George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in America. R Belcher
hand of fellowship with my whole heart. After I had saluted him, and given an exhortation to a great number of people, who followed me to the inn, we spent the remainder of the evening in taking sweet counsel together, and telling one another what God had done for our souls. A divine and strong sympathy seemed to be between us, and I was resolved to promote his interest with all my might. Accordingly we took an account of the several societies, and agreed on such measures as seemed most conducive to promote the common interest of our Lord. Blessed be God, there seems a noble spirit gone out into Wales; and I believe that, ere long, there will be more visible fruits of it. What inclines me strongly to think so is, that the partition wall of bigotry and party spirit is broken down, and ministers and teachers of different communions join, with one heart and one mind, to carry on the kingdom of Jesus Christ. The Lord make all the Christian world thus minded; for, until this is done, we must, I fear, despair of any great reformation in the church of God."
Before leaving Cardiff, Whitefield preached again in the town-hall, to a large assembly. He says, "My dear brother Harris sat close by me. I did not observe any scoffers within; but without, some were pleased to honor me so far as to trail a dead fox, and hunt it about the hall. But, blessed be God, my voice prevailed. This being done, I went, with many of my hearers, among whom were two worthy dissenting ministers, to public worship; and in the second lesson were these remarkable words: 'The high-priests, and the scribes, and the chief of the people sought to destroy him; but they could not find what they might do to him; for all the people were very attentive to hear him.'
"In the afternoon I preached again, without any disturbance or scoffing. In the evening, I talked for above an hour and a half with the religious society, and never did I see a congregation more melted down. The love of Jesus touched them to the quick. Most of them were dissolved in tears. They came to me after, weeping, bidding me farewell, and wishing I could continue with them longer. Thanks be to God, for such an entrance into Wales. I wrestled with God for them in prayer, and blessed be His holy name for sending me into Wales. I hope these are the first-fruits of a greater harvest, if ever it should please God to bring me back from Georgia. 'Father, thy will be done.'"
Whitefield returned from this short excursion, to Bristol, baptized with Welsh fire, and renewed his labors among the Kingswood colliers with more than his usual power and success. He could not, however, forget the tears which had entreated him to stay longer in Wales, and in three or four weeks he visited Usk and Pontypool, where he was again met by Howel Harris. At Usk, "the pulpit being denied, I preached upon a table, under a large tree, to some hundreds, and God was with us of a truth. On my way to Pontypool, I was informed by a man who heard it, that Counsellor H – did me the honor to make a public motion to Judge P – to stop me and brother Howel Harris from going about teaching the people. Poor man, he put me in mind of Tertullus, in the Acts; but my hour is not yet come. I have scarcely begun my testimony. For my finishing it, my enemies must have power over me from above. Lord, prepare me for that hour."
The report to which we have just referred did not prevent the curate of Pontypool from cordially inviting Whitefield into his pulpit. He also read prayers for him. After the sermon, it was found that so many had come to hear who could not find room in the church, that another sermon was loudly called for. He says, "I went and preached to all the people in the field. I always find I have most power when I preach in the open air; a proof to me that God is pleased with this way of preaching. I betook myself to rest, full of such unutterable peace as no one can conceive of but those who feel it."
In several other places did our evangelist, during this excursion, unfurl the banner of the cross; and at its close he writes, "Oh how swiftly this week has glided away. To me it has been but as one day. How do I pity those who complain that time hangs on their hands! Let them but love Christ, and spend their whole time in his service, and they will find but few melancholy hours." Nor will any wonder that he should thus speak, who consider the spirit which animated his soul. What he some time afterwards wrote to Howel Harris, from Philadelphia, indicated the spirit he himself cherished: "Intersperse prayers with your exhortations, and thereby call down fire from heaven, even the fire of the Holy Ghost,
"'To soften, sweeten, and refine,
And melt them into love.'
Speak every time, my dear brother, as if it were your last; weep out, if possible, every argument, and compel them to cry, 'Behold how he loveth us.'"
From Wales, Whitefield went to visit his native city, Gloucester; and after one or two sermons, he found himself here also excluded from the parochial pulpits. But notwithstanding his persecutions, and the infirm state of his health at that time, his labors in Gloucester and its vicinity were constant and eminently successful. Bowling-greens, market-crosses, highways, and other such places, bore witness to his faithful and tearful labors.
At Gloucester lived at that time the Rev. Mr. Cole, an old dissenting minister, who often heard Whitefield preach, and used to say, "These are the days of the Son of man indeed!" Whitefield, when a boy, had been taught to ridicule this Mr. Cole; and when he was once asked what profession he would engage in, replied, "I will be a minister, but I will take care never to tell stories in the pulpit like old Cole." Twelve years afterwards, the old minister heard the young one preach, and tell some story to illustrate his subject, when the venerable servant of Christ remarked, "I find young Whitefield can tell stories now as well as old Cole." The good man was much affected with the preaching of his young friend, and was so humble, that he used to subscribe himself his curate, and went about in the country preaching after him. One evening, while preaching, he was struck with death, and asked for a chair to lean on till he had finished his sermon. Having done this, he was carried up stairs and died. When the fact was told to Whitefield, he said, "O blessed God, if it be thy holy will, may my exit be like his!" How striking is this fact when looked at in connection with the circumstances of his own removal from earth.
Intent on the advancement of his orphan-house in Georgia, Whitefield soon went to London, passing on his way through Oxford. At both places he found opposition, and in London was shut out of the churches. He preached to thousands in Islington churchyard, and now resolved to give himself to the work in the open air.
From the conflict with the enemies who a few years before had threatened her existence, the polemics of the church of England now turned to resist the unwelcome ally who menaced her repose. Bishop Warburton led the van, and behind him many a mitred front scowled on the audacious innovator. Divested of the logomachies which chiefly engaged the attention of the disputants, the controversy between Whitefield and the bishops lay in a narrow compass. It being mutually conceded that the virtues of the Christian life can result only from certain divine impulses, and that to lay a claim to this holy inspiration when its legitimate fruits are wanting, is a fatal delusion, he maintained, and they denied, that the person who is the subject of this sacred influence has within his own bosom an independent attestation of its reality. So abstruse a debate required the zest of some more pungent ingredients, and the polemics with whom Whitefield had to do were not such sciolists in their calling as to be ignorant of the necessity of riveting upon him some epithet at once opprobrious and vague. While therefore milder spirits arraigned him as an enthusiast, Warburton, with constitutional energy of invective, denounced him as a fanatic. In vain Whitefield demanded a definition of these reproachful terms. To have fixed their meaning would have been to blunt their edge. They afforded a solution, at once compendious, obscure, and repulsive, of whatever was remarkable in his character, and have been associated with his name from that time to the present.
The spots on which Whitefield now began, in his own language, "to take the field," and publicly to erect the standard of the Redeemer's cross, are well known. Moorfields, then a place of general rendezvous and recreation from the crowded city, Kennington Common then about two, and Blackheath about five miles from London, were the favorite sites to which he loved to resort, and "open his mouth boldly" to listening thousands, in honor of his crucified and glorified Lord. Recording his first engagement of this kind in his diary of Sabbath evening, April 29, 1739, he writes, "Begun to be yet more vile this day, for I preached at Moorfields to an exceeding great multitude; and at five in the evening went and preached at Kennington Common, where upwards of twenty thousand were supposed to be present. The wind being for me, it carried my voice to the extreme part of my audience. All stood attentive, and joined in the psalm and the Lord's prayer so regularly,