George Whitefield

For the American football quarterback, see George Whitfield, Jr.

George Whitefield (December 27 [O.S. 16 December] 1714 – 30 September 1770), also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican cleric who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain and, especially, in the American colonies.

George Whitefield
Renowned English open air preacher and evangelist
Born	(1714-12-27)27 December 1714 Gloucester, England
Died	30 September 1770(1770-09-30) (aged 55) Newburyport, Province of Massachusetts Bay
Nationality	English

Born in Gloucester, England, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford University, where he met the Wesley brothers. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally. In 1740, Whitefield traveled to America, where he preached a series of revivals that came to be known as the "Great Awakening". Whitefield was probably the most famous religious figure of the 18th century. He exercised influence over thousands in Great Britain and America by his oratory. He preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million hearers.

Early life

Whitefield was born 16 December 1714 at the Bell Inn, Southgate Street, Gloucester in England. Whitefield was the fifth son (seventh child) of Thomas Whitefield and Elizabeth Edwards who kept an inn at Gloucester. At an early age, he found that he had a passion and talent for acting in the theatre, a passion that he would carry on with the very theatrical re-enactments of Bible stories he told during his sermons. He was educated at the Crypt School, Gloucester, and Pembroke College, Oxford.

The Old Bell Inn, Southgate Street, Gloucester

Because business at the inn had become poor, Whitefield did not have the means to pay for his tuition. He therefore entered Oxford as a servitor, the lowest rank of students at Oxford. In return for free tuition, he was assigned as a minister to a number of higher ranked students. His duties included teaching them in the morning, helping them bathe, taking out their garbage, carrying their books and even assisting with required written assignments. He was a part of the "Holy Club" at the University of Oxford with the Wesley brothers, John and Charles. An illness, as well as Henry Scougal's The Life of God in the Soul of Man, influenced him to cry out to God for salvation. Following a religious conversion, he became passionate for preaching his new-found faith. The Bishop of Gloucester ordained him a deacon.

Evangelism

Whitefield preached his first sermon at St Mary de Crypt Church in his home town of Gloucester, a week after his ordination. He had earlier become the leader of the Holy Club at Oxford when the Wesley brothers departed for Georgia.

In 1738 he went to Savannah, Georgia, in the American colonies, as parish priest. While there he decided that one of the great needs of the area was an orphan house. He decided this would be his life's work. He returned to England to raise funds, as well as to receive priest's orders. While preparing for his return he preached to large congregations. At the suggestion of friends he preached to the miners of Kingswood, outside Bristol, in the open air. Because he was returning to Georgia he invited John Wesley to take over his Bristol congregations, and to preach in the open air for the first time at Kingswood and then at Blackheath, London.

Whitefield had cross-eyed (Strabismus) vision.

Whitefield accepted the Church of England's doctrine of predestination and disagreed with the Wesley brothers' views on the doctrine of the Atonement, Arminianism. As a result, Whitefield did what his friends hoped he would not do—hand over the entire ministry to John Wesley. Whitefield formed and was the president of the first Methodist conference. But he soon relinquished the position to concentrate on evangelical work.

Three churches were established in England in his name – one in Penn Street, Bristol, and two in London, in Moorfields and in Tottenham Court Road – all three of which became known by the name of "Whitefield's Tabernacle". The society meeting at the second Kingswood School at Kingswood, a town on the eastern edge of Bristol, was eventually also named Whitefield's Tabernacle. Whitefield acted as chaplain to Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, and some of his followers joined the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, whose chapels were built by Selina, where a form of Calvinistic Methodism similar to Whitefield's was taught. Many of Selina's chapels were built in the English and Welsh counties, and one was erected in London—Spa Fields Chapel.

In 1739, Whitefield returned to England to raise funds to establish the Bethesda Orphanage, now the Bethany Academy. It is the oldest extant charity in North America.

Bethesda

“Whitefield's endeavor to build an orphanage in Georgia was central to his preaching. The orphanage and preaching comprised the “two-fold task” that occupied the rest
of his life. On 25 March 1740, construction began. Whitefield wanted the orphanage to be a place of strong Gospel influence, with a wholesome atmosphere and strong discipline.

Having raised the money by his preaching Whitefield “insisted on sole control of the orphanage.” He refused to give the Trustees a financial accounting. The Trustees also objected to
Whitefield’s using “a wrong Method” to control the children, who “are often kept praying and crying all the Night”.

On returning to North America in 1740, he preached a series of revivals that came to be known as the Great Awakening of 1740. In 1740 he engaged Moravian Brethren from Georgia to build an orphanage for Negro children on land he had bought in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Following a theological disagreement, he dismissed them but was unable to complete the building, which the Moravians subsequently bought and completed. This now is the Whitefield House in the center of the Moravian settlement of Nazareth.

He preached nearly every day for months to large crowds of sometimes several thousand people as he traveled throughout the colonies, especially New England. His journey on horseback from New York City to Charleston was the longest then undertaken in North America by a white man.

Like his contemporary and acquaintance, Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield preached staunchly Calvinist theology that was in line with the "moderate Calvinism" of the Thirty-nine Articles. While explicitly affirming God's sole agency in salvation, Whitefield freely offered the Gospel, saying at the end of his sermons: "Come poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ."

Revival meetings

The Anglican Church did not assign him a pulpit, so he began preaching in parks and fields in England on his own, reaching out to people who normally did not attend church. Like Jonathan Edwards, he developed a style of preaching that elicited emotional responses from his audiences. But Whitefield had charisma, and his voice (which according to many accounts, could be heard over five hundred feet), his small stature, and even his cross-eyed appearance (which some people took as a mark of divine favour) all served to help make him one of the first celebrities in the American colonies. Whitefield included slaves in his revivals and their response was great. Historians see this as “the genesis of African-American Christianity.”

To Whitefield “the gospel message was so critically important that he felt compelled to use all earthly means to get the word out.” Thanks to widespread dissemination of print media, perhaps half of all colonists eventually heard about, read about, or read something written by Whitefield. He employed print systematically, sending advance men to put up broadsides and distribute handbills announcing his sermons. He also arranged to have his sermons published.

Whitefield arranged to influence the colonies after he returned to England from his 1740 tour in America. He “contracted to have his autobiographical Journals published throughout America. These Journals have been characterized as “the ideal vehicle for crafting a public image that could work in his absence.” They depicted Whitefield in the “best possible light”. When he returned to America for his third tour in 1745, he was better known than when he had left.

Much of Whitefield's publicity was the work of William Seward, a wealthy layman for accompanied Whitefield. Seward acted as Whitefield’s “fund-raiser, business co-ordinator, and publicist”. He furnished newspapers and booksellers with material, including copies of Whitefield's writings.

When Whitefield returned to England in 1742, a crowd Whitefield estimated at 20,000 and William M'Culloch, the local minister, at 30,000, met him.

Old South church in 2005.

Benjamin Franklin and Whitefield

Benjamin Franklin attended a revival meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was greatly impressed with Whitefield's ability to deliver a message to such a large group. Franklin had previously dismissed, as an exaggeration, reports of Whitefield preaching to crowds of the order of tens of thousands in England. When listening to Whitefield preaching from the Philadelphia court house, Franklin walked away towards his shop in Market Street until he could no longer hear Whitefield distinctly. He then estimated his distance from Whitefield and calculated the area of a semicircle centred on Whitefield. Allowing two square feet per person he computed that Whitefield could be heard by over thirty thousand people in the open air.

Franklin admired Whitefield as a fellow intellectual but thought Whitefield's plan to run an orphanage in Georgia would lose money. He published several of Whitefield's tracts and was impressed by Whitefield's ability to preach and speak with clarity and enthusiasm to crowds. Franklin was an ecumenist and approved of Whitefield's appeal to members of many denominations, but was not, like Whitefield, an evangelical. In his autobiography, Franklin famously wrote that he was a "thoroughgoing Deist," which precludes the idea that God is personal, though some suggest that Franklin was more traditional in his views, e.g., his speech at the Constitutional Convention where he recited the verse that not a single sparrow falls to the ground without God's notice; how then could the Constitution convention hope to succeed without God's careful oversight? After one of Whitefield's sermons, Franklin noted the:

wonderful... change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seem'd as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro' the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street."

A lifelong close friendship developed between the revivalist preacher and the worldly Franklin. Looking beyond their public images, one finds a common charity, humility, and ethical sense embedded in the character of each man. True loyalty based on genuine affection, coupled with a high value placed on friendship, helped their association grow stronger over time. Letters exchanged between Franklin and Whitefield can be found at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. These letters document the creation of an orphanage for boys named the Charity School. And in 1749, Franklin chose the Whitefield meeting house, with its Charity School, to be purchased as the site of the newly formed Academy of Philadelphia which opened in 1751, followed in 1755 with the College of Philadelphia, both the predecessors of the University of Pennsylvania. A statue of George Whitefield is located in the Dormitory Quadrangle, standing in front of the Morris and Bodine sections of the present Ware College House on the University of Pennsylvania campus.

Travels

Travel to America Time Line

1738 First voyage to America, Spent three months in Georgia.
1740-1741 Second voyage to America. Established Bethesda Orphan House. Preached in New England.
1745-1748 Third voyage to America. In poor health.
1751–1752 Fourth voyage to America.
1754 Fifth voyage to America.
1763–1765 Sixth voyage to America. Traveled east coast.
1770 Seventh voyage to America. Wintered in Georgia, then traveled to New England where he died.

Whitefield is remembered as one of the first to preach to the enslaved. Phillis Wheatley wrote a poem in his memory after he died.

In an age when crossing the Atlantic Ocean was a long and hazardous adventure, he visited America seven times, making thirteen ocean crossings in total. It is estimated that throughout his life, he preached more than 18,000 formal sermons, of which seventy-eight have been published In addition to his work in North America and England, he made fifteen journeys to Scotland—most famously to the "Preaching Braes" of Cambuslang in 1742—two journeys to Ireland, and one each to Bermuda, Gibraltar, and the Netherlands. In England and Wales, Whitefield’s itinerary included every county.

He went to the Georgia Colony in 1738 following John Wesley's departure, to serve as a colonial chaplain at Savannah.

Marriage

“I believe it is God’s will that I should marry,” George Whitefield wrote to a friend in 1740. But he was concerned: “I pray God that I may not have a wife till I can live as though I had none.” That ambivalence—believing God willed a wife, yet wanting to live as if without one—brought Whitefield a disappointing love life and largely unhappy marriage.

His wife died of a fever on 9 August 1768. She was buried in a vault at the Tottenham chapel. After their 1744–8 stay in America, she never accompanied him on his travels. Whitefield reflected that “none in America could bear her”. His wife believed that she had been “but a load & burden” to him. Cornelius Winter, who for a time lived with the Whitefields observed that Whitefield “was not happy in his wife”. Thus, “her death set his mind much at liberty”.

Death

In 1770, the 55-year-old Whitefield continued preaching in spite of poor health. He said, "I would rather wear out than rust out." His last sermon was preached in a field “atop a large barrel”. The next morning Whitefield died in the parsonage of Old South Presbyterian Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 30 September 1770, and was buried, according to his wishes, in a crypt under the pulpit of this church. A bust of Whitefield is in the collection of the Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery.

George Whitefield's grave in the crypt of Old South Presbyterian Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts between Jonathan Parsons and Joseph Prince.

It was John Wesley who preached his funeral sermon in London, at Whitefield's request.

Whitefield left almost £1500 to friends and family. That would be some £185,700.00 in 2014 pounds. Furthermore, he had deposited £1000 for his wife if he predeceased her and had contributed £3300 to Bethesda. “Questions concerning the source of his personal wealth dogged his memory. His will stated that all this money had lately been left him ‘in a most unexpected way and unthought of means.’”

Relation to other Methodist leaders

In terms of theology, Whitefield, unlike John Wesley, was a supporter of Calvinism. The two differed on eternal election, final perseverance, and sanctification, but were reconciled as friends and co-workers, each going his own way. It is a prevailing misconception that Whitefield was not primarily an organizer like Wesley. However, as Wesleyan historian Rev. Luke Tyerman states, "It is notable that the first Calvinistic Methodist Association was held eighteen months before Wesley held his first Methodist Conference." He was a man of profound experience, which he communicated to audiences with clarity and passion. His patronization by the Countess of Huntingdon reflected this emphasis on practice.

Opposition and controversy

Whitefield welcomed opposition because as he said, “the more I am opposed, the more joy I feel”. He proved himself adept at creating controversy. In his 1740 visit to Charles Town, it “took Whitefield only four days to plunge Charles Town into religious and social controversy.”

Whitefield thought he might be killed for his views. After he attacked the established church, he predicted that he would “be set at nought by the Rabbies of our Church, and perhaps at last be killed by them”.

Whitefield versus other clergy

Whitefield chastised other clergy for teaching only “the shell and shadow of religion” because they did not hold the necessity of a new birth without which a person would be “thrust down into Hell”.

America
In his 1740-1741 visit to America (as he done in England), he attacked other clergy (mostly Anglican) calling them “God's persecutors”. He said that Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London with supervision over Anglican clergy in America, knew no “more of Christianity, than Mahaomet, or an Infidel”.

Whitefield issue a blanket indictment of New England's Congregational ministers for their “lack of zeal”.

After Whitefield preached at St. Philip's, Charleston, the Commissary, the Rev. Alexander Garden suspended him. After being suspended, Whitefield attacked all South Carolina's Anglican clergy in print.

In 1740, Whitefield published attacks on “the works of two of Anglicanism's revered seventeenth-century authors”. Whitefield wrote that John Tillotson, archbishop of Canterbury (1691-1694), had “no more been a true Christian than had Muhammad”. He also attacked Richard Allestree's The Whole Duty of Man, one of Anglicanism's most popular spiritual tracts. At least once Whitefield had his followers burn the tract “with great Detestation”.

England and Scotland

In England and Scotland (1741–1744), Whitefield bitterly accused John Wesley of undermining his work. He preached against Wesley, arguing that Wesley's attacks on predestination had alienated “very many of my spiritual children”. Wesley replied that Whitefield’s attacks were “treacherous” and that Whitefield had made himself “odious and contemptible”.

When Joseph Trapp criticized Whitefield’s Journals, Whitefield retorted that Trapp was “no Christian but a servant of Satan”.

Whitefield had been influenced by the Moravian Church, but in 1753 he condemned them and attacked their leader, Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf and their practices.

Clergy versus Whitefield

English, Scottish, and American clergy attacked Whitefield, often in response to his attacks on them and the Anglican Church, as documented in this section..

England and Scotland

Early in his career, Whitefield criticized the Church of England. In response, clergy called Whitefield one of “the young quacks in divinity” who are “breaking the peace and unity” of the church.

From 1738 to 1741, Whitefield issued seven Journals. A sermon in St Paul's Cathedral depicted them as “a medley of vanity, and nonsense, and blasphemy jumbled together”. Joseph Trapp called the Journals “blasphemous” and accused Whitefield of being “besotted either with pride or madness”.

In England, by 1738 when he was ordained priest, Whitefield wrote that “the spirit of the clergy began to be much embittered” and that “churches were gradually denied me”.

In response to Whitefield’s Journals, the bishop of London, Edmund Gibson, published a 1739 pastoral letter criticizing Whitefield. The title was A Caution against Enthusiasm. Being the second part of the late Bishop of London's fourth Pastoral Letter”. Whitefield responded by labeling Anglican clerics as “lazy, non-spiritual, and pleasure seeking”. He rejected ecclesiastical authority claiming that ‘the whole world is now my parish’.

In 1740, Whitefield had attacked John Tillotson and Richard Allestree's The Whole Duty of Man. These attacks resulted in hostile responses and reduced attendance at his London open-air preaching

In 1741, Whitefield made his first visit to Scotland at the invitation of “Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, leaders of the breakaway Associate Presbytery. When they demanded and Whitefield refused that he preach only in their churches, they attacked him as a “ sorcerer” and a “vain-glorious, self-seeking, puffed-up creature”. In addition, Whitefield’s collecting money for his Bethesda orphanage, combined with the hysteria evoke by his open-air sermons, resulted in bitter attacks in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

America
Whitefield’s itinerant preaching throughout the colonies was opposed by Bishop Benson who had ordained him for a settled ministry in Georgia. Whitefield replied that if bishops did not authorize his itinerant preaching, God would give him the authority.

In 1740, Jonathan Edwards invited Whitefield to preach in his church in Northampton. Edwards was “deeply disturbed by his unqualified appeals to emotion, his openly judging those he considered unconverted, and his demand for instant conversions”. Whitefield refused to discuss Edwards’ misgivings with him. Later, Edwards delivered a series of sermons containing but “thinly veiled critiques” of Whitefield’s preaching, “warning against over-dependence upon a preacher's eloquence and fervency”.

During Whitefield’s 1744-1748 visit to America, ten critical pamphlets were published, two by officials of Harvard and Yale. This criticism was in part evoked by Whitefield’s criticism of “their education and Christian commitment” in his Journal of 1741. Whitefield saw this opposition as “a conspiracy” against him.

After Whitefield preached at St. Philip's, Charleston, the Commissary, the Rev. Alexander Garden suspended him as a “vagabond clergyman.”

Whitefield versus laity

When Whitefield preached in a dissenting church and “the congregation’s response was dismal,” he ascribed the response to “the people’s being hardened” as were “Pharaoh and the Egyptians” in the Bible.

Laity versus Whitefield

“Brutal mobs sometimes attacked Whitefield and his followers, maiming people and stripping women naked. Whitefield received three letters with death threats, and once he was stoned until nearly dead.”

After Whitefield preached in Charles Town, a local newspaper article attacked him as “blasphemous, uncharitable, and unreasonable.”

Many New Englanders claimed that Whitefield destroyed “New England's orderly parish system, communities, and even families”. The “Declaration of the Association of the County of New Haven, 1745" stated that after Whitefield’s preaching “religion is now in a far worse state than it was”.

After Whitefield condemned Moravians and their practices, his former London printer (a Moravian), called Whitefield “a Mahomet, a Caesar, an imposter, a Don Quixote, a devil, the beast, the man of sin, the Antichrist”.

In the open air in Dublin, Ireland (1757), Whitefield attacked Roman Catholicism that incited an attack by “hundreds and hundreds of papists” who cursed and wounded him severely and smashed his portable pulpit.

On various occasions, a woman assaulted Whitefield with “scissors and a pistol, and her teeth”. “Stones and dead cats” were thrown at him. A man almost killed him with a brass-headed cane. “Another climbed a tree to urinate on him.”

In 1760, Whitefield was burlesqued by Samuel Foote in the The Minor.

Whitefield changes

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon made Whitefield her personal chaplain. In her chapel, it was noted that his preaching was “more Considered among persons of a Superior Rank” who attended the Countess’s services. Whitefield was humble before the Countess saying that he cried when he was “thinking of your Ladyship's condescending to patronize such a dead dog as I am”. He now said that he “highly esteemed bishops of the Church of England because of their sacred character”. He confessed that in “many things” he had “judged and acted wrong” and had “been too bitter in my zeal”. In 1763, in a defense of Methodism, Whitefield “repeated contrition for much contained in his Journals”.

Among the nobility who heard Whitefield in the Countess of Huntingdon’s home was Lady Townshend. Regarding the changes in Whitefield, someone asked Lady Townshend, “Pray, madam, is it true that Whitefield has recanted?” She replied, “No, sir, he has only canted.” One meaning of “cant” is “to affect religious or pietistic phraseology, esp. as a matter of fashion or profession; to talk unreally or hypocritically with an affectation of goodness or piety.”

Religious innovation

In the First Great Awakening, rather than listening demurely to preachers, people groaned and roared in enthusiastic emotion. Whitefield was a “passionate preacher” who often “shed tears”. Underlying this was his conviction that genuine religion “engaged the heart, not just the head”.

New divinity schools opened to challenge the hegemony of Yale and Harvard; personal experience became more important than formal education for preachers. Such concepts and habits formed a necessary foundation for the American Revolution. Whitefield’s preaching bolstered “the evolving republican ideology that sought local democratic control of civil affairs and freedom from monarchial and parliamentary intrusion.”

Advocacy of slavery

Slavery constitutes “an important part of understanding Whitefield” Whitefield was at first conflicted about slaves. He believed that they were “human,” but he also believed that they were “subordinate Creatures”.

In 1735, slavery had been outlawed in the young Georgia colony. In 1740, during his second visit to America, Whitefield published “an open letter to the planters of South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland” chastising them for their cruelty to their slaves, He wrote, “I think God has a Quarrel with you for your Abuse of and Cruelty to the poor Negroes.” Furthermore, Whitefield wrote: “Your dogs are caressed and fondled at your tables; but your slaves who are frequently styled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege.” However, Whitefield “stopped short of rendering a moral judgment on slavery itself as an institution.”

Whitefield established the Bethesda Orphanage in 1740. By 1747, both the colony and the orphanage were suffering economically. Whitefield blamed this condition on Georgia’s prohibition of slavery. He argued that “the constitution of that colony [Georgia] is very bad, and it is impossible for the inhabitants to subsist without the use of slaves.”

Pro-slavery
In 1748-1750, Whitefield campaigned for slavery’s legalisation. He said that the colony would not be prosperous unless farmers had slave labor. Whitefield’s wanted slavery legalized not only for the prosperity of the colony, but also for the financial viability of Bethesda. “Had Negroes been allowed”, he said, “I should now have had a sufficiency to support a great many orphans without expending above half the sum that has been laid out.” Whitefield’s push for the legalization of slavery “cannot be explained solely on the basics of economics.” It was also that “the specter of massive slave revolts pursued him.”

Slavery was legalized in 1751. Whitefield saw the “legalization of slavery as part personal victory and part divine will.”

Whitefield now argued a scriptural justification for slavery. He increased his number of slaves, using his preaching to raise money to purchase them. Whitefield became “perhaps the most energetic, and conspicuous, evangelical defender and practitioner of slavery.” By propagating such “a theological defense for slavery” Whitefield “participated in a tragic chapter of the nation’s experience.”

Treatment of slaves
Bethesda “set an example of humane treatment of slaves”. Phillis Wheatley, 1753-1784, who was a slave, wrote a poem “On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield. 1770. The first line calls Whitefield a “happy saint”.

Whitefield left everything in Georgia to the Countess of Huntingdon. This included 4,000 acres of land and fifty slaves.

Attitude toward slavery

Whitefield's attitude towards slavery is expressed in a letter to Mr B. written from Bristol on 22 March 1751. While justifying his ownership of slaves, he distanced himself from the slave trade that brought slaves from Africa.

As for the lawfulness of keeping slaves, I have no doubt, since I hear of some that were bought with Abraham's money, and some that were born in his house.—And I cannot help thinking, that some of those servants mentioned by the Apostles in their epistles, were or had been slaves. It is plain, that the Gibeonites were doomed to perpetual slavery, and though liberty is a sweet thing to such as are born free, yet to those who never knew the sweets of it, slavery perhaps may not be so irksome. However this be, it is plain to a demonstration, that hot countries cannot be cultivated without negroes. What a flourishing country might Georgia have been, had the use of them been permitted years ago? How many white people have been destroyed for want of them, and how many thousands of pounds spent to no purpose at all? Had Mr Henry been in America, I believe he would have seen the lawfulness and necessity of having negroes there. And though it is true, that they are brought in a wrong way from their own country, and it is a trade not to be approved of, yet as it will be carried on whether we will or not; I should think myself highly favoured if I could purchase a good number of them, in order to make their lives comfortable, and lay a foundation for breeding up their posterity in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You know, dear Sir, that I had no hand in bringing them into Georgia; though my judgement was for it, and so much money was yearly spent to no purpose, and I was strongly importuned thereto, yet I would not have a negro upon my plantation, till the use of them was publicly allowed in the colony. Now this is done, dear Sir, let us reason no more about it, but diligently improve the present opportunity for their instruction. The trustees favour it, and we may never have a like prospect. It rejoiced my soul, to hear that one of my poor negroes in Carolina was made a brother in Christ. How know we but we may have many such instances in Georgia ere it be long?

Works

Whitefield's sermons were widely reputed to inspire his audience's enthusiasm. Many of them as well as his letters and journals were published during his lifetime. He was an excellent orator as well, strong in voice and adept at extemporaneity. His voice was so expressive that people are said to have wept just hearing him allude to "Mesopotamia". His journals, originally intended only for private circulation, were first published by Thomas Cooper. James Hutton then published a version with Whitefield's approval. His exuberant and "too apostolical" language were criticised; his journals were no longer published after 1741.

Whitefield prepared a new installment in 1744–45, but it was not published until 1938. Nineteenth-century biographies generally refer to his earlier work, A Short Account of God's Dealings with the Reverend George Whitefield (1740), which covered his life up to his ordination. In 1747, he published A Further Account of God's Dealings with the Reverend George Whitefield, covering the period from his ordination to his first voyage to Georgia. In 1756, a vigorously edited version of his journals and autobiographical accounts was published. Whitefield was “profoundly image-conscious”. His writings were “intended to convey Whitefield and his life as a model for biblical ethics . . . , as humble and pious”.

After Whitefield's death, John Gillies, a Glasgow friend, published a memoir and six volumes of works, comprising three volumes of letters, a volume of tracts, and two volumes of sermons. Another collection of sermons was published just before he left London for the last time in 1769. These were disowned by Whitefield and Gillies, who tried to buy all copies and pulp them. They had been taken down in shorthand, but Whitefield said that they made him say nonsense on occasion. These sermons were included in a nineteenth-century volume, Sermons on Important Subjects, along with the "approved" sermons from the Works. An edition of the journals, in one volume, was edited by William Wale in 1905. This was reprinted with additional material in 1960 by the Banner of Truth Trust. It lacks the Bermuda journal entries found in Gillies' biography and the quotes from manuscript journals found in 19th-century biographies. A comparison of this edition with the original 18th-century publications shows numerous omissions—some minor and a few major.

Whitefield also wrote several hymns. In 1739, Charles Wesley composed a hymn, "Hark, how all the welkin rings”. In 1758, Whitefield revised the opening couplet for "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing."

Veneration and legacy

“George Whitefield was probably the most famous religious figure of the eighteenth century. Newspapers called him the ‘marvel of the age’. Whitefield was a preacher capable of commanding thousands on two continents through the sheer power of his oratory. In his lifetime, he preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million hearers.”

Whitefield is honoured together with Francis Asbury with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on 15 November.

Whitfield County, Georgia,USA is named after Whitefield. When the act by the Georgia General Assembly was written to create the county, the "e" was omitted from the spelling of the name to reflect the pronunciation of the name.

Legacy
In a 2014 book Thomas S. Kidd summarizes Whitefield’s legacy.

1. “Whitefield was the most influential Anglo-American evangelical leader of the eighteenth century.”

2. “He also indelibly marked the character of evangelical Christianity.”

3. He “was the first internationally famous itinerant preacher and the first modern transatlantic celebrity of any kind.”

4. “Perhaps he was the greatest evangelical preachers the world has ever seen.”

See also

• Benjamin Loxley house

References

Further reading

• Armstrong, John H. Five Great Evangelists: Preachers of Real Revival. Fearn (maybe Hill of Fearn), Tain: Christian Focus Publications, 1997. ISBN 978-1-85792-157-1
• Bormann, Ernest G (1985), Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, ISBN 978-0-8093-2369-2 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help).
• Dallimore, Arnold A. George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival (Volume I). Edinburgh or Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 1970. ISBN 978-0-85151-026-2.
• ——— (1980), George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival, vol. II, Edinburgh or Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, ISBN 978-0-85151-300-3.
• ——— (2010), George Whitefield: God's Anointed Servant in the Great Revival of the Enlightened Century, Crossway, ISBN 978-1433513411.
• Franklin, Benjamin, The Autobiography, Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, ISBN 978-1-55709-079-9.
• Johnston, E.A. George Whitefield: A Definitive Biography (2 volumes). Stoke-on-Trent: Tentmaker Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-1-901670-76-9.
• Kenney, William Howland, III. ″Alexander Garden and George Whitefield: The Significance of Revivalism in South Carolina 1738–1741″. The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 71, No. 1 (January 1970), pp. 1–16.
• Kidd, Thomas S. The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-15846-5
• Kidd, Thomas S. George Whitefield: America's Spiritual Founding Father. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2014.
• Lambert, Frank. "'Pedlar in Divinity': George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, 1737-1745." Journal of American History (1990) 77#3 pp. 812–837 in JSTOR
  • Lambert, Frank (1993), Pedlar in divinity: George Whitefield and the Transatlantic Revivals, 1737–1770, Princeton: Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-03296-2.
• Mahaffey, Jerome. Preaching Politics: The Religious Rhetoric of George Whitefield and the Founding of a New Nation. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932792-88-1
• ——— (2011), The Accidental Revolutionary: George Whitefield and the Creation of America, Waco: Baylor University Press, ISBN 978-1-60258-391-7.
• Mansfield, Stephen. Forgotten Founding Father: The Heroic Legacy of George Whitefield. Nashville: Cumberland House Publishing (acquired by Sourcebooks), 2001. ISBN 978-1-58182-165-9
• Noll, Mark A (2010), The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys, ISBN 978-0830838912.
• Parr, Jessica M., Inventing George Whitefield : Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon (University Press of Mississippi, 2015). 235 pp.
• Philip, Robert. The Life and Times of George Whitefield. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2007 (reprint) [1837]. ISBN 978-0-85151-960-9
• Reisinger, Ernest. The Founder's Journal, Issue 19/20, Winter/Spring 1995: "What Should We Think of Evangelism and Calvinism?". Coral Gables: Founders Ministries.
• Streater, David “Whitefield and the Revival” (Crossway, Autumn 1993. No. 50)
• Stout, Harry S. The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids: William B Eerdmans, 1991. ISBN 978-0-8028-0154-8
• Whitefield, George (1853), Gillies, John (ed.), Memoirs of the Rev. George Whitefield: to which is appended an extensive collection of his sermons and other writings, E. Hunt.
• Whitefield, George. Journals. London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1978. ISBN 978-0-85151-147-4
• ——— (2001), The Works (compilation), Weston Rhyn: Quinta Press, ISBN 978-1-897856-09-3.
• ———, Lee, Gatiss (ed.), The Sermons, Church society, ISBN 978-0-85190-084-1 {{citation}}: |format= requires |url= (help).

External links

• Bust of Whitefield at Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery.
• Biographies, Articles, and Books on Whitefield.
• Lesson plan on George Whitefield and the First Great Awakening
• 59 Sermons by George Whitefield at the 'Asia-Pacific Institute of Biblical Studies (APIBS)' "103 Classic Seremons – Library"
• 38 Sermons by Whitefield at the 'Reformed Sermon' Archive
• George Whitefield's Journals project – Project to publish a complete edition of Whitefield's Journals
• History of Old South at Newburyport, Massachusetts
• George Whitefield preaches to 3000 in Stonehouse Gloucestershire
• Works by or about George Whitefield at the Internet Archive
• Works by George Whitefield at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• George Whitefield at Find a Grave
• Open Library
• Gutenberg