Sermon Tone Analysis

Life and Ministry of George Whitefield

by J.C. Ryle

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Who were the men that revived religion in England a hundred years ago?

What were their names, that we may do them honour?

Where were they born?

How were they educated?

What are the leading facts in their lives?

What was their special department of labour?

To these questions I wish to supply some answers in the present and future chapters.

I pity the man who takes no interest in such inquiries.

The instruments that God employs to do His work in the world deserve a close inspection.

The man who did not care to look at the rams' horns that blew down Jericho, the hammer and nail that slew Sisera, the lamps and trumpets of Gideon, the sling and stone of David, might fairly be set down as a cold and heartless person.

I trust that all who read this volume will like to know something about the English evangelists of the eighteenth century.

The first and foremost whom I will name is the well-known George Whitefield.

Though not the first in order, if we look at the date of his birth, I place him first in the order of merit, without any hesitation.

Of all the spiritual heroes of a hundred years ago, none saw so soon as Whitefield what the times demanded, and none were so forward in the great work of spiritual aggression.

I should think I committed an act of injustice if I placed any name before his.

Whitefield was born at Gloucester in the year 1714.

That venerable county-town, which was his birth-place, is connected with more than one name which ought to be dear to every lover of Protestant truth.

Tyndal, one of the first and ablest translators of the English Bible, was a Gloucestershire man.

Hooper, one of the greatest and best of our English reformers, was Bishop of Gloucester, and was burned at the stake for Christ's truth, within view of his own cathedral, in Queen Mary's reign.

In the next century Miles Smith, Bishop of Gloucester, was one of the first to protest against the Romanizing proceedings of Laud, who was then Dean of Gloucester.

In fact, he carried his Protestant feeling so far that, when Laud moved the communion-table in the cathedral to the east end, and placed it for the first time `altar-wise,' in 1616, Bishop Smith was so much offended that he refused to enter the walls of the cathedral from that day till his death.

Places like Gloucester, we need not doubt, have a rich entailed inheritance of many prayers.

The city where Hooper preached and prayed, and where the zealous Miles Smith protested, was the place where the greatest preacher of the gospel England has ever seen was born.

Like many other famous men, Whitefield was of humble origin, and had no rich or noble connections to help him forward in the world.

His mother kept the Bell Inn at Gloucester, and appears not to have prospered in business; at any rate, she never seems to have been able to do anything for Whitefield's advancement in life.

The inn itself is still standing, and is reputed to be the birth-place, not only of our greatest English preacher, but also of a well-known English prelate Henry Philpot, Bishop of Exeter.

Whitefield's early life, according to his own account, was anything but religious; though, like many boys, he had occasional prickings of conscience and spasmodic fits of devout feeling.

But habits and general tastes are the only true test of young people's characters.

He confesses that he was `addicted to lying, filthy talking, and foolish jesting', and that he was a `Sabbath-breaker, a theater-goer, a card-player, and a romance reader'.

All this, he says, went on till he was fifteen years old.

Poor as he was, his residence at Gloucester procured him the advantage of a good education at the Free Grammar School of that city.

Here he was a day-scholar until he was fifteen.

Nothing is known of his progress there.

He can hardly, however, have been quite idle, or else he would not have been ready to enter a University afterwards at the age of eighteen.

His letters, moreover, show an acquaintance with Latin, in the shape of frequent quotations, which is seldom acquired, if not picked up at school.

The only known fact about his schooldays is this curious one, that even then he was remarkable for his good elocution and memory, and was selected to recite speeches before the Corporation of Gloucester at their annual visitation of the Grammar School.

At the age of fifteen Whitefield appears to have left school, and to have given up Latin and Greek for a season.

In all probability, his mother's straitened circumstances made it absolutely necessary for him to do something to assist her in business and to get his own living.

He began, therefore, to help her in the daily work of the Bell Inn.

`At length', he says, `I put on my blue apron, washed cups, cleaned rooms, and, in one word, became a professed common drawer for nigh a year and a half.'

This state of things, however, did not last long.

His mother's business at the Bell did not flourish, and she finally retired from it altogether.

An old school-fellow revived in his mind the idea of going to Oxford, and he went back to the Grammar School and renewed his studies.

Friends were raised up who made interest for him at Pembroke College, Oxford, where the Grammar School of Gloucester held two exhibitions.

And at length, after several providential circumstances had smoothed the way, he entered Oxford as a servitor at Pembroke at the age of eighteen.

/FOOTNOTE: Happening to be at Oxford in June 1865, I went to Pembroke College, and asked whether any one knew the rooms which Whitefield occupied when he was at Oxford.

The porter informed me that nothing whatever was known about them.

The rooms which the famous Dr. Johnson occupied at Pembroke are still pointed out.

Johnson left Oxford just before Whitefield went up./

 

Whitefield's residence at Oxford was the great turning-point in his life.

For two or three years before he went to the University his journal tells us that he had not been without religious convictions.

But from the time of his entering Pembroke College these convictions fast ripened into decided Christianity.

He diligently attended all means of grace within his reach.

He spent his leisure time in visiting the city prison, reading to the prisoners, and trying to do good.

He became acquainted with the famous John Wesley and his brother Charles, and a little band of like-minded young men, including the well-known author of Theron and Aspasio, James Hervey.

These were the devoted party to whom the name `Methodists' was first applied, on account of their strict `method' of living.

At one time he seems to have greedily devoured such books as Thomas Kempis, and Castanuza's Spiritual Combat, and to have been in danger of becoming a semi-papist, an ascetic, or a mystic, and of placing the whole of religion in self-denial.

He says in his Journal, I always chose the worst sort of food.

I fasted twice a week.

My apparel was mean.

I thought it unbecoming a penitent to have his hair powdered.

I wore woollen gloves, a patched gown, and dirty shoes; and though I was convinced that the kingdom of God did not consist in meat and drink, yet I resolutely persisted in these voluntary acts of self-denial, because I found in them great promotion of the spiritual life.'

Out of all this darkness he was gradually delivered, partly by the advice of one or two experienced Christians, and partly by reading such books as Scougal's Life of God in the Soul of Man, Law's Serious Call, Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, Alleine's Alarm to Unconverted Sinners, and Matthew Henry's Commentary.

`Above all,' he says, `my mind being now more opened and enlarged, I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and word.

This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul.

I daily received fresh life, light, and power from above.

I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.' Once taught to understand the glorious liberty of Christ's gospel, Whitefield never turned again to asceticism, legalism, mysticism, or strange views of Christian perfection.

The experience received by bitter conflict was most valuable to him.

The doctrines of free grace, once thoroughly grasped, took deep root in his heart, and became, as it were, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.

Of all the little band of Oxford methodists, none seem to have got hold so soon of clear views of Christ's gospel as he did, and none kept it so unwaveringly to the end.

At the early age of twenty-two Whitefield was admitted to holy orders by Bishop Benson of Gloucester, on Trinity Sunday, 1736.

His ordination was not of his own seeking.

The bishop heard of his character from Lady Selwyn and others, sent for him, gave him five guineas to buy books, and offered to ordain him, though only twenty-two years old, whenever he wished.

This unexpected offer came to him when he was full of scruples about his own fitness for the ministry.

It cut the knot and brought him to the point of decision.

`I began to think,' he says, `that if I held out longer I should fight against God.'

Whitefield's first sermon was preached in the very town where he was born, at the church of St. Mary-le-Crypt, Gloucester.

His own description of it is the best account that can be given: 'Last Sunday, in the afternoon, I preached my first sermon in the church of St. Mary-le-Crypt, where I was baptized, and also first received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

Curiosity, as you may easily guess, drew a large congregation together upon this occasion.

The sight at first a little awed me.

But I was comforted with a heartfelt sense of the divine presence, and soon found the unspeakable advantage of having been accustomed to public speaking when a boy at school, and of exhorting the prisoners and poor people at their private houses while at the university.

By these means I was kept from being daunted overmuch.

As I proceeded I perceived the fire kindled, till at last, though so young and amidst a crowd of those who knew me in my childish days, I was enabled to speak with some degree of gospel authority.

Some few mocked, but most seemed for the present struck; and I have since heard that a complaint was made to the bishop that I drove fifteen mad the first sermon!

The worthy prelate wished that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday.'

Almost immediately after his ordination, Whitefield went to Oxford and took his degree as Bachelor of Arts.

He then commenced his regular ministerial life by undertaking temporary duty at the Tower Chapel, London, for two months.

While engaged there he preached continually in many London churches; and among others, in the parish churches of Islington, Bishopsgate, St Dunstan's, St Margaret's, Westminster, and Bow, Cheapside.

From the very first he obtained a degree of popularity such as no preacher, before or since, has probably ever reached.

Whether on week-days or Sundays, wherever he preached, the churches were crowded, and an immense sensation was produced.

The plain truth is, that a really eloquent, extempore preacher, preaching the pure gospel with most uncommon gifts of voice and manner, was at that time an entire novelty in London.

The congregations were taken by surprise and carried by storm.

From London he removed for two months to Dummer, a little rural parish in Hampshire, near Basingstoke.

This was a totally new sphere of action, and he seemed like a man buried alive among poor illiterate people.

But he was soon reconciled to it, and thought afterwards that he reaped much profit by conversing with the poor.

From Dummer he accepted an invitation, which had been much pressed on him by the Wesleys, to visit the colony of Georgia in North America, and assist in the care of an Orphan House which had been set up near Savannah for the children of colonists.

After preaching for a few months in Gloucestershire, and especially at Bristol and Stonehouse, he sailed for America in the latter part of 1737, and continued there about a year.

The affairs of this Orphan House, it may be remarked, occupied much of his attention from this period of his life till he died.