending plays and when members of the theater community regularly disrupted his meetings. Whitefield was not going to win this one. The theater community did not use violence. Instead, they employed the art of comedy. Samuel Foote, the comic playwright, wrote The Minor, which lampooned Whitefield and his followers. In response, Whitefield proudly remarked, “Satan is angry. I am now mimicked and burlesqued upon the public stage. All hail such contempt!” But Foote had begun an effectual campaign of satire that eventually caused Whitefield to close the Tottingham Court chapel.
Whitefield then began another preaching tour. Moving on to Scotland, he found audiences receptive to his political admonishments. Whitefield continued his political preaching as he began to tour England and Scotland in 1756, frequently and explicitly preaching his war message. As his biographer and friend John Gillies recalled, Whitefield unmasked “the miseries of Popish tyranny, and arbitrary power … exhorting his hearers to loyalty and courage at home, and … stirring them up to pray for the success of his Majesty’s forces, both by sea and land abroad.” This was a radically different message than the new birth, regeneration, and common privileges of the Holy Spirit that he preached in the 1740s.
He returned to Ireland in 1757, and so many people were responsive that Whitefield felt a great work was commencing. But he also preached his political messages, and the Roman Catholics took offense at his warnings against France, Rome, and hell. Whitefield stirred up so much antagonism among the Catholics that a mob attempted to murder him after one outdoor meeting by stoning him as he returned to his lodgings. The act occurred after a sermon where he encouraged loyalty to King George. After escaping into the home of a sympathetic family with the mob pressing in upon him, he had his wounds bandaged, whereupon he was safe for the moment. But he had to sneak out in disguise to make his escape.
The year had been a tough one for Whitefield. War had broken out. His health was beginning its descent with the onset of angina, the disease that biographers say led to his weight gain and an early death. The paintings after 1757 depict a heavy Whitefield instead of the fit, active orator who had dazzled audiences with eloquence and dramatizations. His preaching events would typically be preceded by a feeling of illness—probably due to stress. Then he would gain a burst of energy as the service would begin, followed by active, energetic preaching, which would undoubtedly leave him feeling euphoric. Whitefield would often assure his friends that he needed to work up a good “pulpit sweat,” and he would feel fine again.
For the next several years, while the war ravaged Europe and America, Whitefield and the methodists made themselves busy with transforming England and setting the foundation for the formal Methodist church that was to emerge out of the Church of England in 1795. Whitefield preached often in his usual places throughout London, leaving for preaching tours to Wales, Scotland, and the country around London. During this period, his illness left him bedridden for weeks to months at a time, and on several occasions he was restricted to preaching once per day and “thrice on Sundays.” Normally he preached two to three times a day. Combined with the construction costs of enlarging his London chapel, money problems began to encroach a bit with the manager of the Bethesda Orphanage requesting a large sum—a request that frustrated him since he thought the orphanage was self-sustaining with the purchase of slaves. Regarding the management skills of his Bethesda steward, he remarked to a friend, “GOD keep us from that prosperity which destroyeth!” A young woman from Scotland offered him her entire estate, worth £7,000, an offer he refused to take. This offer was enormous—when a minister’s annual salary might be £100 plus a parsonage and other favors like a delivery of firewood. But his critics would have mercilessly tormented him and perhaps done real damage to his public image had he accepted it. In all this time, he desired to go back to America:
I am talking every day of coming over; but how to do it in war time, or how to get the chapel in Tottenham-court-road, or the Tabernacle in Moorfields supplied, I cannot, as yet, be clear in. Strange that nobody will relieve me, that I may once more flee to America.
While his time in England became a routine of preaching, traveling, recuperating from too much activity, and then beginning all over again, Whitefield was learning of other concerns. As the war ended, the British government was in debt and worried that the colonial situation was not as stable or loyal as they would have liked.