George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in America

One of the most extraordinary men in modern times was the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who erected Surrey chapel, London, and continued to preach in it till his death, in his eighty-ninth year, in 1833. He was eminently dignified in person, possessed extraordinary zeal, and was honored by his great Master with probably more success in the direct work of saving souls than any other minister of his day. He was a man of considerable rank, his father being a gentleman of title, one of his brothers a member of Parliament for many years, representing his native county, and the late eminent statesman and soldier Lord Hill was his nephew. Mr. Hill himself in early life became a Christian, and was educated for the ministry in the established church, but violated its rules, and preached wherever he could; for many years he was greatly persecuted by his own family, some of whom, however, in the end sustained the yoke of Christ. When Rowland began his somewhat erratic career, the opposition from his father was so great, that he was reduced sometimes to extreme poverty; and he was exactly the man to be encouraged by such men as Whitefield and Berridge. We give a few extracts from letters addressed to him by Whitefield, which certainly show no small degree of ardor, though we cannot see in them what Hill's clerical biographer, Mr. Sidney, professed to find, "an aspiration after the honors, when he had no prospect of the sufferings of martyrdom." The fact was, that Mr. Sidney was offended with Whitefield, as he was with his venerable uncle, Mr. Hill, for having deviated from the rigid laws of the establishment. It is only needful to introduce the first letter by saying that it was dated, London, December 27, 1766, and was sent in answer to one in which Mr. Hill had asked his counsel.

"About thirty-four years ago, the master of Pembroke college, where I was educated, took me to task for visiting the sick and going to the prisons. In my haste I said, 'Sir, if it displeaseth you I will go no more.' My heart smote me immediately; I repented, and went again; he heard of it – threatened – but for fear he should be looked on as a persecutor, let me alone. The hearts of all are in the Redeemer's hands. I would not have you give way; no, not for a moment. The storm is too great to hold long. Visiting the sick and imprisoned, and instructing the ignorant, are the very vitals of true and undefiled religion. If threatened, denied degree, or expelled for this, it will be the best degree you can take – a glorious preparative for, and a blessed presage of future usefulness. I have seen the dreadful consequences of giving way and looking back. How many by this wretched cowardice, and fear of the cross, have been turned into pillars, not of useful, but of useless salt. Now is your time to prove the strength of Jesus yours. If opposition did not so much abound, your consolations would not so abound. Blind as he is, Satan sees some great good coming on. We never prospered so much at Oxford as when we were hissed at and reproached as we walked along the streets, as being counted the dung and offscouring of all things. That is a poor building which a little stinking breath of Satan's vassals can throw down. Your house, I trust, is better founded. Is it not built upon a rock? Is not that rock the blessed Jesus? The gates of hell, therefore, shall not be able to prevail against it. Go on, therefore, my dear man, go on. Old Berridge, I believe, would give you the same advice; you are honored in sharing his reproach and name. God be praised that you are enabled to bless when others blaspheme. God bless and direct and support you. He will, he will. Good Lady Huntingdon is in town; she will rejoice to hear that you are under the cross. You will not want her prayers, or the poor prayers of, my dear honest young friend, yours, in an all-conquering Jesus."

The opposition Mr. Hill met with from his parents increased, and the threat of his degree being withheld, was, on the part of the university authorities, more determined; still, however, he persevered in his preaching and his visits, in violation of the laws of discipline. In June, 1767, Mr. Whitefield wrote him: "I wish you joy of the late high dignity conferred upon you – higher than if you were made the greatest professor in the university of Cambridge. The honorable degrees you intend giving to your promising candidates, [allowing some of his fellow-students to preach in the various places which he had visited,] I trust will excite a holy ambition, and a holy emulation; let me know who is first honored. As I have been admitted to the degree of doctor for near these thirty years, I assure you I like my field preferment, my airy pluralities, exceedingly well. For these three weeks last past I have been beating up for fresh recruits in Gloucestershire and South Wales. Thousands and thousands attended, and good Lady Huntingdon was present at one of our reviews. Her ladyship's aid-de-camp preached in Brecknock-street, and Captain Scott, that glorious field-officer, lately fixed up his standard upon dear Mr. Fletcher's horseblock at Madeley. Being invited thither, I have a great inclination to lift up the Redeemer's ensign next week in the same place; with what success, you and your dearly beloved candidates for good old methodistical contempt shall know hereafter. God willing, I intend fighting my way up to town. Soon after my arrival there, I hope thousands and thousands of volleys of prayers, energetic, effectual, fervent, heaven-besieging, heaven-opening, heaven-taking prayers, shall be poured forth for you all. Oh, my dearly beloved and longed-for in the Lord, my bowels yearn towards you. Fear not to go without the camp; keep open the correspondence between the two universities. Remember the praying legions – they were never known to yield. God bless those that are gone to their respective cures– I say not livings, a term of too modern date. Christ is our life; Christ is the Levite's inheritance, and Christ will be the true disinterested Levite's lot and portion and all. Greet your dear young companions whom I saw; they are welcome to write when they please. God be your physician under your bodily malady. A thorn, a thorn! but Christ's grace will be sufficient for you. To his tender, never-failing mercy I commit you."

A few weeks after this, Mr. Hill was much depressed in spirits, partly from bodily illness, partly because he was about to leave Cambridge and its surrounding villages, where he had latterly so frequently preached, but chiefly from the fact that he was going home, where he would again meet the frowns of his honored parents, for what they deemed his overrighteousness. In the midst of all this, however, he knew that he would meet at Hawkstone, his father's residence, the cordial welcome of his sister and elder brother, Richard Hill, afterwards a baronet. This gentleman had lately become a village preacher and a visitor of prisons, like his brother. Under these circumstances he was addressed by Whitefield, in his own peculiar and energetic style: "What said our Lord to Martha? 'Did I not say unto thee, If thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?' Blessed, for ever blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for what he hath done for your dear brother. A preaching, prison-preaching, field-preaching esquire, strikes more than all the black gowns and lawn sleeves in the world. And if I am not mistaken, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls will let the world, and his own children too, know that he will not be prescribed to in respect to men, or garbs, or places; much less will he be confined to any order or set of men under heaven. I wish you both much, very much prosperity. You will have it —you will have it. This is the way, walk ye in it. Both Tabernacle and [Tottenham Court-road] chapel pulpits shall be open to a captain or an esquire sent of God. The good news from Oxford is encouraging. Say what they will, preaching should be one part of the education of a student in divinity. I pray for you night and day."

On the arrival of Mr. Hill at his father's beautiful seat, it was his happiness to find that his brother Brian, afterwards useful as a clergyman, was added to the number of believers in Christ; he learned also, that one of his college friends had been threatened to have an exhibition, or yearly gift towards his university expenses, withdrawn, unless he renounced his evangelical doctrines and practices. The reader will now understand Mr. Whitefield's letter: "I have been sadly hindered from answering your last letter, delivered to me by your brother. I gave it him to read, and we had, I trust, a profitable conference. God be praised if another of your brothers is gained. What grace is this! Four or five out of one family – it is scarcely to be paralleled. Who knows but the root, as well as the branches, may be taken by and by? Abba, Father, all things are possible with thee! Steadiness and perseverance in the children will be one of the best means, under God, of convincing the parents. This present opposition I think cannot last very long; if it does, to obey God rather than man, when forbidden to do what is undoubted duty, is the invariable rule. Our dear Penty [afterwards the Rev. Thomas Pentycross] is under the cross at Cambridge. But

 
"'Satan thwarts, and men object,
Yet the thing they thwart effect.'
 

I should be glad if any one's exhibition was taken from him for visiting the sick, etc. It would vastly tend to the furtherance of the gospel; but Satan sees too far, I imagine, to play such a game now. Let him do his work; he is only a mastiff chained. Continue to inform me how he barks, and how far he is permitted to go in your parts; and God's people shall be more stirred up to pray for you all."

The close of Mr. Hill's life was truly interesting and instructive. As has been intimated, he preached with scarcely diminished power until within a few weeks of his death. During the last two or three years of his life he very frequently repeated the following lines of an old poet:

 
"And when I'm to die,
Receive me, I'll cry,
For Jesus has loved me, I cannot tell why;
But this I can find,
We two are so joined,
That he'll not be in glory, and leave me behind."
 

"The last time he occupied my pulpit," writes his neighbor, the Rev. George Clayton, "when he preached excellently for an hour, in behalf of a charitable institution, he retired to the vestry after service under feelings of great and manifest exhaustion. Here he remained until every individual except the pew-openers, his servant, and myself had left the place. At length he seemed with some reluctance to summon energy enough to take his departure, intimating that it was in all probability the last time he should preach in Walworth. His servant went before to open the carriage-door, the pew-openers remaining in the vestry. I offered my arm, which he declined, and then followed him as he passed down the aisle of the chapel. The lights were nearly extinguished, the silence was profound, nothing indeed was heard but the slow majestic tread of his own footsteps, when, in an undertone, he thus soliloquized:

"'And when I'm to die,' etc

To my heart this was a scene of unequalled solemnity, nor can I ever recur to it without a revival of that hallowed, sacred, shuddering sympathy which it originally awakened."

When the good old saint lay literally dying, and when apparently unconscious, a friend put his mouth close to his ear, and repeated slowly his favorite lines:

"And when I'm to die," etc

The light came back to his fast-fading eye, a smile overspread his face, and his lips moved in the ineffectual attempt to articulate the words. This was the last sign of consciousness which he gave.

We could almost wish that every disciple of Christ would commit these lines, quaint as they are, to memory, and weave them into the web of his Christian experience. Confidence in Christ, and undeviating adherence to him, can alone enable us to triumph in life and death.

In November, 1766, Whitefield again visited Bath and Bristol, and then passed on to Gloucestershire and Oxford. Never did so many of the nobility attend his ministry as he now saw at Bath, and the results of his whole journey were such as to fill him with the most devout gratitude. He saw too the number of his clerical friends largely increasing, and especially rejoiced in the fact that the excellent Fletcher, of Madeley, preached in his pulpits in London. He writes of this event, "Dear Mr. Fletcher has become a scandalous Tottenham Court preacher… Were we more scandalous, more good would be done… Still, 'the shout of a king is yet heard' in the Methodist camp."

In January, 1767, Whitefield wrote a recommendatory preface to the works of John Bunyan, whom he pleasantly designated, "Bishop Bunyan;" and as soon as the weather would permit, we find him at Norwich, and then at Rodborough, Woodstock, Gloucester, and Haverfordwest, from which last place he wrote, "Thousands and thousands attend by eight in the morning. Life and light seem to fly all around." On a second visit to Gloucester on this tour, he wrote, "Blessed be God, I have got on this side the Welsh mountains. Blessed be God, I have been on the other side. What a scene last Sunday! What a cry for more of the bread of life! But I was quite worn down."

In September following, he again visited the north of England, writing from day to day in high spirits. September 28, he says, "My body feels much fatigued in travelling; comforts in the soul overbalance;" and from Leeds, October 3, he writes, "Field and street preaching have rather bettered than hurt my bodily health."

Whitefield now returned to London, to sustain a heavy disappointment. The negotiations relative to the college at Bethesda were this winter brought to an issue. A memorial addressed to his Majesty was put into the hands of the clerk of the Privy Council, setting forth the great utility of a college in that place to the southern provinces; and praying that a charter might be granted upon the plan of the college in New Jersey. This memorial was transmitted by the clerk of the Privy Council to the lord president, and by his lordship referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom also a draft of an intended charter was presented by the Earl of Dartmouth. A correspondence followed all this between the archbishop and Whitefield; the consequence of which was, that his grace gave the draft of the college to the lord president, who promised he would consider of it; and gave it as his opinion that "the head of the college ought to be a member of the church of England; that this was a qualification not to be dispensed with; and also, that the public prayers should not be extempore ones, but the liturgy of the church, or some other settled and established form." Whitefield replied that these restrictions he could by no means agree to, because the greatest part of the contributions for the orphan-house came from Protestant dissenters; and because he had constantly declared that the intended college should be founded upon a broad foundation, and no other.

"This," said he, "I judged I was sufficiently warranted to do, from the known, long-established, mild, and uncoercive genius of the British government; also from your grace's moderation towards Protestant dissenters; from the unconquerable attachment of the Americans to toleration principles, as well as from the avowed habitual feelings of my own heart. This being the case, and as your grace, by your silence, seems to be like-minded with the lord president; and as your grace's and his lordship's influence will undoubtedly extend itself to others, I would beg leave, after returning all due acknowledgments, to inform your grace that I intend troubling your grace and his lordship no more about this so long depending concern. As it hath pleased the great Head of the church in some degree to renew my bodily strength, I propose now to renew my feeble efforts, and to turn the charity into a more generous, and consequently into a more useful channel. I have no ambition to be looked upon as the founder of a college; but I would fain act the part of an honest man, a disinterested minister of Jesus Christ, and a true, catholic, moderate presbyter of the church of England."

Thus ended Whitefield's labors to establish a college at Bethesda. Berridge, and not a few others of his friends rather rejoiced in his disappointment, as they thought there was some fear, uncontrolled as the institution might hereafter be by men of established principles of piety, that an unconverted ministry might be increased by its means.

CHAPTER XV.
HIS LAST LABORS IN GREAT BRITAIN – COLLEGE AT TREVECCA – EARL OF BUCHAN – TUNBRIDGE WELLS.
1767-1769

Whitefield had abandoned the idea of a charter for a college at present, but he was yet ardently desirous of a public academy being added to his orphan-house, similar to what existed at Philadelphia before a college charter was granted. He thought that if this could be done, a better day might arrive, when a charter on broad principles might be obtained. He developed his whole plan in a letter to Governor Wright. Feeling too the uncertainty of life, he wrote to his friend Mr. Keen, "None but God knows what a concern is upon me now, in respect of Bethesda. As another voyage, perhaps, may be the issue and the result of all at last, I would beg you and my dear Mr. H – to let me have all my papers and letters, that I may revise and dispose of them in a proper manner. This can do no hurt, come life or come death."

October 28th, 1767, Whitefield preached at the London Tabernacle before the society for promoting religious knowledge among the poor, usually called, The Book Society. This society had been organized seventeen years before this period, and included in it such men as Watts, Doddridge, and Gifford. He gave way to all the zeal of his heart while he discussed the petition, "Thy kingdom come." Luke 11:2. The congregation was immense, many had to go away unable to obtain admittance. It was believed that a larger number of dissenting ministers were present than ever before heard a sermon from an Episcopal minister, and the collection reached more than five hundred dollars, or above four times the usual amount, besides eighty new annual subscribers. After the service, he dined with a very large party, including the ministers, where harmony reigned, and much respect was shown him.

It may be readily supposed, that with advancing years and increasing experience, some changes might have taken place both in the style and manner of Whitefield's preaching. The Rev. Cornelius Winter, who had become somewhat closely associated with him, says, "He dealt more in the explanatory and doctrinal mode on the Sabbath morning than at any other time, and sometimes made a little, but by no means an improper show of learning. His afternoon sermon was more general and exhortatory. In the evening, he drew his bow at a venture; vindicated the doctrines of grace, fenced them with articles and homilies, referred to the martyr's seal, and exemplified the power of divine grace by quotations from the venerable Foxe. Sinners were then closely plied, numbers of whom, from curiosity, coming to hear for a minute or two, were often compelled to hear the whole sermon. How many in the judgment-day will rise to prove that they heard to the salvation of the soul. Upon the members of society, the practice of Christianity was then usually inculcated, not without some pertinent anecdote of a character worthy to be held up for an example, and in whose conduct the hints recommended were exemplified. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, he preached at six in the morning; and never, perhaps, did he preach greater sermons than at this hour." This, with the frequent administration of the Lord's supper to hundreds of communicants, was his usual plan for several years; but now he became more colloquial in his style, with but little action; he gave pertinent expositions of the Scriptures, with striking remarks, all comprehended within an hour. Winter adds, "The peculiar talents he possessed, subservient to great usefulness, can be but faintly conceived from his sermons in print; though, as formerly, God has made the reading of them useful, and I have no doubt that in future they will have their use."

But even yet our evangelist had to engage in war. The opposition of the universities in Oxford and Cambridge to the principles and practices introduced by Whitefield, Wesley, and their companions, grew and strengthened, till an event occurred at Oxford singularly remarkable in its history for opposition to evangelical religion, which for many years continued to excite very extraordinary interest. The London "St. James' Chronicle," of Thursday, March 17, 1763, contained the following "extract of a letter from Oxford: " "On Friday last, six students, belonging to Edmund Hall, were expelled the university, after a hearing of several hours before Mr. Vice-Chancellor and some of the heads of houses, for holding methodistical tenets, and taking upon them to pray, read, and expound the Scriptures, and singing hymns in a private house. The – of the – [The Principal of the Edmund Hall, Rev. Dr. Dixon] defended their doctrines from the Thirty-nine Articles of the established church, and spoke in the highest terms of the piety and exemplariness of their lives; but his motion was overruled, and sentence pronounced against them. Dr. – , [Dixon,] one of the heads of houses present, observed, that as these six gentlemen were expelled for having too much religion, it would be very proper to inquire into the conduct of some who had too little; and Mr. – [Dr. Nowell] was heard to tell their chief accuser, that the university was much obliged to him for his good work."

To detail the events which followed this extraordinary act, and to describe the excitement thus created, form no part of the design of our volume. We have referred to the fact because Mr. Whitefield and his friend Sir Richard Hill took part in the controversy. Referring to Dr. Nowell's assertion to Mr. Higson, their "chief accuser," and who was also their tutor, that the university was obliged to him, Whitefield says to the Vice-Chancellor, "What thanks, reverend sir, he may meet with from the whole university I know not; but one thing I know, namely, that he will receive no thanks for that day's work from the innumerable company of angels, the general assembly of the first-born which are written in heaven, or from God the Judge of all, in that day when Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant shall come in his own glory, in the glory of the Father and his holy angels, and gather his elect from all the four corners of the world.

"It is true, indeed, one article of impeachment was, that 'some of them were of trades before they entered into the university.' But what evil or crime worthy of expulsion can there be in that? To be called from any, though the meanest mechanical employment, to the study of the liberal arts, where a natural genius hath been given, was never yet looked upon as a reproach to, or diminution of any great and public character whatsoever. Profane history affords us a variety of examples of the greatest heroes, who have been fetched even from the plough to command armies, and who performed the greatest exploits for their country's good. And if we examine sacred history, we shall find that even David, after he was anointed king, looked back with sweet complacency to the rock from whence he was hewn, and is not ashamed to leave it upon record, that God took him away from the sheepfolds, as he was following the ewes great with young; and, as though he loved to repeat it, he took him, he says, 'that he might feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance.'

"But why speak I of David, when Jesus of Nazareth, David's Lord and David's King, had for his reputed father a carpenter? and in all probability, as it was a common proverb among the Jews, that 'he who did not teach his son a trade, taught him to be a thief,' he worked at the trade of a carpenter himself. For this, indeed, he was reproached and maligned: 'Is not this,' said they, 'the carpenter's son?' Nay, 'Is not this the carpenter?' But who were these maligners? The greatest enemies to the power of godliness which the world ever saw, the scribes and Pharisees, that 'generation of vipers,' as John the Baptist calls them, who, upon every occasion, were spitting out their venom, and shooting their arrows, even bitter words, against that Son of man, even that Son of God who, to display his sovereignty, and confound the wisdom of the worldly wise, chose poor fishermen to be his apostles; and whose chief of the apostles, though brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, both before and after his call to the apostleship, labored with his own hands, and worked at the trade of a tent-maker."

It is pleasant to know that the young men thus expelled became useful in the church of Christ. One of them, indeed, Erasmus Middleton, who had been sustained at Oxford by Mr. Fuller, a dissenter and banker in London, was ordained in Ireland by the bishop of Down, and having married a lady of the ducal family of Gordon, in Scotland, was curate successively to the Rev. Messrs. Romaine and Cadogan in London, and finally rector of Turvey, in Bedfordshire, where he was the immediate predecessor of the sainted Legh Richmond.

Many delightful evidences yet exist that as Whitefield drew nearer the end of his career on earth, his holy zeal increased, rather than lessened. We have lying before us three of his letters, not included either in the collection of his printed correspondence, or in the lives which have been published. The first was addressed to a gentleman at Wisbeach, and appears to have been written from London. It is dated Sept. 25, 1766.

"Dear Sir – As your letter breathes the spirit of a sincere follower of the Lamb of God, I am sorry that it hath lain by so long unanswered; but bodily weakness, and a multiplicity of correspondents, both from abroad and at home, must be pleaded as excuses. 'Blessed be God, our salvation is nearer than when we believed.' It should seem that you have now served three apprenticeships in Christ's school, and yet I suppose the language of your heart is, 'I love my Master, and will not go from him;' and Oh, what a mercy, that whom Jesus loves, he loves to the end! Do you not begin to long to see him more than ever? Do you not groan in this tabernacle, being burdened? Courage, courage; he that cometh will come, and will not tarry. Oh that patience may have its perfect work! Many in this metropolis seem to be on the wing for God; the shout of a king is yet heard in the Methodist camp. Had I wings, I would gladly fly from pole to pole; but they are clipped by thirty years' feeble labors. Twice or thrice a week I am permitted to ascend my gospel throne. The love of Christ, I am persuaded, will constrain you to pray that the last glimmering of an expiring taper may be blessed to the guiding of many wandering souls to the Lamb of God."

The second letter was written from the same city, February 12, in the following year, and was addressed to Captain Scott, a military officer then "quartered at Leicester." This gentleman, in early life, had been much devoted to the gayeties of fashionable society; long after he had entered the army, he was converted to God, under the ministry of the Rev. W. Romaine; and a few weeks before Mr. Whitefield addressed to him this letter, he had begun to preach the grand message of reconciliation. He afterwards left the army, was ordained as a Congregational minister, and labored for many years in almost innumerable places in city and country, with abundant success.

"What, not answer so modest a request, namely, to snatch a few moments to send dear Captain Scott a few lines? God forbid. I must again welcome him into the field of battle. I must again entreat him to keep his rank as captain, and not suffer any persuasions to influence him to descend to the low degree of a common soldier. If God will choose a red-coat preacher, who shall say unto him, 'What doest thou?'

 
"Prevent thy foes, nor wait their charge;
But call the lingering battle on;
But strongly grasp thy seven-fold targe,
And bear the world and Satan down.
 
 
"Strong in the Lord's almighty power,
And armed in panoply divine,
Firm mayest thou stand in danger's hour,
And prove the strength of Jesus thine.
 
 
"The helmet of salvation take,
The Lord the Spirit's conquering sword;
Speak from the word, in lightning speak;
Cry out, and thunder from the Lord.
 
 
"Through friends and foes pursue thy way,
Be mindful of a dying God;
Finish thy course, and win the day,
Though called to seal the truth with blood.
 

"Gladly would I come, and in my poor way endeavor to strengthen your hands; but alas, I am fit for nothing, but, as an invalid, to be put into some garrison, and now and then put my hand to some old gun. Blessed be the Captain of our salvation for drafting out some young champions to reconnoitre and attack the enemy. You will beat the march in every letter, and bid the common soldiers not halt, but go forwards. Good Lady Huntingdon wishes you much prosperity. Pray write to her at Brighthelmstone, [now Brighton,] Sussex. She will most gladly answer you; and I assure you, her Ladyship's letters are always weighty. Hoping one day or another to see your face in the flesh, and more than hoping to see you crowned with glory in the kingdom of heaven, I must hasten to subscribe myself, my dear captain, yours in our all-glorious Captain-general,

"G. WHITEFIELD."

The last letter we shall introduce in this connection was addressed by Whitefield to the Honorable and Rev. Walter Shirley, of Ireland, a near relative of the Countess of Huntingdon, who breathed, as a minister of Christ, much of the spirit of his great Master. It was dated, Bath, Dec. 8, 1767: