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George Whitefield's Passion for Christ
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By Ralph I. Tilley
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The Oxford Holy Club and Methodists As previously mentioned, George Whitefield (1714-1770) became a member of a small band of devout men at Oxford, who had been drawn together for the purpose of encouraging and stimulating each other in godliness and good works. The moniker "Holy Club" was penned on them by university students who were repulsed by the group's purpose and activities. When Whitefield joined the group at either the end of 1734 or the early part of 1735, they numbered fifteen, with John Wesley as their leader.[18] Recounting the impression these men had on him before he ever identified with the Holy Club, and noting the interesting occasion that opened the door to his joining, Whitefield wrote: "For above a twelvemonth my soul longed to be acquainted with some of them, and I was strongly pressed to follow their good example, when I saw them go through a ridiculing crowd to receive the Holy Eucharist at St. Mary's. At length, God was pleased to open a door. It happened that a poor woman in one of the workhouses had attempted to cut her throat, but was happily prevented. Upon hearing of this, and knowing that both the Mr. Wesleys were ready to every good work, I sent a poor apple-woman of our college to inform Mr. Charles Wesley of it, charging her not to discover who sent her. She went; but, contrary to my orders, told my name. He having heard of my coming to the castle and a parish-church sacrament, and having met me frequently walking by myself, followed the woman when she was gone away, and sent an invitation to me by her, to come to breakfast with him the next morning.[19] From the day Charles Wesley invited Whitefield to join the Holy Club, the two formed a very close bond in Christ. Though for a time the fellowship between John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield was strained over some doctrinal issues (the security of the believer and perfectionism), it was never broken and eventually deepened into an even more beautiful relationship. Forty years after their first meeting, Charles wrote: "Can I the memorable day forget, / When first we by Divine appointment met? / Where undisturbed the thoughtful student roves, / In search of truth, through academic groves; / A modest, pensive youth, who mused alone, / Industrious the frequented path to shun, /An Israelite, without disguise or art, / I saw, I loved, and clasped him to my heart, / A stranger as my bosom friend caressed, / And unawares received an angel-guest.”[20] Of the influence of these men who were also called "Methodists" on his passion for Christ, Whitefield reports in his Journals that he developed better habits with respect to his use of time; received the sacrament weekly; fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays; observed both morning and evening prayers; began to visit the sick and prisoners; read to poor, illiterate people; and endeavored to engage in at least an hour each day in good works. This accountability group also impacted his studies: "Whereas, before, I was busied in studying the dry sciences, and books that went no farther than the surface, I now resolved to read only such as entered into the heart of religion, and which led me directly into an experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. The lively oracles of God were my soul's delight. The book of the Divine laws was seldom out of my hands: I meditated therein day and night; and ever since that, God has made my way signally prosperous, and given me abundant success.”[21] In summary, he says of these devout believers, "Never did persons, I believe, strive more earnestly to enter in at the strait gate. They kept their bodies under even to an extreme. They were dead to the world, and willing to be accounted as the dung and offscouring of all things, so that they might win Christ. Their hearts glowed with the love of God, and they never prospered so much in the inward man, as when they had all manner of evil spoken against them falsely without.”[22] Later, when the Wesleys went to the Georgia Colony as missionaries, Whitefield became the group's primary leader.[23]
Ordination and the Power of the Spirit
One cannot explain the many years of fruitful ministry and the underlying passion for Christ of George Whitefield, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon his life and labors. He was, indeed, "a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.”[24] Would one of England's native sons have crossed the Atlantic seven times to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in America, raise thousands of dollars for hundreds of orphan children in Georgia, traveled thousands of miles through all kinds of weather and over difficult terrain, faced the enemies of Christ with spiritual poise, endured incessant opposition from those in his own denomination, labored frequently while experiencing severe physical infirmities—without the love of Christ compelling him and the Holy Spirit empowering him? To read his Journals is to discover the answer to these questions. It was the love of Christ himself filling the heart of this flaming evangelist by the power of the Holy Spirit, which motivated him. Whitefield was in every way a God-called man who ministered in the power of the Spirit to the glory of God. What Whitefield experienced at his ordination (or the day following; see below) was not unlike what many other servants of God have experienced through the years. While the circumstances of such a baptism vary from person to person, as well as the resulting emotional effects, the substantial effects are quite similar—unparalleled holy love for the Lord Jesus and power for service. In addition to being regenerated by the Spirit at his conversion, according to Whitefield's own testimony his ordination into holy orders was more than an ecclesiastical ritual with the customary laying on of hands; it was a sacred occasion at which the Lord graciously visited his servant with an enduement of the Holy Spirit. This holy empowerment became immediately evident to him as well as to others. Thereafter he could testify with the Lord Jesus, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.”[25] Like many of God's servants before and after him, Whitefield humanly shrank from entering upon holy orders. He acknowledged the intense struggle he went through just before his ordination ceremony: "Oftentimes I have been in an agony in prayer, when under convictions of my insufficiency for so great a work. With strong cryings and tears I have often said, 'Lord, I am a youth of uncircumcised lips; Lord, send me not into Thy vineyard yet.'" He actually asked God to keep him from ordination, but was nonetheless resigned to enter the ministry and submit to ordination if such was God's will for him: "If God did not grant my request in keeping me out of it, I knew His grace would be sufficient to support me whenever He sent me into ministry.”[26] While it was the policy of Whitefield's presiding bishop not to lay hands on an ordinand who was under the age of twenty-three, the bishop chose to break with his arbitrary rule: "The bishop told me he had heard of my character, liked my behaviour at church, and inquired my age." After learning that Whitefield was only twenty-one, the bishop responded, "Notwithstanding . . . I have declared I would not ordain anyone under three-and-twenty, yet I shall think it my duty to ordain you whenever you come to Holy orders.”[27] On the Saturday before the Sunday of his ordination, Whitefield prepared himself for the holy occasion with fasting and prayer. That evening he recalls: "I retired to a hill near the town, and prayed fervently for about two hours, on behalf of myself and those who were to be ordained with me." The next morning he rose early and "prayed over St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, and more particularly over that precept, 'Let no one despise thy youth.' " When the time of service arrived, he was overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy: "When I went up to the altar, I could think of nothing but Samuel's standing a little child before the Lord with a linen ephod." Then he recalls what occurred when Dr. Benson, the Bishop of Gloucester, placed his hands on his head: "my heart was melted down, and I offered up my whole spirit, soul and body, to the service of God's sanctuary.”[28] While the act of ministerial ordination is not synonymous with the Spirit's empowerment, Whitefield claimed his own ministry was remarkably transformed thereafter. If his empowerment for ministry did not come during the act of ordination, it certainly did the following day. It was the Monday following his ordination while in meditation, Whitefield says he was waiting before the Lord in prayer, asking God for guidance regarding where his preaching ministry should lead. He says the words, " 'Speak out, Paul’[29] came with great power to my soul. Immediately my heart was enlarged. God spake to me by His Spirit, and I was no longer dumb. I finished a sermon I had in hand some time before, and began another; and preached the Sunday following to a very crowded audience, with as much freedom as though I had been a preacher for some years.”[30]A few days after this occasion, Whitefield exults,[31] "Glory! glory! glory! be ascribed to an Almighty Triune God. Last Sunday in the afternoon I preached my first sermon, in the church of St. Mary de 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. The sight at first a little awed me, but I was comforted with a heartfelt sense of the Divine presence. . . . 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 infant childish days, I trust I was enabled to speak with some degree of Gospel authority. Some few mocked, but most for the present seemed struck, and I have since heard that a complaint has been made to the Bishop that I drove fifteen mad the first sermon. The worthy Prelate, as I am informed, wished that the madness might not be forgotten before next Sun-day.[32] As evidence of the Spirit's power upon the recently ordained Anglican, who was also given by the same Spirit the gift of evangelism, Whitefield returned to Oxford and began to see wonderful success through his witness. Invited by a friend to fill his pulpit during his absence, he accepted the invitation and great crowds came to hear him. Summarizing his ministerial labors before he sailed to America for his first visit, one biographer writes, "At Oxford his rooms were often filled with praying students. He left the university full of fervor, zeal, and the constraining power of the Holy Spirit. His few sermons in Bristol, just before he left England, stirred the whole city. On his second visit, while waiting for his vessel to sail for America, crowds of people flocked out to meet him on his way to the city. Although he was only twenty-two years of age, Bristol was completely under his spell. Quakers and Nonconformists generally left their chapels to hear him preach. The 'new birth' preached with power from on high seemed to attract all conditions of men. Every nook and corner of the church was crowded, and half the people had to be turned away. Many wept bitterly when he left the city, as did the people of Gloucester when he left that city. In London, while waiting for his vessel, he was compelled to preach, and the large churches would not hold his audiences. Thousands went away for want of room. On Sunday the streets were crowded with people going to meeting long before the break of day. The stewards could hardly carry the donations made for the orphanage he hoped to start in America, so heavy and so many were the large English pennies of that day, which formed the bulk of the collections.[33] As this account and his later ministries attested to, only a prejudiced mind would attribute Whitefield's fruitfulness to anything other than God's power graciously attending the labors of his unworthy servant.
Prayer and Devotional Bible Reading
Every effective servant of God upon whom the Spirit of God has rested has cultivated an intimate relationship with his Lord. Two vital ingredients with these men and women of God in developing such a relationship, has always been a disciplined prayer life and daily devotional Bible reading. These workers in the Lord's vineyard would sooner go without a meal than fail to daily feed on God through communion and a devotional reading of his Word. One cannot read Whitefield's Journals without discovering the importance he placed on his regular, daily meetings with God in prayer and Word. But his prayers were not only reserved for stated occasions; Whitefield is seen frequently and spontaneously offering intercessions and thanksgivings to God, as well as gathering with God's people for the purpose of corporate seasons of prayer. The following excerpts from his Journals, Letters, and Diary, represent typical examples of these spiritual exercises. 1737 (no date for month and day). "Some time, I think in October, we began to set apart an hour every evening, to intercede with the Great Head of the Church to carry on the work begun, and for the circle of our acquaintance, according as we knew their circumstances required. . . . Once we spent a whole night in prayer and praise.”[34] February 25, 1738. "About six this morning went with friend Habersham to the church to pray with some devout Soldiers, who I heard used to meet there at that time, and with whom my soul was knit immediately.”[35] April 10-11, 1738. "Spent a good part of these two days mending my nets [i.e., he spent time in prayer and with God's Word].”[36] October 22, 1738. "Was much comforted this evening in reading the 33rd and 34th chapters of Ezekiel.”[37] November 1, 1738. (On a transatlantic crossing). "This afternoon, about 4 o'clock, as I was in secret, humbling myself before God, interceding for my friends, and had been praying for a fair wind, and assistance in the great work lying before me, news was brought that the wind was fair; which put me in mind of the angel's being sent to Daniel, to tell him his prayer was heard, when he was humbling his soul with fasting, and praying for the peace and restoration of Jerusalem.”[38] December 17, 1739. "I never feel the power of religion more than when under outward or inward trials. It is that alone which can enable any man to sustain with patience and thankfulness his bodily infirmities. Lord, let me feel the power of it more and more, and then, though Thou slay me, yet will I put my trust in Thee.”[39] March 2, 1740. (An excerpt from a letter). "Indeed, dear Sir, I travail as it were in birth, till JESUS CHRIST be thoroughly formed within you.”40] April 19, 1740. "Was still engaged much in giving answers, and praying with divers persons who applied to me under deep convictions.”[41] April 22, 1740. "I talked and prayed with her [an ill woman], and with near twenty more that came into the room.”[42] October 16, 1740. "After dinner, was much enlarged and strengthened to wrestle strongly with God, for a revival of his work in these parts [i.e., Brookfield and Cold Spring, Massachusetts].”[43] October 17, 1744. (On a transatlantic crossing during a fierce storm). "Those in the cabin agreed to set a day apart for humiliation and prayer—We did.”[44] May 22, 1748. "Abundance of prayer and blessings were put up for my safe passage to England and speedy return to the Bermudas again.”[45] There is hardly a page of Whitefield's Journals when he didn't make reference to prayer or the Word of God. Truly he was a man who lived out the apostolic exhortations: "pray without ceasing" and "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”[46] - Soli Deo Gloria - (To be continued.) 18. James P. Gledstone, George Whitefield: Field Preacher (Greenville, S. C: Ambassador Publications, 1998), 12.1
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