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The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Volume 1 (of 2)

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Title: The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Volume 1 (of 2)

Author: L. Tyerman


        
Release date: November 25, 2013 [eBook #44280]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF THE REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***

  Transcriber's note:

  Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

  Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

  The carat character (^) indicates that the following letter is
  superscripted (example: Rev^d.).


       *       *       *       *       *

  NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION, UNABRIDGED,

  IN THREE VOLUMES. _Price 7s. 6d. each volume._

  _ELEGANTLY BOUND IN CLOTH, WITH ENGRAVED PORTRAITS._


  THE LIFE AND TIMES

  OF THE

  REV. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.

  _BY THE REV. L. TYERMAN._


     "It deserves the praise, not only of being the fullest biography
     of Wesley, but also of being eminently painstaking, veracious,
     and trustworthy."--_The Edinburgh Review._

     "Mr. Tyerman's volumes constitute by far the most exhaustive, as
     they are certainly the bulkiest, and from many points of view
     the most interesting, of the lives of Wesley. Mr. Tyerman's
     judgment is usually characterised by great clearness and good
     sense; his pen seems to be always governed by the desire to be
     fair and impartial, and for the first time our libraries receive
     a full and comprehensive memoir of the great religious teacher
     and ecclesiastical statesman."--_The British Quarterly Review._

     "The most copious account of the great evangelist's life and
     labours, and the noblest literary tribute to his memory, which
     has yet been offered to the world."--_Methodist Recorder._

     "The narratives of travel through England, Scotland, and
     Ireland, the records of evangelistic labour, the gradual
     building up of Wesleyanism as a system, form a history of great
     interest, and allure the reader on from chapter to chapter,
     with all the attraction of a romance. We cannot doubt that
     Mr. Tyerman's work, so rich and abundant in materials, will
     henceforth be regarded as the standard life of Wesley."--_The
     Evangelical Magazine._

     "We are thankful for a new and carefully revised edition of
     this very laborious, interesting, and important work, the value
     of which is great and obvious. The portraits as now rendered,
     are very striking and self-evidencing, and of real historical
     value."--_Wesleyan Methodist Magazine._

     "This is the most truthful, full, accurate, and painstaking of
     all the lives of Wesley."--_The Methodist._


  LONDON:
  HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

  [Illustration: REV^D. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, B.A.
  AGED 24
  Engraved by J Cochran]




  THE LIFE

  OF THE

  REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD,

  B.A., OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD.


  BY

  REV. L. TYERMAN,

  AUTHOR OF

  "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE REV. SAMUEL WESLEY, M.A., RECTOR OF EPWORTH;"
  "THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.;"
  AND "THE OXFORD METHODISTS."


  _IN TWO VOLUMES._

  VOL I.


  London:

  HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

  27, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

  MDCCCLXXVI.




  Hazell Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury.




PREFACE.


Every one who wishes to understand and rightly estimate the
Methodist movement of the last century, must, not only read the
lives of the two Wesleys, but also, make himself acquainted
with the history of Whitefield, and the career of the Methodist
contemporaries of the illustrious trio.

John Wesley was Methodism's founder, and Charles its
hymnologist. John Clayton became a man of mark among the High
Church clergymen of the Episcopal Communion. James Hervey
belonged to the Evangelical section of the Church of England,
and, by his writings, influenced not a few of the country's
aristocracy. Benjamin Ingham, by his preaching, left a deep
impress on Yorkshire, and other parts of the North of England.
John Gambold rendered inestimable service, in moderating and
correcting the extravagances of the Moravian Brotherhood. Thomas
Broughton gave an impetus to the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge, which is felt to the present day. Richard Hutchins,
as Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, helped to mould the
character of students, who afterwards rose to great distinction.
To each of these distinguished men, Providence assigned a sphere
of unusual usefulness. They moved in different orbits, but all
were made a blessing to the world.

George Whitefield was pre-eminently the outdoor preacher;--the
most popular evangelist of the age;--a roving revivalist,--who,
with unequalled eloquence and power, spent above thirty years
in testifying to enormous crowds, in Great Britain and America,
the gospel of the grace of God. Practically, he belonged to
no denomination of Christians, but was the friend of all. His
labours, popularity, and success were marvellous, perhaps
unparalleled. All churches in England, Wales, Scotland, and
the British settlements in America, were permanently benefited
by his piety, his example, and the few great truths which he
continually preached; whilst the Methodism organised by his
friend Wesley--especially in the northern counties of the
kingdom--was, by his itinerant services, promoted to a far
greater extent than the Methodists have ever yet acknowledged.

The world has a right to know all that can be told of such a
man. To say nothing of almost innumerable sketches, at least
half a dozen lives of Whitefield have been already published.
If the reader asks why I have dared to add to the number of
these biographies? I answer, because I possessed a large amount
of biographical material which previous biographers had not
employed, and much of which seems to have been unknown to them.
This is not an empty boast, as will be evident to every one who
compares the present work with the lives of Whitefield which
have preceded it.

In collecting materials for the "Life and Times of Wesley,"
and for the "Oxford Methodists," I met with much concerning
Whitefield; and, since then, I have spared neither time, toil,
nor money in making further researches relating to the great
evangelist. With the exception of a few instances, all of which
are acknowledged, my facts are taken from original sources; and,
though to say so may savour of vanity, I believe there is now
no information concerning Whitefield, of any public importance,
which is not contained in the present volumes.

I have been obliged to employ a few of Whitefield's letters,
which I had previously published in the "Life and Times of
Wesley." This was unavoidable; but the repetition is extremely
limited, and is never used except when justice made it necessary.

Whitefield was a Calvinist: I am an Arminian; but the book is
not controversial. Whitefield's sentiments and language have
been honestly and truly quoted; and I have not attempted to
refute his theological opinions. On such subjects, men, at
present, must agree to differ.

The Life is not written with special regard to the interests of
any Church whatever,--Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Independent,
Baptist, or even Methodist. Whitefield, indeed, called himself a
member and minister of the Church of England; but, in reality,
he belonged to the Church Catholic. He loved all who loved Jesus
Christ, and was always ready to be their fellow-labourer. It
is right to add, however, that, as a matter of fact, I have
felt bound to shew that the friendship between Whitefield and
the Wesleys was much more loving and constant than it has been
represented by previous biographers; and that Whitefield's
services to Methodism were more important than the public
generally have imagined.

Without the least desire to depreciate any of the lives of
Whitefield already published, I may be allowed to say, they are
not without errors. Instead, however, of confuting the errors,
one by one, as I have met with them, I have, as a rule, not
noticed them; but have simply narrated facts, bearing on the
respective cases, without comment and without colouring.

The foot-notes are more numerous than I like, and this has
prevented my adding to their number by giving _all_ the
references for the statements I have made; but, if the
truthfulness of any statement be called in question, it will
be an easy task to adduce the authority in support of it. For
the notices of American ministers and gentlemen, I am chiefly
indebted to the "Biographical and Historical Dictionary" of the
Rev. William Allen, D.D., President of Bowdoin College, and
Member of the Historical Society of Maine, New Hampshire, and
New York.

The book is neither artistic nor philosophic. I have merely done
my utmost to collect information concerning Whitefield, and
have related the facts as clearly, concisely, and honestly as I
could. I have also, as far as possible, acted upon the principle
of making Whitefield his own biographer. Perhaps, I ought to
apologise for the introduction of such lengthened details
concerning the first few years of Whitefield's public life.
Apart from being influenced by the fact, that, it was during
this eventful period that Whitefield's character was formed,
and his unique mission among men determined, I was wishful to
give to the Christian Church, at least, the _substance_ of his
Journals--Journals which, unlike those of his friend Wesley,
have never been republished, and which, in consequence of their
rareness, are almost quite unknown.

The two portraits are copied from original engravings, which Dr.
Gillies, Whitefield's friend and first biographer, pronounced
the most exact likenesses of the great preacher ever published.

Whitefield's power was not in his talents, nor even in his
oratory, but in his piety. In some respects, he has had no
successors; but in prayer, in faith, in religious experience, in
devotedness to God, and in a bold and steadfast declaration of
the few great Christian truths which aroused the churches and
created Methodism,--he may have many. May Whitefield's God raise
them up, and thrust them out! The Church and the world greatly
need them.

                                                 L. TYERMAN.

  STANHOPE HOUSE, CLAPHAM PARK, S.W.
     _October 16th, 1876._




     GENERAL CONTENTS.


  WHITEFIELD'S BOYHOOD.

  1714 TO 1732.

                                                                  PAGE

  Whitefield's Genealogy--Autobiography--Birth--Wickedness--St.
    Mary de Crypt School--Tapster--Religious Feelings--
    Reformation--Dr. Adams--Sin and Penitence--An Orator          1-13


  WHITEFIELD AT COLLEGE.

  1732 TO 1735.

  Oxford Methodists--Pembroke College--Dr. Johnson--Whitefield a
    Servitor--Law's 'Serious Call'--Joins Oxford Methodists--
    Charles Wesley--Satanic Temptations--Introduced to John
    Wesley--Two Converts--Whitefield's Conversion--Religion of
    Oxford Methodists--The New Birth--Whitefield at Gloucester,
    etc.                                                         14-34


  WHITEFIELD ORDAINED.

  MAY 1735 TO JUNE 1736.

  Ten Months' Interval--How spent--Efforts to be useful--Books
    read--Stage Entertainments--Visiting a Prisoner--Letter to
    Wesley--Anxiety respecting Ministerial Office--A Dream--Rev.
    Thomas Cole--Bishop Benson--Sir John Philips--Preparing for
    Ordination--Ordained--Whitefield's Autobiography             35-46


  COMMENCEMENT OF MINISTRY.

  1736.

  A grand Day--First Sermon--Personal Appearance--Plain
    Speaking--Work at Oxford--First Visit to London--Letter
    to Wesley--Unknown Oxford Methodists--At Dummer--Resolves
    to go to Georgia--Letter to Charles Wesley                   47-63


  A YEAR OF PREACHING.

  1737.

  Whitefield's Popularity--Pious Clergymen--Dissenting
    Ministers--Abounding Wickedness--Dr. Isaac Watts--Infidelity--
    State of Dissenting Churches--National Impiety--Whitefield at
    Bristol--In London--At Stonehouse--Crowded Congregations--First
    Publication--New Birth--Rev. John Hutton--Preaching in London
    Churches--Opposition--Intercourse with Dissenters--First
    _extempore_ Prayer--Picture taken--Marvellous commotion--
    Charity Schools--"Lecture Churches"--Charles Wesley--Poem on
    Whitefield--_Weekly Miscellany_--"The Oxford Methodists"--
    Whitefield and the Wesleys--Sermons published--The almost
    Christian--Terrific Preaching--Original Sin--Profane Swearing--
    First Farewell Sermon--Ignorant of Justification by Faith
    only--Preface to "Forms of Prayer"                          64-105


  FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA.

  1738.

  Collections for Poor of Georgia--Whitefield's Cargo--Notable
    Day--Embarks for Georgia--At Gravesend--At Margate--At
    Deal--Wesley's return to England--Eternity of Hell's
    Torments--At Gibraltar--Publication of Journal--Sermon on
    Drunkenness--Incidents of the Voyage--Ill of Fever--Farewell
    Sermon on Shipboard--America--The Indians--Georgia--Carolina--
    Emigrants to Georgia--First Services at Savannah--Tomo Chici--
    Charles Delamotte--Schools opened--Work at Savannah--The
    Saltzburghers--Visit to Frederica--Dead Infidel--Departure from
    Savannah--Reasons for return to England--Storms at Sea--Pastoral
    Epistle--Lands in Ireland--Bishop Burscough--Archbishop
    Boulter--Arrives in England--At Manchester--The Wesley
    Brothers--Churches closed--Hostile Publications--Last Week
    of 1738                                                    106-154


  COMMENCEMENT OF OUTDOOR PREACHING.

  JANUARY TO AUGUST, 1739.

  Lovefeast at Fetter Lane--Conference at Islington--Ordained a
    Priest--Aristocratic Hearers--The Seward Family--Howell
    Harris--Scene at St. Margaret's, Westminster--Susannah Wesley
    on Whitefield--At Bath--At Bristol--The Poet Savage--Bristol
    Prison--Chancellor of Bristol Diocese--Letter to Bishop Butler--
    Religious Societies at Bristol--Begins Outdoor Preaching--First
    Visit to Wales--Interview with Howell Harris--Rev. Griffith
    Jones--Kingswood--Whitefield invites Wesley to Bristol--
    Kingswood School begun--Again in Wales--At Gloucester--
    Cheltenham--Benjamin Seward--Dean Kinchin--Vice-Chancellor of
    Oxford--At Islington--Dr. Trapp--Rev. Robert Seagrave--Outdoor
    Preaching in London--Newspaper Abuse--Contemporaneous
    Opinions of Whitefield--Reasons for Whitefield's Popularity--
    Joseph Humphreys--Joseph Periam--Itinerating--In London--
    Whitefield's Journals--Answer to Dr. Trapp--In Kent--
    Moravians--Scene in a Public House--Specimens of Preaching--
    The Wesleys become Outdoor Preachers--A Notable Sermon--Another
    Philippic--William Delamotte--William Seward--Letter
    to Wesley--Rev. Josiah Tucker--Dr. Skerret--Dr. Byrom--Ebenezer
    Blackwell--Constables and Magistrates--Whitefield
    and Wesley at Bristol--Letter to Bishop Benson--Quaker at
    Thornbury--Mayor of Basingstoke--A Friendly Quaker--Rev.
    Ralph Erskine--Last Sermons--Whitefield's Calvinism--Extracts
    from his Sermons--The _Weekly Miscellany_--The _Craftsman_--Rev.
    William Law and Dr. Warburton--Countess of Hertford--Pamphlets
    for and against Whitefield--Bishop Gibson's Pastoral
    Letter--Whitefield's Answer--Sermons Published--Extracts from
    them--Spiritual Pride--Catholic Spirit--Innocent Diversions--
    Self-righteousness--Entreaties--Whitefield's Oratory.      155-306


  SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.

  AUGUST 1739 TO MARCH 1741.

  Whitefield asks Charles Wesley to be his Successor--
    Whitefield's Fellow-Voyagers--Letter to Ebenezer Blackwell--
    Extracts from other Letters--Letter to the Religious Societies--
    Arrival in America--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--The Tennent
    Family--Whitefield at New York--Return to Philadelphia--Log
    College--Letter to Ralph Erskine--Gilbert Tennent--Scene in a
    Church--Leaving Philadelphia--Benjamin Franklin--Journey
    through Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas--Arrival at
    Savannah--The Orphan House--Stephens's Journal--Letters to
    Ralph Erskine and Gilbert Tennent--Letter to Slave-Owners--Plan
    of Orphan House--At Charleston--Commissary Garden--Oglethorpe
    snubs Whitefield--Letter to Wesley--Whitefield's Courtship--In
    Philadelphia--Franklin's Account of Whitefield--Great Work in
    Philadelphia--New Meeting House--Large Scheme--Letter to
    Ebenezer Blackwell--Itinerating--Many Adversaries--Moravian
    Settlement of Nazareth--William Seward--Enormous Labours--
    Marvellous Movements--Results in Philadelphia--Letter to William
    Seward--Missionary Advice--Calvinian Controversy--The Orphans
    Praying--Philip Henry Molther--Letters to Rev. G. Stonehouse,
    William Delamotte, and Wesley--Whitefield, practically, a
    Dissenter--Whitefield in Commissary Garden's Court--Whitefield
    out of Court--Reformation at Charleston--Election and Final
    Perseverance--Letter to Bishop of London--Rev. Nathaniel Clap--
    Boston--Labours in New England--"Washington's Elm"--Governor
    Belcher--Letter by Charles Wesley--Sinless Perfection--William
    Delamotte--A Week's Work--Whitefield's Preaching in New England--
    Gilbert Tennent--Results in Boston--Visit to Jonathan Edwards--
    Whitefield on New England--"The Querists"--Letters--Whitefield
    and Wesley--Orphan-house Family--Jonathan Barber--The Savannah
    Club--Hugh Bryan--Whitefield before Magistrates--His influence
    in America--Hostile Publications--Nixon's Prophecy         307-458


  WHITEFIELD'S RETURN TO ENGLAND IN 1741.

  MARCH TO JULY, 1741.

  Letters--Wesley's Sermon on "Free Grace"--A Trying Time--Trouble
    at Kingswood--Letter to Wesley--First Methodist Newspaper--Old
    Friends divided--A Scene at the Foundery--Whitefield in
    Distress--Good News from America--Whitefield and Charles
    Wesley--Charles Wesley and the Calvinists--London Tabernacle--
    Rev. Daniel Rowlands--"Outward Enemies"--Help in Time of Need--
    Collections for Orphan House--Plan of action--Letter to
    Students                                                   459-496


  FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.

  AUGUST TO NOVEMBER, 1741.

  Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine--"The Associate Presbytery"--The
    Sins of Scotland--The Erskines and the Methodists--Whitefield
    and the Erskines--Rupture with the Associate Presbytery--"A
    Warning," by Rev. Adam Gibb--"Act of the Associate Presbytery"--
    Aristocratic Friends--Letter to David Erskine--Tour in
    Scotland--Earl of Leven and Melville--Collections in Scotland--
    Strange Scene--Anecdotes--Religious Results in Scotland.   497-529


  SEVEN MONTHS IN ENGLAND.

  NOVEMBER 1741 TO JUNE, 1742.

  Whitefield's Marriage--His Wife--Christian Perfection--Good News
    from America--Racy Letter--The Welsh Evangelists--The Orphan
    House--Wesley's Publications--Calvinistic Controversy--Success--
    Whitefield's Journals and Letters--Letter to Lady Mary
    Hamilton--Desire for Christian Union--Scenes in Moorfields--
    Charles Square, Hoxton--Rev. John Meriton--Man of one
    Busine                                                      530-561




  THE LIFE

  OF

  THE REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, B.A.




  _WHITEFIELD'S BOYHOOD._

  1714 to 1732.


George Whitefield was born in the Bell Inn, Gloucester, on the
16th day of December (O.S.), 1714.

His genealogy, as given by his first biographer, Dr. Gillies, is
brief, but not without interest:--

     "The Rev. Mr. Samuel Whitefield, great-grandfather of George,
     was born at Wantage, and was rector of North Ledyard,[1]
     in Wiltshire. He removed afterwards to Rockhampton, in
     Gloucestershire. He had five daughters--two of whom were
     married to clergymen, Mr. Perkins and Mr. Lovingham; and
     two sons--Samuel, who succeeded his father in the cure of
     Rockhampton, and died without issue; and Andrew, who was a
     private gentleman, and lived retired upon his estate. Andrew had
     fourteen children, of whom Thomas was the eldest.

  [1] There is no North Ledyard in Wilts. Is Liddiard meant?

     "Thomas was first bred to the employment of a wine-merchant
     in Bristol, but afterwards kept the Bell Inn, in the city of
     Gloucester. In Bristol he married Elizabeth Edwards, who was
     related to the Blackwells and the Dimours of that city; by whom
     he had six sons and one daughter.

     "Elizabeth, the daughter, was twice reputably married at
     Bristol. John lies interred with the family in St. Mary de Crypt
     Church, in Gloucester. Joseph died an infant. Andrew settled in
     trade at Bristol, and died in the twenty-eighth year of his age.
     James was captain of a ship, and died suddenly at Bath. George
     was the youngest of the family, and, at his death, left two
     surviving brothers, Thomas and Richard.

     "The father died in December, 1716, when George was only two
     years old. The mother continued a widow seven years, and was
     then married to Mr. Longden, an ironmonger in Gloucester, by
     whom she had no issue. She died in December, 1751, in the
     seventy-first year of her age."

So much for pedigree. Though Whitefield's ancestry was far from
aristocratic, it was not ignoble.

Nothing is known of the years of Whitefield's boyhood, except
what is furnished by himself. In the year 1740, he published an
octavo pamphlet of seventy-six pages, entitled "A Short Account
of God's Dealings with the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, A.B.,
Late of Pembroke College, Oxford: from his Infancy to the Time
of his entering into Holy Orders." This was written on board the
_Elizabeth_, during his first voyage to America, and contains not
a few unguarded and objectionable expressions--expressions which
brought upon him the ridicule of his enemies, and which he himself
afterwards regretted. In 1756, he "revised, corrected, and abridged"
this imprudent publication; and, in the Preface, confessed that
"many mistakes were rectified," and "many passages, that were justly
exceptionable, erased."

In the present work, Whitefield, as far as possible, is made to
be his own biographer; and though, perhaps, it is scarcely fair
to print again what he himself erased, yet, as the sentences and
paragraphs which he subsequently omitted were the occasion of many
of the virulent attacks made upon him by his earliest opponents,
these attacks cannot be properly understood without the text from
which they had their origin.

Besides this, the publication in question is now extremely scarce.
Not one in a thousand of Whitefield's admirers has ever seen it.
It has never been re-published in its entirety since it was first
issued, in the year 1740. It exhibits, not only Whitefield's
honesty, but his weaknesses and faults, at the early age of
twenty-five; and, without it, the reader cannot have a full and
correct conception of Whitefield's character at the commencement of
his marvelous and illustrious career.

For such reasons, the pamphlet of 1740 is here given in its
completeness, without abridgment and without revision. The words and
passages, however, which he himself, in 1756, altered or erased,
will be marked by being enclosed in brackets, or by notes.

Another remark must be added. What Whitefield says of his boyhood's
wickedness must be received with caution. To exalt the grace of God
in his conversion, he seemed desirous to magnify his own depravity
and sin. Without intentional exaggeration, he, perhaps, makes
himself worse than he really was. At all events, the following
extract from his preface deserves attention:--

     "In the accounts of good men which I have read, I have observed
     that the writers of them have been partial. They have given us
     the bright, but not the dark side of their character. This, I
     think, proceeded from a kind of pious fraud, lest mentioning
     persons' faults should encourage others in sin. It cannot, I
     am sure, proceed from the wisdom which cometh from above. The
     sacred writers give an account of their failings as well as
     their virtues. Peter is not ashamed to confess that, with oaths
     and curses, he thrice denied his Master; nor do the Evangelists
     make any scruple of telling us, that out of Mary Magdalene Jesus
     Christ cast seven devils.

     "I have, therefore, endeavoured to follow their good example. I
     have simply told what I was by nature, as well as what I am by
     grace. I am not over cautious as to any supposed consequences,
     since none can be hurt by these but such as hold the truth in
     unrighteousness. To the pure all things will be pure.

     "As I have often wished, when in my best frames, that the first
     years of my life might be put down as a blank, and had no more
     in remembrance, so I could almost wish now to pass them over
     in silence. But as they will, in some degree, illustrate God's
     dealings with me in my riper years, I shall, as I am able, give
     the following brief account of them."

After this exordium, which the reader will find useful in
interpreting what follows, Whitefield proceeds with the first
section of his autobiography.

     "I was born in Gloucester, in the month of December, 1714. [My
     father and mother kept the Bell Inn. The former died when I was
     two years old; the latter is now alive, and has often told me
     how she endured fourteen weeks' sickness after she brought me
     into the world; but was used to say, even when I was an infant,
     that she expected more comfort from me than any other of her
     children. This, with the circumstance of my being born in an
     inn, has been often of service to me in exciting my endeavours
     to make good my mother's expectations, and so follow the example
     of my dear Saviour, who was born in a manger belonging to an inn.

     "My very infant years must necessarily not be mentioned; yet,
     I can remember such early stirrings of corruption in my heart,
     as abundantly convinces me that I was conceived and born in
     sin,--that in me dwelleth no good thing by nature, and that if
     God had not freely prevented me by His grace, I must have been
     for ever banished from His presence.]

     "I can truly say, I was froward from my mother's womb. I was so
     brutish as to hate instruction, and used purposely to shun all
     opportunities of receiving it. I can date some very early acts
     of uncleanness. [I soon gave pregnant proofs of an impudent
     temper.] Lying, filthy talking, and foolish jesting I was much
     addicted to [even when very young]. Sometimes I used to curse,
     if not swear. Stealing from my mother I thought no theft at all,
     and used to make no scruple of taking money out of her pocket
     before she was up. I have frequently betrayed my trust, and
     have more than once spent money I took in the house, in buying
     fruits, tarts, etc., to satisfy my sensual appetite. Numbers
     of Sabbaths have I broken, and generally used to behave myself
     very irreverently in God's sanctuary. Much money have I spent in
     plays, and in the common entertainments of the age. Cards and
     reading romances were my heart's delight. Often have I joined
     with others in playing roguish tricks, but was generally, if not
     always, _happily detected_. For this, I have often since, and do
     now, bless and praise God.

     "It would be endless to recount the sins and offences of my
     younger days. They are more in number than the hairs of my head.
     My heart would fail me at the remembrance of them, was I not
     assured that my Redeemer liveth, ever to make intercession for
     me. However the young man in the Gospel might boast how he had
     kept the commandments from his youth, with shame and confusion
     of face I confess that I have broken them all from my youth.
     Whatever foreseen fitness for salvation others may talk of and
     glory in, I disclaim any such thing. If I trace myself from my
     cradle to my manhood, I can see nothing in me but a fitness to
     be damned. [I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not.] If the
     Almighty had not prevented me by His grace, and wrought most
     powerfully upon my soul, quickening me by His free Spirit when
     dead in trespasses and sins, I had now been either sitting
     in darkness and in the shadow of death, or condemned, as the
     due reward of my crimes, to be for ever lifting up my eyes in
     torments.

     "But such was the free grace of God to me, that though
     corruption worked so strongly in my soul, and produced such
     early and bitter fruits, yet I can recollect very early movings
     of the blessed Spirit upon my heart, sufficient to satisfy me
     that God loved me with an everlasting love, and separated me
     even from my mother's womb for the work to which He afterwards
     was pleased to call me.

     "I had some early convictions of sin; and once, I remember, when
     some persons, as they frequently did, made it their business
     to tease me, I immediately retired to my room, and kneeling
     down, with many tears, prayed over that psalm wherein David so
     often repeats these words--'_But in the name of the Lord will I
     destroy them._' I was always fond of being a clergyman, and used
     frequently to imitate the ministers reading prayers, etc. Part
     of the money I used to steal from my parent I gave to the poor,
     and some books I privately took from others, for which I have
     since restored fourfold, I remember were books of devotion.

     "My mother was very careful of my education, and always kept me
     in my tender years [for which I never can sufficiently thank
     her] from intermeddling in the least with the public business.

     "About the tenth year of my age, it pleased God to permit my
     mother to marry a second time. It proved what the world would
     call an unhappy match as for temporals, but God overruled it for
     good. [It set my brethren upon thinking more than otherwise they
     would have done, and made an uncommon impression upon my own
     heart in particular.]

     "When I was about twelve, I was placed at a school called St.
     Mary de Crypt, in Gloucester--the last grammar school I ever
     went to. Having a good elocution and memory, I was remarked
     for making speeches before the Corporation, at their annual
     visitation.[2] But I cannot say I felt any drawings of God
     upon my soul for a year or two, saving that I laid out some
     of the money that was given me, on one of those forementioned
     occasions, in buying Ken's 'Manual for Winchester Scholars'--a
     book that had much affected me when my brother used to read it
     in my mother's troubles, and which, for some time after I bought
     it, was of great benefit to my soul.

  [2] St. Mary de Crypt is a parish in the city of Gloucester, and
  is so called from a large vault under the body of the church.
  In connection with the church, and on the north side of it,
  stands St. Mary de Crypt School, founded by "John Coke, Esq.,"
  and his "Lady Joane Coke," about the beginning of the sixteenth
  century. The master of the school had to be chosen by the mayor,
  the recorder, and the senior aldermen of the city. In 1712, two
  years before Whitefield's birth, a salary of £30 a year was
  allowed to the head-master, and £16 a year to the usher. There
  was also an annual allowance to several magistrates of the
  city for visiting the school once a year; the mayor and four
  burgesses of Worcester were made overseers, with an allowance of
  seven nobles for their charges; and if the mayor and magistrates
  of Gloucester were guilty of neglect, they had to forfeit £10
  to the mayor and magistrates of Worcester. The school also had
  two exhibitions for the maintenance of two scholars at Pembroke
  College for eight years--the scholars to be elected by the
  mayor, the six senior aldermen, and the head-master of the
  school. (" Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire," by Sir
  Robert Atkyns, 1712; and "The Gloucester Guide," 1792.)

     "During the time of my being at school, I was very fond of
     reading plays, and have kept from school for days together to
     prepare myself for acting them. My master, seeing how mine and
     my schoolfellows' vein ran, composed something of this kind for
     us himself, and caused me to dress myself in girl's clothes,
     which I had often done, to act a part before the Corporation.
     The remembrance of this has often covered me with confusion of
     face, and I hope will do so, even to the end of my life.

     ["And I cannot but here observe, with much concern of mind, how
     this way of training up youth has a natural tendency to debauch
     the mind, to raise ill passions, and to stuff the memory with
     things as contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as light to
     darkness, heaven to hell. However, though the first thing I had
     to repent of was my education in general, yet I must always
     acknowledge my particular thanks are due to my master, for the
     great pains he took with me and his other scholars, in teaching
     us to speak and write correctly.]

     "Before I was fifteen, having, as I thought, made a sufficient
     progress in the classics, and, at the bottom, longing to be set
     at liberty from the confinement of a school, I one day told my
     mother, 'Since her circumstances would not permit her to give
     me an University education, more learning I thought would spoil
     me for a tradesman; and, therefore, I judged it best not to
     learn Latin any longer.' She at first refused to consent, but my
     corruptions soon got the better of her good nature. Hereupon,
     for some time, I went to learn to write only. But my mother's
     circumstances being much on the decline, and being tractable
     that way, I from time to time began to assist her occasionally
     in the public-house, till at length I put on my blue apron and
     my snuffers,[3] washed mops, cleaned rooms, and, in one word,
     became professed and common drawer for nigh a year and a half.

  [3] In those days gas was a thing unknown, and of course candles
  required "snuffers."

     "[But He who was with David when he was following the sheep big
     with young, was with me even here. For] notwithstanding I was
     thus employed in a common inn, and had sometimes the care of the
     whole house upon my hands, yet I composed two or three sermons,
     and dedicated one of them in particular to my elder brother. One
     time, I remember, I was much pressed to self-examination, and
     found myself very unwilling to look into my heart. Frequently I
     read the Bible when sitting up at night. Seeing the boys go by
     to school has often cut me to the heart. And a dear youth, now
     with God, would often come entreating me, when serving at the
     bar, to go to Oxford. My general answer was, 'I wish I could.'

     "After I had continued about a year in this servile employment,
     my mother was obliged to leave the inn. My brother, who had been
     bred up for the business, married; whereupon all was made over
     to him; and, I being accustomed to the house, it was agreed that
     I should continue there as an assistant. [But God's thoughts
     were not as our thoughts.

     "By His good Providence] it happened that my sister-in-law and I
     could by no means agree; [and at length the resentment grew to
     such an height, that my proud heart would scarce suffer me to
     speak to her for three weeks together. But notwithstanding I was
     much to blame, yet I used to retire and weep before the Lord, as
     Hagar when flying from her mistress Sarah--little thinking that
     God by this means was forcing me out of the public business, and
     calling me from drawing wine for drunkards, to draw water out
     of the wells of salvation for the refreshment of His spiritual
     Israel.]

     "After continuing for a long while under this burden of mind, I
     at length resolved, thinking my absence would make all things
     easy, to go away. Accordingly, by the advice of my brother and
     consent of my mother, I went to see my elder brother, then
     settled at Bristol.

     "Here God was pleased to give me great foretastes of His
     love,[4] and fill me with such unspeakable raptures,
     particularly once in St. John's Church, that I was carried out
     beyond myself. I felt great hungerings and thirstings after the
     blessed Sacrament, and wrote many letters to my mother, telling
     her I would never go into the public employment again. Thomas
     à Kempis was my great delight, and I was always impatient till
     the bell rang to call me to tread the courts of the Lord's
     house. But in the midst of these illuminations, something surely
     whispered, 'This will not last.'

  [4] "Great sensible devotion,"--Edit. 1756.

     "And, indeed, so it happened. For--oh that I could write it in
     tears of blood!--when I left Bristol, as I did in about two
     months, and returned to Gloucester, I changed my devotion with
     my place. Alas! all my fervour went off: I had no inclination to
     go to church, or draw nigh unto God. In short, my heart, though
     I had so lately tasted of His love, was far from Him.

     "However, I had so much religion left, as to persist in my
     resolution not to live in the inn; and therefore my mother gave
     me leave, though she had but a little income, to have a bed upon
     the ground, and live at her house, till Providence should point
     out a place for me.

     "Having now, as I thought, nothing to do, it was a proper season
     for Satan to tempt me. Much of my time I spent in reading plays,
     and in sauntering from place to place. I was careful to adorn
     my body, but took little pains to deck and beautify my soul.
     Evil communications with my old schoolfellows soon corrupted
     my good manners. By seeing their evil practices, the sense of
     the Divine presence[5] I had vouchsafed unto me insensibly wore
     off my mind, and I at length fell into abominable secret sin,
     the dismal effects of which I have felt, and groaned under ever
     since.

  [5] "All sense of religion."--Edit. 1756.

     "[But God, whose gifts and callings are without repentance,
     would let nothing pluck me out of His hands, though I was
     continually doing despite to the Spirit of Grace. He saw me with
     pity and compassion, when lying in my blood. He passed by me;
     He said unto me, Live; and even gave me some foresight of His
     providing for me.

     "One morning, as I was reading a play to my sister, said I, 'God
     intends something for me which we know not of. As I have been
     diligent in business, I believe many would gladly have me for
     an apprentice, but every way seems to be barred up, so that I
     think God will provide for me some way or other that we cannot
     apprehend.'

     "How I came to say these words I know not. God afterwards
     showed me they came from Him.] Having thus lived with my mother
     for some considerable time, a young student, who was once my
     schoolfellow, and then a servitor of Pembroke College, Oxford,
     came to pay my mother a visit. Amongst other conversation,
     he told her how he had discharged all college expenses that
     quarter, and received a penny. Upon that my mother immediately
     cried out, 'This will do for my son.' Then, turning to me, she
     said, 'Will you go to Oxford, George?' I replied, 'With all
     my heart.' Whereupon, having the same friends that this young
     student had, my mother, without delay, waited on them. They
     promised their interest to get me a servitor's place in the same
     college. She then applied to my old master, who much approved of
     my coming to school again.

     "In about a week I went and re-entered myself, [and being grown
     much in stature, my master addressed me thus: 'I see, George,
     you are advanced in stature, but your better part must needs
     have gone backwards.' This made me blush. He set me something to
     translate into Latin; and though I had made no application to my
     classics for so long a time, yet I had but one inconsiderable
     fault in my exercises. This, I believe, somewhat surprised my
     master then, and has afforded me matter of thanks and praise
     ever since.

     "Being re-settled at school, I spared no pains to go forward in
     my book.] God was pleased to give me His blessing, and I learned
     much faster than I did before. But all this while I continued in
     [secret] sin; and, at length, got acquainted with such a set of
     debauched, abandoned, atheistical youths, that if God, by His
     free, unmerited, and especial grace, had not delivered me out
     of their hands, I should long since have sat in the scorner's
     chair [and made a mock at sin]. By keeping company with them,
     my thoughts of religion grew more and more like theirs. I went
     to public service only to make sport and walk about. I took
     pleasure in their lewd conversation. I began to reason as they
     did [and to ask why God had given me passions, and not permitted
     me to gratify them? Not considering that God did not originally
     give us these _corrupt_ passions, and that He had promised help
     to withstand them, if we would ask it of Him. In short, I soon
     made a great proficiency in the school of the devil. I affected
     to look rakish], and was in a fair way of being as infamous as
     the worst of them.

     "But, oh stupendous love! God even here stopped me, when running
     on in a full career to hell. For, just as I was upon the brink
     of ruin, He gave me such a distaste of their principles and
     practices, that I discovered them to my master, who soon put a
     stop to their proceedings.

     "Being thus delivered out of the snare of the devil, I began
     to be more and more serious, and felt God, at different times,
     working powerfully and convincingly upon my soul. One day in
     particular, as I was coming downstairs, and overheard my friends
     speaking well of me, God so deeply convinced me of hypocrisy,
     that, though I had formed frequent but ineffectual resolutions
     before, yet I had then power given me over my secret and darling
     sin. Notwithstanding, some time after being overtaken in liquor,
     as I have been twice or thrice in my lifetime, Satan gained his
     usual advantage over me again,--an experimental proof to my poor
     soul, how that wicked one makes use of men as machines, working
     them up to just what he pleases [when by intemperance they have
     chased away the Spirit of God from them].

     "Being now near the seventeenth year of my age, I was resolved
     to prepare myself for the holy sacrament, which I received on
     Christmas Day. I began now to be more and more watchful over my
     thoughts, words, and actions. I kept the following Lent, fasting
     Wednesday and Friday, thirty-six hours together. My evenings,
     when I had done waiting upon my mother, were generally spent
     in acts of devotion, reading 'Drelincourt on Death,' and other
     practical books, and I constantly went to public worship twice a
     day. Being now upper-boy, by God's help, I made some reformation
     amongst my schoolfellows. I was very diligent in reading and
     learning the classics, and in studying my Greek Testament, but
     was not yet convinced of the absolute unlawfulness of playing at
     cards, and of reading and seeing plays, though I began to have
     some scruples about it.

     "Near this time, I dreamed that I was to see God on Mount Sinai,
     but was afraid to meet Him. This made a great impression upon
     me; and a gentlewoman to whom I told it said, 'George, this is a
     call from God.'

     ["Still I grew more serious after this dream; but yet hypocrisy
     crept into every action. As once I affected to look more rakish,
     I now strove to appear more grave than I really was. However, an
     uncommon concern and alteration were visible in my behaviour,
     and I often used to find fault with the lightness of others.

     "One night, as I was going on an errand for my mother, an
     unaccountable but very strong impression was made upon my heart
     that I should preach quickly. When I came home, I innocently
     told my mother what had befallen me; but she, like Joseph's
     parents when he told them his dream, turned short upon me,
     crying out, 'What does the boy mean? Pri'thee hold thy tongue,'
     or something to that purpose. God has since shown her from whom
     that impression came.]

     "For a twelvemonth, I went on in a round of duties, receiving
     the sacrament monthly, fasting frequently, attending constantly
     on public worship, and praying often more than twice a day in
     private. One of my brothers used to tell me he feared this
     would not hold long, and that I should forget all when I came
     to Oxford. This caution did me much service, for it set me
     upon praying for perseverance; and, under God, the preparation
     I made in the country was a preservative against the manifold
     temptations which beset me at my first coming to that seat of
     learning.

     "Being now near eighteen years old, it was judged proper for
     me to go to the University. God had [sweetly] prepared my way.
     The friends before applied to recommended me to the master of
     Pembroke College. Another friend took up £10 upon bond, which
     I have since repaid, to defray the first expense of entering;
     and the master,[6] contrary to all expectations, admitted the
     servitor immediately."

  [6] Dr. Adams was now master of Pembroke College. This amiable and
  excellent man was the friend of Dr. Johnson, and died at Gloucester,
  Whitefield's birthplace, where a monument is erected to his memory,
  with the following inscription:--"Sacred to the memory of William
  Adams, D.D., Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, Prebendary of
  this Cathedral, and Archdeacon of Llandaff. Ingenious, Learned,
  Eloquent, he ably defended the truth of Christianity; Pious,
  Benevolent, and Charitable, he successfully inculcated its sacred
  precepts. Pure, and undeviating in his own conduct, he was tender
  and compassionate to the failings of others. Ever anxious for the
  welfare and happiness of mankind, he was on all occasions forward
  to encourage works of public utility and extensive beneficence. In
  the government of the College, over which he presided, his vigilant
  attention was uniformly exerted to promote the important objects of
  the institution; whilst the mild dignity of his deportment inspired
  esteem, gratitude, and affection. Full of days, and matured in
  virtue, he died January 13, 1789, aged 82."

Thus ends Whitefield's history of his own boyhood. His confession of
youthful wickedness is more minute than profitable. It was scarcely
wise for a young evangelist of twenty-five, who had attained an
unexampled popularity, and thereby brought upon himself the rancour
of envious observers, to print such an enumeration of juvenile
sins and follies. Indeed, the wisdom of doing this may be justly
questioned in any case. A man may and ought to confess to God; but
he is under no obligation to confess to men like himself. As already
stated, the foregoing details would not have been reproduced in the
present work, had it not been that this was necessary to exhibit
the imprudent ingenuousness of the youthful preacher, and to show
that his own unguarded writings fairly exposed him to some of the
bitter pamphleteering with which he was soon attacked. Augustine
had written similar Confessions, and so also had Jean Jacques
Rousseau; but the world is none the better because Augustine and
Rousseau made the world their father confessor. Whitefield's enemies
were not slow to use the advantage against him with which he had
furnished them; and, even nine years after the publication of his
pamphlet, he had to pay a penalty for some of its well-meant, but
inconsiderate expressions. "Mr. Whitefield's account of God's
dealings with him," said Dr. Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, "is such
a boyish, ludicrous, filthy, nasty, and shameless relation of
himself, as quite defiles paper, and is shocking to decency and
modesty. 'Tis a perfect jakes of uncleanness."[7] The reader, with
the "account" unabridged before him, can easily form an opinion of
the truthfulness, or rather free-tongued censure, of Whitefield's
episcopal castigator. Whitefield assigned a reason for what he did;
and, though the sufficiency of that reason may not be admitted, yet
all will give Whitefield credit for sincerity and good intentions,
and no spiritually minded man will laugh at the penitential spirit
which the confessions unquestionably evince.

  [7] "Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists compared." Part II.

As in the case of many others, Whitefield's boyhood was a strange
admixture of sin and penitence. At intervals, we find the boy a
liar, a petty thief, a pretended rake, a dandy, and almost an
infidel; and then we find him spending his scantily collected pence
in buying the manual of Bishop Ken; composing sermons; delighting
in Thomas à Kempis; reading books like Drelincourt's "Christian
Defence against the Fears of Death;" promoting a reformation
of manners among the boys in the school of St. Mary de Crypt;
religiously watching over his own thoughts, words, and actions;
praying in private; worshipping in public; receiving the sacrament
once a month; and, during Lent and at other times, frequently
fasting for eighteen hours together. The Oxford Methodists, of whom
perhaps he had never heard, were now approaching the very climax of
their ascetic practices; and the quondam tapster of the Bell Inn,
Gloucester, by a strange experience, was prepared to join them. Bad
companions had nearly ruined him; but now his companions were to be
of another sort.

In the midst of all his wickedness and youthful frolics, Whitefield
displayed an undauntedness which helped to make him what he
afterwards became. His educational advantages were not great. Unlike
the Wesleys, his home was not favourable to his mental improvement.
The public-house in which he was born and bred was widely different
from the Epworth parsonage. Practically he was fatherless whilst
the Wesley brothers had for a father a man who, though sometimes
improvident in attending convocations and in the publishing of
books, had, in learning, but few superiors, and, as a clergyman of
the Church of England, was excelled by none. Whitefield's mother
was, evidently, an affectionate, sensible, and worthy woman;
but, in most respects, immeasurably inferior to Susannah Wesley.
Besides having had the unspeakable advantages of their Epworth
home-education, John Wesley was privileged to spend five years and
a half at the Charterhouse, London; and his brother Charles about
the same length of time in the equally famed school of Westminster.
On the other hand, Whitefield had no education, worth mentioning,
until he was twelve years old; from twelve to fifteen he spent in
the school of St. Mary de Crypt, partly in acquiring learning and
partly in acting plays; from fifteen to seventeen, he was chiefly
employed as tapster in his mother's tavern; and then came the
turning-point of his existence. After listening to the story of
the poor servitor of Pembroke College, who, by serving others, had
paid all his college expenses, and had saved a penny, Whitefield's
mother said, "George, will _you_ go to Oxford?" "Yes," said George,
"with all my heart." And, within a week, he was again at the school
of St. Mary de Crypt; and, within a year, an undergraduate of an
Oxford college. George's decision, prompt action, and hard-working
ambition displayed pluck, not unworthy of the man, who, in later
years, braved brutal mobs with heroic boldness, and who, when the
present comforts of oceanic travelling were things unthought about,
again and again crossed the turbulent Atlantic; and, constrained by
the love of Christ his Saviour, tramped American woods and swamps,
seeking sinners, and trying to save them.

One other fact is noticeable. From childhood George Whitefield was
an orator. A hundred and fifty years ago dramatic performances
appear to have been an important part of the education of the
public schools of England. Thus it was in the Westminster School,
where Charles Wesley was "put forward to act dramas," because of
his lively cleverness; and thus it was at St. Mary de Crypt,
Gloucester, where Whitefield, on account of his "good elocution and
memory," was "remarked for making speeches before the Corporation
at their annual visitation;" and where the master of the school
composed dramatical pieces in which Whitefield and his schoolfellows
might display their histrionic genius and powers. The marvellously
exciting eloquence of Whitefield was not so much an acquirement as a
gift of nature; and this helps to explain his inordinate delight in
theatrical literature, previous to his conversion.




_WHITEFIELD AT COLLEGE._

1732 TO 1735.


Whitefield went to Oxford towards the end of the year 1732. Twelve
years before this, Wesley had been admitted to Christ-Church
College, and in the interval had been elected Fellow of Lincoln
College, had taken his Master of Arts degree, and had been ordained
deacon and also priest. Charles Wesley had been six years at
Christ-Church, and was now Bachelor of Arts, and a College Tutor.
Willam Morgan, one of the first of the Oxford Methodists, died a few
weeks before Whitefield entered Pembroke College. For three years
past, Clayton had been at Brasenose. Ingham had already spent two
years at Queen's. In 1726, Gambold had been admitted as servitor
in Christ Church, and in 1733 was ordained by Bishop Potter.
Hervey, born in the same year as Whitefield, had, in 1731, become
undergraduate in Lincoln College, where Wesley was Tutor. Broughton
was in Exeter College. Kinchin was a Fellow of Corpus Christi. For
twelve years, Hutchins had been Fellow of Lincoln, where also, for
some time past, Whitelamb and Westley Hall had been studying, to the
content of Wesley.

These were the chief of the Oxford Methodists. Whitefield, a boy not
yet eighteen years of age, was the last to enter the University, and
the last of the illustrious ones to join their godly brotherhood.
For three years, the "Holy Club" had been notorious among their
fellows; but, up to the present, Whitefield had never seen them.

Pembroke College, founded in 1624, had a Master, fourteen Fellows,
twenty-four Scholars, and several Exhibitioners, being in all about
sixty. As already stated, Whitefield was admitted as a servitor,--a
lowly, but not necessarily dishonourable position. Half a century
before, Wesley's father had "footed it" to Oxford, with forty-five
shillings in his purse, and had been received as servitor of Exeter
College, in which, during his five years' residence, five shillings
was the only assistance he received from his family and friends. And
now Wesley's great coadjutor entered Pembroke in the same capacity,
and in about the same penniless condition.

It is a fact worth noticing, that Samuel Johnson left Pembroke
College only twelve months previous to Whitefield's admission; and
that the poet Shenstone entered at the same time Whitefield did.
At that period, some of the college tutors were so inefficient,
that Johnson declared, concerning one of them, Mr. Jorden, that
"he scarcely knew a noun from an adverb." The Rev. Dr. Adams,
however, who succeeded Jorden in 1731, was a man of another stamp;
and Johnson used to boast of the many eminent men who had been
educated at Pembroke. "Sir," he used to say, with a smile of
sportive triumph, when mentioning how many of the English poets had
been trained in Pembroke College, "Sir, we are a nest of singing
birds."[8]

  [8] Boswell's "Life of Johnson."

Whitefield spent four years at Oxford--from 1732 to 1736. How did
he employ his time, and what were the results? For the reasons
previously assigned, the history of this important period shall be
given in his own language, without any abridgment or alteration
whatever. With perfect artlessness, he writes as follows:--

     "Soon after my admission to Pembroke College, I found my having
     been used to a public-house was now of service to me. For
     many of the servitors being sick at my first coming up, by my
     diligent and ready attendance I ingratiated myself into the
     gentlemen's favour so far, that many, who had it in their power,
     chose me to be their servitor.

     "This much lessened my expense; and, indeed, God was so
     gracious, that, with the profits of my place, and some little
     presents made me by my kind tutor, for almost the first three
     years I did not put all my relations together to above £24
     expense.[9] [And it has often grieved my soul to see so many
     young students spending their substance in extravagant living,
     and hereby entirely unfitting themselves for the prosecution of
     their proper studies.] I had not been long at the University
     before I found the benefit of the foundation I had laid in the
     country for a holy[10] life. I was quickly solicited to join in
     their excess of riot with several who lay in the same room. God,
     in answer to prayers before put up, gave me grace to withstand
     them; and once, in particular, it being cold, my limbs were so
     benumbed by sitting alone in my study, because I would not go
     amongst them, that I could scarce sleep all night. But I soon
     found the benefit of not yielding; for when they perceived they
     could not prevail, they let me alone as a singular, odd fellow.

  [9] All enclosed in brackets was omitted in the edition
  published by Whitefield in 1756.

  [10] "Religious."--Edit. 1756.

     ["All this while I was not fully satisfied of the sin of playing
     at cards and reading plays, till God, upon a fast-day, was
     pleased to convince me. For, taking a play to read a passage out
     of it to a friend, God struck my heart with such power, that I
     was obliged to lay it down again; and--blessed be His name!--I
     have not read any such book since.

     "Before I went to the University, I met with Mr. Law's 'Serious
     Call to a Devout Life,' but had not then money to purchase
     it. Soon after my coming up to the University, seeing a small
     edition of it in a friend's hand, I soon procured it. God
     worked powerfully upon my soul, as He has since upon many
     others, by that and his other excellent treatise upon 'Christian
     Perfection.']

     "I now began to pray and sing psalms thrice every day, besides
     morning and evening, and to fast every Friday, and to receive
     the sacrament at a parish church near our college, and at the
     castle, where the despised Methodists used to receive once a
     month.

     "The young men so called[11] were then much talked of at Oxford.
     I had heard of, and loved them before I came to the University;
     and so strenuously defended them when I heard them reviled by
     the students, that they began to think that I also in time
     should be one of them.

  [11] "Because they lived by rule and method."--Edit. 1756.

     "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
     aged 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.

     "I thankfully embraced the opportunity; [and, blessed be God! it
     was one of the most profitable visits I ever made in my life.
     My soul, at that time, was athirst for some spiritual friends
     to lift up my hands when they hung down, and to strengthen my
     feeble knees. He soon discovered it, and, like a wise winner of
     souls, made all his discourses tend that way. And, when he had]
     put into my hand Professor Frank's treatise against the 'Fear of
     Man,' [and a book entitled 'The Country Parson's Advice to his
     Parishioners,' the last of which was wonderfully blessed to my
     soul, I took my leave.]

     "In a short time, he let me have another book entitled, 'The
     Life of God in the Soul of Man; [and, though I had fasted,
     watched, and prayed, and received the sacrament so long, yet
     I never knew what true religion was, till God sent me that
     excellent treatise by the hands of my never-to-be-forgotten
     friend].

     "At my first reading it, I wondered what the author meant by
     saying, 'That some falsely placed religion in going to church,
     doing hurt to no one, being constant in the duties of the
     closet, and now and then reaching out their hands to give alms
     to their poor neighbours.' 'Alas!' thought I, 'if this be not
     religion, what is?' God soon showed me; for in reading a few
     lines further, that 'true religion was a union of the soul with
     God, and Christ formed within us,' a ray of Divine light was
     instantaneously darted in upon my soul, and, from that moment,
     but not till then, did I know that I must be a new creature.

     "Upon this, [like the woman of Samaria when Christ revealed
     Himself to her at the well,] I had no rest [in my soul] till
     I wrote letters to my relations, telling them there was such
     a thing as the new birth. I imagined they would have gladly
     received it. But, alas! my words seemed to them as idle tales.
     They thought that I was going beside myself, and, by their
     letters, confirmed me in the resolutions I had taken not to go
     down into the country, but continue where I was, lest that, by
     any means, the good work which God had begun in my soul might be
     made of none effect.[12]

  [12] "Obstructed." Edit. 1756.

     "From time to time Mr. Wesley permitted[13] me to come unto
     him, and instructed me as I was able to bear it. By degrees, he
     introduced me to the rest of his Christian brethren.[14] [They
     built me up daily in the knowledge and fear of God, and taught
     me to endure hardness like a good soldier of Jesus Christ.]

  [13] "Charles Wesley engaged." _Ibid._

  [14] "The Methodists." _Ibid._

     "I now began, like them, to live by rule, and to pick up the
     very fragments of my time, that not a moment of it might be
     lost. Whether I ate or drank, or whatsoever I did, I endeavoured
     to do all to the glory of God. Like them, having no weekly
     sacrament, although the rubric required it, at our own college,
     I received every Sunday at Christ Church. I joined with them in
     [keeping the stations by] fasting Wednesdays and Fridays [and
     left no means unused, which I thought would lead me nearer to
     Jesus Christ.

     "Regular retirement, morning and evening, at first I found some
     difficulty in submitting to; but it soon grew profitable and
     delightful. As I grew ripe for such exercises, I was, from time
     to time] engaged to visit the sick and the prisoners, and to
     read to poor people, till I made it a custom, as most of us did,
     to spend an hour every day in doing acts of charity.

     "The course of my studies I soon entirely changed. 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.

     "God enabled me to do much good to many, as well as to receive
     much from the despised Methodists, and made me instrumental in
     converting one who is lately come out into the Church, and, I
     trust, will prove a burning and shining light.

     "Several short fits of illness was God pleased to visit and to
     try me with, after my first acquaintance with Mr. Wesley. My
     new convert was a helpmeet for me in those and in all other
     circumstances; and, in company with him and several other
     Christian friends, did I spend many sweet and delightful hours.
     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.

     "Many came amongst them for a while, who, in time of temptation,
     fell away. The displeasure of a tutor or head of a college, the
     changing of a gown from a lower to a higher degree--above all,
     a thirst for the praise of men, more than that which cometh
     from God, and a servile fear of contempt--caused numbers, that
     had set their hands to the plough, shamefully to look back. The
     world, and not themselves, gave them the title of Methodists,
     I suppose, from their custom of regulating their time, and
     planning the business of the day every morning. Mr. John and
     Charles Wesley were two of the first that thus openly dared to
     confess Christ; and they, under God, were the spiritual fathers
     of most of them. They had the pleasure of seeing the work of the
     Lord prosper in their hands before they went to Georgia. Since
     their return, the small grain of mustard-seed has sprung up
     apace. It has taken deep root. It is growing into a great tree.
     Ere long, I trust, it will fill the land, and numbers of souls
     will come from the east and from the west, from the north and
     from the south, and lodge under the branches of it.

     "But to return. While I was thus comforted on every side by
     daily conversing with so many Christian friends, God was pleased
     to permit Satan to sift me like wheat. A general account of
     which I shall, by the Divine assistance, give in the following
     section.

     "At my first setting out, in compassion to my weakness, I grew
     in favour both with God and man, and used to be much lifted up
     with sensible devotion, especially at the blessed sacrament. But
     when religion began to take root in my heart, and I was fully
     convinced my soul must totally be renewed ere it could see God,
     I was visited with outward and inward trials.]

     "The first thing I was called to give up for God was what the
     world calls my fair reputation. I had no sooner received the
     sacrament publicly on a weekday at St. Mary's, but I was set
     up as a mark for all the polite students that knew me to shoot
     at. [By this they knew that I was commenced Methodist; for
     though there is a sacrament at the beginning of every term, at
     which all, especially the seniors, are by statute obliged to be
     present, yet so dreadfully has that once faithful city played
     the harlot, that very few masters, and no undergraduates but the
     Methodists, attended upon it.

     "Mr. Charles Wesley, whom I must always mention with the
     greatest deference and respect, walked with me, in order to
     confirm me, from the church even to the college. I confess, to
     my shame, I would gladly have excused him; and the next day,
     going to his room, one of our Fellows passing by, I was ashamed
     to be seen to knock at his door. But, blessed be God! this
     fear of man gradually wore off. As I had imitated Nicodemus in
     his cowardice, so, by the Divine assistance, I followed him in
     his courage. I confessed the Methodists more and more publicly
     every day. I walked openly with them, and chose rather to bear
     contempt with those people of God, than to enjoy the applause of
     almost-Christians for a season.]

     "Soon after this, I incurred the displeasure of the master of
     the college, who frequently chid, and once threatened to expel
     me, if I ever visited the poor again. Being surprised by this
     treatment,[15] I spake unadvisedly with my lips, and said, if it
     displeased him, I would not. My conscience soon pricked me for
     this sinful compliance. I immediately repented, and visited the
     poor the first opportunity, [and told my companions, if ever I
     was called to a stake for Christ's sake, I would serve my tongue
     as Archbishop Cranmer served his hand, namely, make that burn
     first.]

  [15] "And overawed by his authority,"--Edit. 1756.

     "My[16] tutor, being a worthy man, did not oppose me [much,
     but thought, I believe, that I went a little too far. He lent
     me books, gave me money, visited me, and furnished me with a
     physician when sick. In short, he behaved in all respects like a
     father; and I trust God will remember him for good, in answer to
     the many prayers I have put up in his behalf.

  [16] "Worthy."--_Ibid._

     "My relations were quickly alarmed at the alteration of my
     behaviour, conceived strong prejudices against me, and for some
     time counted my life madness.] I daily underwent some contempt
     at college. Some have thrown dirt at me; others by degrees took
     away their pay from me; and two friends that were dear unto
     me grew shy of and forsook me, [when they saw me resolved to
     deny myself, take up my cross daily, and follow Jesus Christ.
     But our Lord, by His Spirit, soon convinced me that I must
     know no one after the flesh; and I soon found that promise
     literally fulfilled, 'That no one hath left father or mother,
     brethren or sisters, houses or lands, for Christ's sake and the
     Gospel's, but he shall receive a hundredfold in this life, with
     persecution, as well as eternal life in the world to come.'

     "These, though little, were useful trials. They inured me to
     contempt, lessened self-love, and taught me to die daily.] My
     inward sufferings were of a more uncommon nature. [Satan seemed
     to have desired me in particular to sift me as wheat. God
     permitted him for wise reasons, I have seen already, namely,
     that His future blessings might not prove my ruin.

     "From my first awakenings to the divine life, I felt a
     particular hungering and thirsting after the humility of Jesus
     Christ. Night and day I prayed to be a partaker of that grace,
     imagining that the habit of humility would be instantaneously
     infused into my soul. But as Gideon taught the men of Succoth
     with thorns, so God, if I am yet in any measure blessed with
     true poverty of spirit, taught it me by the exercise of strong
     temptations.

     "I observed before how I used to be favoured with sensible
     devotion; those] comforts were soon withdrawn, and a horrible
     fearfulness and dread permitted to overwhelm my soul. [One
     morning in particular, rising from my bed, I felt an unusual
     impression and weight upon my breast, attended with inward
     darkness. I applied to my friend, Mr. Charles Wesley. He
     advised me to keep upon my watch, and referred me to a chapter
     in Kempis. In a short time I perceived this load gradually
     increase, till it almost weighed me down, and fully convinced me
     that Satan had as real a possession of, and power given over,
     my body, as he had once over Job's.] All power of meditating,
     or even thinking, was taken from me. My memory quite failed
     me. My whole soul was barren and dry, and I could fancy myself
     to be like nothing so much as a man locked up in iron armour.
     Whenever I kneeled down, I felt great[17] heavings in my body,
     and have often prayed under the weight of them till the sweat
     came through me. [At this time, Satan used to terrify me much,
     and threatened to punish me if I discovered his wiles. It being
     my duty, as servitor, in my turn to knock at the gentlemen's
     rooms by ten at night, to see who were in their rooms, I thought
     the devil would appear to me every stair I went up. And he so
     troubled me when I lay down to rest, that for some weeks I
     scarce slept above three hours at a time.]

  [17] "Pressures both in soul and body."--Edit. 1756.

     "God only knows how many nights I have lain upon my bed groaning
     under the weight I felt, [and bidding Satan depart from me in
     the name of Jesus.] Whole days and weeks have I spent in lying
     prostrate on the ground,[18] [and begging for freedom from those
     proud hellish thoughts that used to crowd in upon and distract
     my soul. But God made Satan drive out Satan; for these thoughts
     and suggestions created such a self-abhorrence within me,
     that I never ceased wrestling with God till He blessed me with
     a victory over them. Self-love, self-will, pride, and envy so
     buffeted me in their turns, that I was resolved either to die or
     conquer. I wanted to see sin as it was, but feared, at the same
     time, lest the sight of it should terrify me to death.

  [18] "In silent or vocal prayer; and, having nobody to show
  me a better way, I thought to get peace and purity by outward
  austerities."--_Ibid._

     "Whilst my inward man was thus exercised, my outward man was
     not unemployed. I soon found what a slave I had been to my
     sensual appetite, and now resolved to get the mastery over it
     by the help of Jesus Christ.] Accordingly, by degrees, I began
     to leave off eating fruits and such like, and gave the money
     I usually spent in that way to the poor. Afterward, I always
     chose the worst sort of food, though my place furnished me with
     variety. I fasted twice a week. My apparel was mean. I thought
     it unbecoming a penitent to have his hair powdered. I wore
     woollen gloves, a patched gown, and dirty shoes;[19] and [though
     I was then convinced that the kingdom of God did not consist in
     meats and drinks, yet I resolutely persisted in these voluntary
     acts of self-denial, because I found them great promoters of the
     spiritual life.]

  [19] "Therefore looked upon myself as very humble."--Edit. 1756,

     "For many months, I went on in this[20] state, [faint, yet
     pursuing, and travelling along in the dark, in hope that the
     star I had before once seen would hereafter appear again. During
     this season I was very active;] but finding pride creeping in at
     the end of almost every thought, word, and action, and meeting
     with Castaniza's 'Spiritual Combat,' in which he says 'that he
     that is employed in mortifying his will was as well employed
     as though he was converting Indians,' or words to that effect,
     Satan so imposed upon my understanding, that he persuaded me
     to shut myself up in my study till I could do good[21] [with a
     single eye], lest, in endeavouring to save others as I did now,
     I should at last, by pride and self-complacence, lose myself.

  [20] "Legal."--_Ibid._

  [21] "Without feeling any mixture of corruption."--_Ibid._

     ["Henceforward, he transformed himself into an angel of light,
     and worked so artfully, that I imagined the good, and not the
     evil, spirit suggested to me everything I did.

     "His main drift was to lead me into a state of quietism (he
     generally ploughed with God's heifer); and when the Holy Spirit
     put into my heart good thoughts or convictions, he always drove
     them to extremes. For instance, having out of pride put down
     in my diary what I gave away, Satan tempted me to lay my diary
     quite aside. When Castaniza[22] advised to talk but little,
     Satan said I must not talk at all. So that I, who used to be the
     most forward in exhorting my companions, have sat whole nights
     almost without speaking at all. Again, when Castaniza advised
     to endeavour after a silent recollection and waiting upon God,
     Satan told me I must leave off all forms, and not use my voice
     in prayer at all. The time would fail me to recount all the
     instances of this kind in which he had deceived me. But when
     matters came to an extreme, God always showed me my error, and
     by His Spirit pointed out a way for me to escape.

  [22] "The Spiritual Combat; or, the Christian Pilgrim in his
  Spiritual Conflict and Conquest." By John de Castaniza. Revised
  and recommended by the Rev. Richard Lucas, D.D., Rector of St.
  Stephen's, Coleman Street.

     "The devil also sadly imposed upon me in the matter of my
     college exercises. Whenever I endeavoured to compose my theme,
     I had no power to write a word, nor so much as to tell my
     Christian friends of my inability to do it. Saturday being come,
     which is the day the students give up their compositions, it was
     suggested to me that I must go down into the hall, and confess I
     could not make a theme, and so publicly suffer, as if it were,
     for my Master's sake. When the bell rung to call us, I went to
     open the door to go down stairs, but feeling something give me a
     violent inward check, I entered my study, and continued instant
     in prayer, waiting the event. For this my tutor fined me half a
     crown. The next week Satan served me in like manner again; but
     now having got more strength, and perceiving no inward check,
     I went into the hall. My name being called, I stood up and
     told my tutor I could not make a theme. I think he fined me a
     second time; but, imagining that I would not willingly neglect
     my exercise, he afterward called me into the common room, and
     kindly enquired whether any misfortune had befallen me, or what
     was the reason I could not make a theme. I burst into tears,
     and assured him that it was not out of contempt of authority,
     but that I could not act otherwise. Then, at length, he said he
     believed I could not; and, when he left me, told a friend, as he
     very well might, that he took me to be really mad. This friend,
     hearing from my tutor what had happened, came to me, urging the
     command of Scripture, to be subject to the higher powers. I
     answered, 'Yes; but I had a new revelation.' Lord, what is man?

     "As I daily got strength, by continued, though almost silent,
     prayer in my study, my temptations grew stronger also,
     particularly for two or three days before deliverance came.]

     "Near five or six weeks I had now spent in my study, except
     when[23] I was obliged to go out. During this time I was
     fighting with my corruptions, and did little else besides
     kneeling down by my bedside, feeling, as it were, a heavy
     pressure upon my body, as well as an unspeakable oppression
     of mind, yet offering up my soul to God to do with me as it
     pleased Him. It was now suggested to me that Jesus Christ was
     among the wild beasts when He was tempted, and that I ought to
     follow His example; and being willing, as I thought, to imitate
     Jesus Christ, after supper I went into Christ Church walk, near
     our college, and continued in silent prayer under one of the
     trees [for near two hours, sometimes lying flat on my face,
     sometimes] kneeling upon my knees, [all the while filled with
     fear and concern lest some of my brethren should be overwhelmed
     with pride. The night being stormy, it gave me awful thoughts of
     the day of judgment. I continued, I think,] till the great bell
     rung for retirement to the college, not without finding some
     reluctance in the natural man against staying so long in the
     cold.

  [23] "College business obliged me to go down."--Edit. 1756.

     ["The next night I repeated the same exercise at the same place.
     But the hour of extremity being now come, God was pleased to
     make an open show of those diabolical devices by which I had
     been deceived.]

     "By this time, I had left off keeping my diary, using my forms,
     or scarce my voice in prayer, visiting prisoners, etc. Nothing
     remained for me to leave, unless I forsook public worship, but
     my religious friends. Now it was suggested that I must leave
     them also for Christ's sake. This was a sore trial; but rather
     than not be, as I fancied, Christ's disciple, I resolved to
     renounce them, though as dear to me as my own soul. Accordingly,
     the next day being Wednesday, whereon we kept one of our weekly
     fasts, instead of meeting with my brethren as usual, I went out
     into the fields, and prayed silently by myself. Our evening
     meeting I neglected also, and went not to breakfast, according
     to appointment, with Mr. Charles Wesley the day following. This,
     with many other concurring circumstances, made my honoured
     friend, Mr. Charles Wesley, suspect something more than ordinary
     was the matter. He came to my room, [soon found out my case,]
     apprised me of my danger if I would not take advice, and
     recommended me to his brother John, Fellow of Lincoln College,
     as more experienced[24] [in the spiritual life]. God gave
     me--[blessed be His holy name]--a teachable temper, and I waited
     upon his brother, with whom from that time I had the honour of
     growing intimate. He advised me to resume all my externals,
     though not to depend on them in the least. From time to time he
     gave me directions as my [various and] pitiable state required;
     [and, at length, by his excellent advice and management of me,
     under God, I was delivered from those wiles of Satan. 'Praise
     the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me praise His holy
     name!']

  [24] "Than himself."--Edit 1756.

     ["During this and all other seasons of temptation my soul was
     inwardly supported with great courage and resolution from
     above. Every day God made me willing to renew the combat, and
     though my soul, when quite empty of God, was very prone to
     seek satisfaction in the creature, and sometimes I fell into
     sensuality, yet I was generally enabled to wait in silence
     for the salvation of God, or to persist in prayer till some
     beams of spiritual light and comfort were vouchsafed me from
     on high. Thomas à Kempis, since translated and published by
     Mr. John Wesley; Castaniza's Combat; and the Greek Testament,
     every reading of which I endeavoured to turn into a prayer,
     were of great help and furtherance to me. On receiving the
     holy sacrament, especially before trials, I have found grace
     in a very affecting manner, and in abundant measure, sometimes
     imparted to my soul,--an irrefragable proof to me of the
     miserable delusion of the author of that work called, 'The Plain
     Account of the Sacrament,' which sinks that holy ordinance into
     a bare memorial, who, if he obstinately refuse the instruction
     of the Most High, will doubtless, without repentance, bear his
     punishment, whosoever he be.]

     "To proceed--I had now taken up my externals again;[25] [and
     though Satan for some weeks had been biting my heel, God was
     pleased to show me that I should soon bruise his head.] A few
     days after, as I was walking along, I met with a poor woman
     whose husband was then in [Bocardo, or] Oxford Town-Gaol,
     [which I constantly visited.] Seeing her much discomposed, I
     enquired the cause. She told me, not being able to bear the
     crying of her children, ready to perish for hunger, and having
     nothing to relieve them, she had been to drown herself, but was
     mercifully prevented, and said she was coming to my room to
     inform me of it. I gave her some immediate relief, and desired
     her to meet me at the prison with her husband in the afternoon.
     She came, and there God visited them both by His free grace.
     She was powerfully quickened from above; and when I had done
     reading, he also came to me like the trembling gaoler, and,
     grasping my hand, cried out, 'I am upon the brink of hell!'.
     From this time forward, both of them grew in grace. God, by His
     providence, soon delivered him from his confinement. Though
     notorious offenders against God and one another before, yet now
     they became helpmeets for each other in the great work of their
     salvation. They are both now living, and, I trust, will be my
     joy and crown of rejoicing in the great day of our Lord Jesus.

  [25] "And began to visit the poor."--Edit. 1756.

     "Soon after this, [the holy season of] Lent came on, which our
     friends kept very strictly, eating no flesh during the six
     weeks, except on Saturdays and Sundays. I abstained frequently
     on Saturdays also, and ate nothing on the other days, except
     on Sunday, but sage-tea without sugar, and coarse bread. I
     constantly walked out in the cold mornings till part of one of
     my hands was quite black. This, with my continued abstinence
     and inward conflicts, at length so emaciated my body, that,
     at Passion-week, finding I could scarce creep upstairs, I was
     obliged to inform my kind tutor of my condition, who immediately
     sent for a physician to me.

     "This caused no small triumph amongst the collegians, who began
     to cry out, 'What is his fasting come to now?' [But I rejoiced
     in this reproach, knowing that, though I had been imprudent, and
     lost much of my flesh, yet, I had nevertheless increased in the
     spirit.]

     ["This fit of sickness continued upon me for seven weeks,
     and a glorious visitation it was.[26] The blessed Spirit was
     all this time purifying my soul. All my former gross and
     notorious, and even my heart sins also, were now set home upon
     me, of which I wrote down some remembrance immediately, and
     confessed them before God morning and evening. Though weak, I
     often spent two hours in my evening retirements, and prayed
     over my Greek Testament and Bishop Hall's most excellent
     'Contemplations' every hour that my health would permit.]
     About the end of the seven weeks,[27] [and after I had been
     groaning under an unspeakable pressure both of body and mind
     for above a twelvemonth, God was pleased to set me free in the
     following manner. One day, perceiving an uncommon drought and
     a disagreeable clamminess in my mouth, and using things to
     allay my thirst, but in vain, it was suggested to me that when
     Jesus Christ cried out, 'I thirst,' His sufferings were near
     at an end. Upon which I cast myself down on the bed, crying
     out, 'I thirst! I thirst!' Soon after this, I found and felt
     in myself that I was delivered from the burden that had so
     heavily oppressed me. The spirit of mourning was taken from
     me, and I knew what it was truly to rejoice in God my Saviour,
     and, for some time, could not avoid singing psalms wherever I
     was; but my joy gradually became more settled, and, blessed be
     God, has abode and increased in my soul, saving a few casual
     intermissions, ever since.

  [26] "But, however, notwithstanding my fit of sickness continued
  six or seven weeks, I trust I shall have reason to bless God for
  it, through the endless ages of eternity. For," Edit. 1756.

  [27] "After having undergone innumerable buffetings of Satan,
  and many months' inexpressible trials by night and day under
  the spirit of bondage, God was pleased at length to remove the
  heavy load, to enable me to lay hold on His dear Son by a living
  faith, and, by giving me the spirit of adoption, to seal me, as
  I humbly hope, even to the day of everlasting redemption. But
  oh! with what joy--joy unspeakable--even joy that was full of,
  and big with glory, was my soul filled, when the weight of sin
  went off, and an abiding sense of the pardoning love of God,
  and a full assurance of faith broke in upon my disconsolate
  soul! Surely it was the day of my espousals,--a day to be had
  in everlasting remembrance. At first my joys were like a spring
  tide, and, as it were, overflowed the banks. Go where I would,
  I could not avoid singing of psalms almost aloud; afterwards it
  became more settled--and, blessed be God, saving a few casual
  intervals, has abode and increased in my soul ever since. But to
  proceed."--Edit. 1756.

     "Thus were the days of my mourning ended. After a long night
     of desertion and temptation, the star, which I had seen at
     a distance before, began to appear again, and the day star
     arose in my heart. Now did the Spirit of God take possession
     of my soul, and, as I humbly hope, seal me unto the day of
     redemption."]

Here we must pause. Whitefield evidently considered this to be the
time of his conversion. The date was about seven weeks after Easter,
in the year 1735. This was three years before the Wesley brothers
professed to receive the same blessing. In fact, young Whitefield
seems to have been the first of the Oxford Methodists who attained
to the experience expressed in Romans viii. 15, 16: "Ye have not
received the Spirit of bondage, again to fear; but ye have received
the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit
itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of
God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with
Christ." It cannot be denied that Whitefield's first account of the
way in which he obtained this gift of God is tinged with fanaticism.
The second and revised account, published sixteen years afterwards,
is unobjectionable. Oppressed with a sense of sin, and buffeted by
Satan, the young servitor laid hold of Christ "by a living faith,"
received "the spirit of adoption," was blessed with "a sense of the
pardoning love of God," and filled with "joy unspeakable" and "big
with glory."

Whitefield's history of his college life, especially the first
edition of it, brought upon him the scathing criticisms of both
friends and foes. The recital of his diabolical buffetings is
more minute than sensible, and was sure to excite the sarcastic
laughter of men like Lavington. The taciturnity which came over
him is neither to be desired nor commended. His religious jargon,
partly bracketed and partly otherwise, is not "good to the use of
edifying." The lengthy descriptions of his fastings, prayers, and
devotions have a somewhat pharisaic tinge. But, notwithstanding all
these animadversions, this section of Whitefield's autobiography
is useful and important. Throughout, it exhibits the spirit, the
principles, and the practices of the Oxford Methodists. It shows
that college life at Oxford was profligately wicked, and that men
like the Oxford Methodists were greatly needed. It reveals the
significant and momentous fact that the work of God was not confined
to the Oxford University, for, in his way, young Whitefield was
intensely religious before he left his home at Gloucester. The
omnipresent Spirit was preparing men for a great work in different
places--not only in Oxford and Gloucester, but, as will be seen
hereafter, in various parts of the United Kingdom, and even across
the Atlantic.

     "When I was sixteen years of age," said Whitefield, a few months
     before he died, "I began to fast twice a week for thirty-six
     hours together, prayed many times a day, received the sacrament
     every Sabbath, fasted myself almost to death all the forty days
     of Lent, during which I made it a point of duty never to go less
     than three times a day to public worship, besides seven times a
     day to my private prayers; yet I knew no more that I was to be
     born a new creature in Christ Jesus, than if I had never been
     born at all. I had a mind to be upon the stage, but then I had
     a qualm of conscience. I used to ask people, 'Pray can I be a
     player, and yet go to sacrament, and be a Christian?' 'O,' said
     they, 'such a one, who is a player, goes to sacrament; though,
     according to the law of the land, no player should receive
     the sacrament unless he gives proof that he repents; that was
     Archbishop Tillotson's doctrine.' 'Well then,' said I, 'if that
     be the case, I will be a player;' and I thought to act my
     part for the devil as well as anybody. But, blessed be God, He
     stopped me in my career. I must bear testimony to my old friend,
     Mr. Charles Wesley. He put a book into my hands, called 'The
     Life of God in the Soul of Man,' whereby God showed me that
     I must be born again or be damned. I know the place; it may
     perhaps be superstitious, but, whenever I go to Oxford, I cannot
     help running to the spot where Jesus Christ first revealed
     Himself to me, and gave me the new birth. I learned that a man
     may go to church, say his prayers, receive the sacrament, and
     yet not be a Christian. How did my heart rise and shudder like a
     poor man that is afraid to look into his ledger, lest he should
     find himself a bankrupt. 'Shall I burn this book? Shall I throw
     it down? Or shall I search it?' I did search it; and, holding
     the book in my hand, thus addressed the God of heaven and earth:
     'Lord, if I am not a Christian, for Jesus Christ's sake show me
     what Christianity is, that I may not be damned at last.' I read
     a little further, and discovered that they who know anything of
     religion know it is a vital union with the Son of God--Christ
     formed in the heart. O what a ray of Divine life did then break
     in upon my soul! I fell a writing to all my brethren and to my
     sisters. I talked to the students as they came into my room. I
     laid aside all trifling conversation. I put all trifling books
     away, and was determined to study to be a saint, and then to
     be a scholar. From that moment God has been carrying on His
     blessed work in my soul. I am now fifty-five years of age, and
     shall leave you in a few days; but I tell you, my brethren, I am
     more and more convinced that this is the truth of God, and that
     without it you can never be saved by Jesus Christ."[28]

  [28] Eighteen Sermons preached by Rev. George Whitefield. Revised by
  Dr, Gifford: p. 359.

Nothing more need be said on the subject of Whitefield's conversion.
The reader now has Whitefield's own testimonies at three different
periods of his life. The accounts might have been clearer, more
precise, and perhaps more scripturally expressed; but the fact is
patent: Whitefield was converted--regenerated--born again--in the
year 1735. Or, perhaps, to speak more correctly, it was in 1735,
that, through a penitent, heartfelt trust in Christ, he received
"the Spirit of adoption," God sending "forth the Spirit of His Son
into his heart, crying, Abba, Father."

For five years, Whitefield had been a sincere and earnest penitent.
Like all the other Oxford Methodists, he sought salvation, not by
simple, heartfelt faith in Christ, but by self-denial, ardent piety,
and the practice of good works. No wonder that he was destitute
of the joy arising from a firm and full assurance of acceptance
with God. The man relying on his own piety and beneficence must
necessarily live a joyless, anxious, and almost miserable life;
because he knows and feels that much in his past career has been
absolutely wicked; and because, however sincere his present piety,
and however commendable his good works, he knows that, at the best,
they are exceedingly imperfect, and, so far from meriting the Divine
favour, and atoning for the iniquities of other days, actually need
the forgiveness of a long-suffering God. No man of this description
can be happy. But it is far otherwise with the penitent, who, while
diligently using all the means of grace, and to the utmost of his
power endeavouring to serve both God and man, obeys Scripture
teaching by firmly believing that the death of Christ was a full
atonement for _his sins, even his_, and by trusting solely and
exclusively in that astounding but scripturally revealed fact for
acceptance with God, both in this world and in that which is to
come. Let a man attain to such a faith as this, or rather let him be
blessed with such a blessing (for faith is a Divine gift as well as
a human act), and he cannot fail to be filled, as Whitefield was,
with "joy unspeakable and full of glory." Even his love to God,
also, becomes what it had never been before, inasmuch as he now, in
the death of Christ, sees God's love manifested to himself as it is
manifested nowhere else. Love kindles love, and the man serves his
Maker, not merely because it is his duty, but because he cannot help
it, love making his duty his delight. With such a belief concerning
the death of Christ, and such a trust in it, his faith in God, in
Providence, in the blessed Bible as a whole, is of necessity higher,
holier, stronger, broader, firmer than it ever could be without such
a belief and trust; and the same may also be said respecting hope,
and all the other Divine gifts and Christian virtues possessed and
exercised by the genuinely converted man.

It was not until the year 1735 that Whitefield attained to such a
state as this; and three more years elapsed before his friends and
religious preceptors, John and Charles Wesley, were brought to the
same self-renunciating crisis, and were enabled by the Holy Spirit
to trust simply and solely in the blood of Christ for personal,
present, and endless salvation.

From this point in their history, all the three were "new creatures
in Christ Jesus." This will be seen hereafter; but, before
proceeding further, it may be instructive and profitable to look at
them again in their transition period. Pietists more sincere and
earnest never lived; and yet none of them were happy. They were
ready to do and almost to suffer anything and everything that would
be conducive to the Divine honour; and yet they were in doubt and
darkness respecting their being blessed with the Divine favour. The
reason of this perplexed them. To others it is obvious. The language
of St. Paul concerning the Jews may, with perfect propriety, be
applied to the Oxford Methodists: "I bear them record that they
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being
ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God."

The following extracts from letters, written by Whitefield during
the twelve months immediately preceding his conversion, will not
only help to elucidate his character, but will also confirm what has
just been said respecting the principles, and piety, and personal
experience of the Oxford Methodists at this important period of
their history.

On the death of a young friend, Whitefield wrote:--

     "Oxon, July 18, 1734. I envy him his blessed condition. He,
     unquestionably, is divinely blessed, whilst we are still left
     behind to wrestle with unruly passions, and, by a continued
     looking unto Jesus and running in our Christian race, to press
     forward to that high prize of which he, dear youth, is now in
     full fruition."

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Bristol, September 10, 1734. You tell me Mr. P. wants to know
     my quality, state, condition, and circumstances. Alas! that any
     one should enquire after such a wretch as I am. However, since
     he has been so kind, pray tell him that, as for my quality, I
     was a poor, mean drawer, but, by the distinguishing grace of
     God, am now intended for the ministry; as for my estate, that I
     am a servitor; and as to my condition and circumstances, that I
     have not of my own anywhere to lay my head, but my friends, by
     God's providence, minister daily to me; and, in return for such
     unmerited, unspeakable blessings, I trust the same good Being
     will give me grace to dedicate myself without reserve to His
     service."

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Oxon, September 17, 1734. We must make a great progress in
     religion, to be inured, by frequent prayer and meditation, to
     the ecstatic contemplation of heavenly objects, before we can
     arrive at true heavenly-mindedness; and perhaps, after all our
     endeavours, whilst our souls are immersed in these fleshly
     tabernacles, we shall make but very small advances in so
     delightful and glorious an undertaking. But believe me, sir, you
     cannot imagine how vastly serviceable the constant use of all
     the means of religion will be in acquiring this blessed habit of
     mind: such as an early rising in the morning, public and private
     prayer, a due temperance in all things, and frequent meditation
     on the infinite love and purity of that unparalleled pattern of
     all perfection, our dear Redeemer. As for your mentioning the
     degeneracy of the age as an objection against our making further
     advances in any religious improvement, I cannot by any means
     admit of it. The Scriptures are to be the only rules of action,
     and the examples of our blessed Lord and His Apostles the grand
     patterns whereby we are to form the conduct of our lives. It is
     true, indeed, that instances of exalted piety are rarely to be
     met with in the present age, and if we were to take an estimate
     of religion from the lives of most of its professors, one would
     think that Christianity was nothing but a dead letter. But then
     it is not our religion, but ourselves that are to be blamed
     for this. Would we live as the primitive Christians did, we
     might, no doubt, have the same assistance vouchsafed us as they
     had. God's grace is never restrained. And though we should not
     arrive at those heights of heavenly-mindedness, for which some
     of the primitive Christians were eminent, yet we should imitate
     them as far as we can, and rely on the Divine goodness for
     grants of such a supply of grace as He, in His good pleasure,
     shall judge most convenient for us. Be pleased to send for Mr.
     Law's 'Christian Perfection' for me against my coming into the
     country, if printed in a small edition."

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Oxon, December 4, 1734. I am heartily glad that 'The Country
     Parson'[29] has had so good an effect upon you. The 'Prayers' I
     hope to send you next week. Only let me give you this caution,
     not to depend upon any advice or book that is given you, but
     solely on the grace of God attending it. The book which I have
     sent to my brother, and would recommend to you and all my
     Gloucester friends, will soon convince you how dangerous it is
     to be a lukewarm Christian, and that there is nothing to be done
     without breaking from the world, denying ourselves daily, taking
     up our cross, and following Jesus Christ. These things may seem
     a little terrible at first; but, believe me, mortification
     itself, when once practised, is the greatest pleasure in the
     world."

  [29] A book entitled "The Country Parson's Advice to his
  Parishioners."

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Oxon, February 20, 1735. I am surprised that you should
     have desired that 'Collection of Prayers,'[30] and be wholly
     unconcerned about them ever after. Indeed, they will be of no
     service to you, unless you grant me this one postulatum: 'that
     we must renounce ourselves.' What the meaning of this phrase
     may be, the preface to the Prayers will best inform you. I did
     not doubt of its meeting with but a cold reception, it being at
     first view so very contrary to flesh and blood. For, perhaps,
     you may think that this renouncing of ourselves must necessarily
     lead us (as it certainly does) to acts of self-denial and
     mortification; and that we probably may be saved without them.
     And lest you should after all imagine that true religion
     consists in anything besides an entire renewal of our nature
     into the image of God, I have sent you a book entitled 'The Life
     of God in the Soul of Man,' which will inform you what true
     religion is, and by what means you may attain it; as, likewise,
     how wretchedly most people err in their sentiments about it,
     who suppose it to be nothing else but a mere model of outward
     performances, without ever considering that all our corrupt
     passions must be subdued, and a complex habit of virtues, such
     as meekness, lowliness, faith, hope, and the love of God and of
     man, be implanted in their room, before we can have the least
     title to enter into the kingdom of God; our Divine Master having
     expressly told us that 'unless we renounce ourselves, and take
     up our cross daily, we cannot be His disciples.' I shall be glad
     to hear whether you keep up morning prayers, and how often you
     receive the Holy Communion, there being nothing which so much
     be-dwarfs us in religion as starving our souls by keeping away
     from the heavenly banquet."

  [30] Probably, "A Collection of Forms of Prayer for every Day in
  the Week," printed by Wesley in 1733,--his first publication,
  and originally intended for his pupils in Lincoln College.

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Oxon, March 6, 1735. I find, by what I can gather from your
     own and my brother's expressions, that my late letters have met
     with but a cold reception, and that you seem desirous of hearing
     no more of so seemingly ungrateful a subject as submitting our
     wills to the will of God, which is all that is implied in the
     phrase of _renouncing ourselves_. Alas, sir! what is there
     that appears so monstrously terrible in a doctrine that is
     the constant subject of our prayers, whenever we put up the
     petition, 'Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven;' the
     import of which seems to be this: 1. That we do everything
     that God wills, and nothing but what He wills; 2. That we do
     everything He wills, _only_ in the _manner_ He wills; 3. That
     we do those things He wills, only _because_ He wills. This is
     all I have been endeavouring to inculcate in my late letters.
     Dear sir, be not dismayed. The difficulty lies only in our first
     setting out. Be but vigorous at the first onset, and never
     fear a conquest. The renewal of our nature is a work of great
     importance. It is not to be done in a day; we have not only a
     new house to build up, but an old one to pull down. The means
     which are necessary to be used in order to attain this end, our
     cursed adversary the devil would represent to us in the most
     hideous forms imaginable; but, believe me, sir, there is really
     more pleasure in these formidable duties of self-denial and
     mortification, than in the highest indulgences of the greatest
     epicure upon earth."

These are fair specimens of Whitefield's letters at this period of
his history. He and the other Oxford Methodists were profoundly
sincere and earnest; but they were legalists, trying to save
themselves, instead of seeking to be saved by Christ. Their aim
was to subdue their "corrupt passions," and to produce within
themselves the virtues of "meekness, lowliness, faith, hope, and the
love of God and man." The means used to accomplish this aim were
public and private worship, "acts of self-denial and mortification,"
and the practice of good works. There is not a word in Whitefield's
letters respecting justification by faith in the atoning sacrifice
of the Divine Redeemer; and not a word respecting the great fact
that it is the sole work of the Holy Spirit to subdue and destroy
the "corrupt passions" of the sinner, and to plant within him "the
mind which was in Christ Jesus." The men were morose ascetics rather
than happy Christians.

Henceforward, the tone of Whitefield's letters is different. The
_new birth_ becomes a constant topic. The man, hitherto so gloomy
and taciturn, is jubilant. His doleful and long-continued _miserere_
is exchanged for songs of praise and thanksgiving. Hence the
following, written immediately after his conversion:--

     "Bristol, June 12, 1735. Were not your sighs on Sunday last some
     infant strugglings after the _new birth_? Surely they were; and
     I trust ere long the Holy Ghost will replenish your heart with
     comfort and peace. Methinks I would willingly undergo the pangs,
     so you might enjoy the pleasures, of the new birth; but this
     must not be. All we can do is to sympathise with and pray for
     each other."

       *       *       *       *       *

     "Bristol, September 5, 1735. I hope to feast with you at
     Crypt[31] next Sunday. Amazing, that ever sinners should sit
     with their Saviour! To what dignity has Christ exalted human
     nature! If Mr. Pauncefort's petitions for me ran after this
     manner, I should be thankful: 'That God would finish the good
     which He has begun in me; that I may never seek nor be fond of
     worldly preferment, but employ those talents it shall please
     God to entrust me with, to His glory and the Church's good;
     and likewise that the endeavours of my friends to revive true
     religion in the world may meet with proper success."

  [31] St. Mary de Crypt, Gloucester.

Thus, as early as June 12, 1735, Whitefield began to write
concerning "the pangs and the pleasures of the new birth." How was
it that he was not the means of leading the Wesley brothers into the
enjoyment of the same Divine blessing? A sufficient answer to this
is found in the fact that Whitefield was now absent from Oxford,
that four months afterwards Wesley and his brother set sail for
America, and that a long space of time elapsed before the three
friends were again united.

Whitefield needed rest. He had kept nine terms at Oxford, and had
not availed himself of a single vacation. Perhaps for want of money,
he had not left Oxford since the time he entered it. His health,
however, was now so seriously affected, that recreation became
imperative. Accordingly, about the end of the month of May, he, for
the first time, left the University, and returned to his friends
at Gloucester. One of his earliest letters, written during his
rustication, was addressed to his friend Wesley, and is too full
of interesting gossip to be omitted. It will also fitly close the
present chapter of Whitefield's history.

     "GLOUCESTER, _June 11, 1735_.

     "REV. SIR,--I should have taken the freedom of writing to you
     ere now, had I imagined you were returned to Oxford, or had my
     affairs been in any settled way; but really, sir, I have been so
     tossed up and down by variety of company and temptations, that I
     scarcely have had time to do anything.

     "I suppose my dear friends have acquainted you with the occasion
     of my leaving Oxford in so abrupt a manner; and Mr. Hutchin's
     letter has sufficiently informed you how I was received at
     Gloucester.

     "I have been a week at Bristol, and if any poor soul deserved
     your pious prayers, surely mine did; for it is impossible to
     tell you the dangers to which I was there exposed. But when we
     are weak, then are we strong. The Lord was my support, and I
     escaped the hands of the enemy. I had no great opportunities
     offered me at Bristol of promoting God's glory, any further than
     by shewing a good example. For, alas! all my relations seem to
     me in a sad tepid state; but I doubt not God will, one day or
     another, open their hearts to receive the word of truth.

     "My poor mother seems very desirous of withdrawing from the
     world, and, I trust, will soon have the means put in her
     way to do it. My brother, the innkeeper, has had variety of
     misfortunes, but, I fear, they have not met with their intended
     effect. However, I hope, if I can get him to use prayer, he will
     soon grow better. The captain of the ship[32] seems to be in too
     great a hurry to attend to religion; but he has a desire for
     reading Mr. Law, which I hope will be sanctified to him.

  [32] Whitefield's brother James.

     "But though my relations are in this condition, I find my
     other friends are not. They all vastly solicit me to pay them
     visits, so that, in a short time, I trust we shall have a
     Religious Society. I have gotten three clergymen at Gloucester;
     all I hope capable of being worked upon. I was also sent for
     by the gentleman's brother where I lodge, who is minister
     of Stonehouse,[33] in a very pressing manner; and I trust
     our meeting will be sanctified. My dear friend, who used to
     correspond with me at Oxford,[34] seems now to perceive some
     pangs of the new birth. His greatest struggle is to leave the
     world. I believe he will soon get over it. We have the whole
     house to ourselves. I find he has done what he could, and seems
     desirous of doing more. He earnestly desires your prayers. Last
     night, one Mr. Escott, a clergyman, came to see me, and we spent
     the evening in religious conversation, and hope ere long to have
     set nights for our meetings. Be pleased to advise me what I had
     best recommend for our reading. I was thinking to take Burkitt
     on the New Testament.

  [33] The Rev. Sampson Harris, thirty-five years vicar of the
     parish, and who died in 1763.

  [34] Gabriel Harris.

     "The Scriptures are now my sole study; but I am in great want
     of your advice, sir, how to prosecute them, intending to read
     them as practicably as possible. What do you think of Patrick
     on the Proverbs? I trust God has opened a door for me, to be an
     instrument of propagating the Gospel at Swansea, in Wales. The
     particulars you shall hear hereafter. I want sadly some more
     religious books, and a set of your 'Prayers.' Be so good, sir,
     as to let me have them, with a letter, next coach.

     "I have not time to write to my dear brethren as I would; but
     if Mr. Broughton, Mr. Salmon, etc., would send me a line, they
     cannot imagine what service they might do. If one of them would
     enlarge a little on the vanity of worldly pleasures, who knows
     how God may work by them? I have a great deal more to say, but
     must refer it to another opportunity. Give me leave, sir, only
     to send my due respects to all my brethren, and, with my earnest
     petition for their importunate prayers, to subscribe myself,

                        "Rev. Sir, your very humble servant,
                                    "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."[35]

  [35] _Methodist Magazine_, 1798, p. 440.




_WHITEFIELD ORDAINED._

MAY 1735 TO JUNE 1736.


Whitefield left Pembroke College, Oxford, at the end of May,
1735, and returned to it in the month of March, 1736. The history
of this long interval shall be given in his own words, from the
Autobiography first published in 1740, and revised and re-issued in
1756. He writes:

"As fast as I got strength after my sickness, my tutor, physician,
and some others were still urging me to go into the country,
hoping thereby to divert me, as they thought, from a too intense
application to religion.[36] [I had for some time been aware of
their design, and wrote letters beseeching my mother, if she valued
my soul, not to lay her commands on me to come down. She was pleased
to leave me to my choice; but,] finding at last it was necessary for
my health, and many other providential circumstances pointing out my
way, after earnest prayer for support, by the advice of my friends,
I left my sweet retirement at Oxford, and went to Gloucester, the
place of my nativity.

  [36] As heretofore, the passages which Whitefield omitted in the
  edition of 1756 are enclosed in brackets.

["Having now obtained mercy from God, and received the Spirit of
adoption in my heart, my friends were surprised to see me look
and behave so cheerfully, after the many reports they had heard
concerning me. However, I soon found myself to be as a sheep sent
forth amongst wolves in sheep's clothing; for they immediately
endeavoured to dissuade me, as they had lately done a friend that
began with me, from a constant use of the means of grace, especially
from weekly abstinence, and receiving the blessed sacrament. But God
enabled me to resist them steadfast in the faith; and, by keeping
close to Him in His holy ordinances, I was made to triumph over all.

"Being unaccustomed for some time to live without spiritual
companions, and finding none that would join heartily with me,--no,
not one,--I watched unto prayer all the day long, beseeching God to
raise me some religious associates in His own way and time.]

"'I will endeavour either to find or make a friend,' had been my
resolution now for some time; and therefore,[37] after importunate
prayer one day, I resolved to go to the house of one Mrs. W----,
to whom I had formerly read Plays, Spectators, Pope's Homer, and
such-like [trifling] books--hoping the alteration she would now
find in my sentiments might, under God, influence her soul. [God
was pleased to bless the visit with the desired effect.] She
received the word gladly. [She wanted to be taught the way of God
more perfectly,] and soon became a fool for Christ's sake. Not long
after, God made me instrumental to awaken several[38] young persons,
who soon formed themselves into a little Society, and had quickly
the honour of being despised at Gloucester, as we had been before
them at Oxford. Thus, _all_ that will live godly in Christ Jesus
must suffer persecution.

  [37] "Immediately upon my coming down."--Edit. 1756.

  [38] "More."--_Ibid._

"My mind being now more open and enlarged, I began to read the Holy
Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books, and praying
over, if possible, every line and word. This proved meat indeed,
and drink indeed, to my soul. I daily received fresh life, light,
and power from above. [I got more true knowledge from reading the
book of God in one month, than I could _ever_ have acquired from
_all_ the writings of men. In one word,] I found it profitable for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, every way
sufficient to make the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto
every good word and work.

"During my absence from Oxford I spent three weeks at Bristol,
whither I went to see some relations, but could not do them much
good, because of the prejudices they had conceived against me.
However, I daily walked with God, and, going to visit[39] an aunt
then in an almshouse there, God brought in my way a young woman who
was hungering and thirsting after righteousness. She received the
word into an honest and good heart, and since has proved a true
follower of Jesus Christ. [So gracious was the Lord, even in these
my very early days, not to leave Himself without witness, in that
He _thus_ vouchsafed to bless my poor endeavours in _every_ place
whereto His providence now sent me.]

  [39] "A relation, then in one of the almshouses."--_Ibid._

"According to His abundant mercy, He also raised me up some temporal
supplies. [For some considerable time, I had followed the example
of Professor Frank, and, whenever I wanted any worldly assistance,
pleaded the Scripture promises for the things of this life, as well
as that which is to come, in the name of Jesus Christ. This is
still my practice, and I never yet failed of success. When I came
from Oxford, on account of my sickness and other extraordinary and
unavoidable expenses, I owed, I think, about £12 or £13; and when I
went to Bristol, I was so poor that I was obliged to borrow money of
my kind hostess, Mrs. H----, with whom I lodged at Gloucester,--and
whose husband and family I pray God eternally to bless,--to bear my
charges on the road. This, I bless God, did not dishearten me; but
I continued pleading the promises in the name of Christ; and, soon
after my coming to Bristol, I received an answer. For, a brother of
mine coming from sea, God inclined him to give me four guineas and
some other necessaries. And when I returned to Gloucester, as I did
after I had continued a short time at Bristol,] those I expected
should assist me did not; but persons I never spoke to, and who, I
thought, were my enemies, were raised up to supply my wants, and
[40] fulfil that promise which I always pleaded, 'Seek first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you.'

  [40] "Thereby helped to."--Edit. 1756.

["Oh, what sweet communion had I daily vouchsafed with God in
prayer after my coming again to Gloucester! How often have I been
carried out beyond myself when sweetly meditating in the fields! How
assuredly have I felt that Christ dwelt in me, and I in Him! and how
did I daily walk in the comforts of the Holy Ghost, and was edified
and refreshed in the multitude of peace! Not that I was always upon
the mount; sometimes a cloud would overshadow me; but the Sun of
righteousness quickly arose and dispelled it, and I knew it was
Jesus Christ that revealed Himself to my soul.

"I always observed, as my inward strength increased, so my outward
sphere of action increased proportionably.] In a short time,
therefore, I began to read to some poor people twice or thrice a
week. [I likewise visited two other little Societies besides my own;
and almost every day, both then and since, have found the benefit
of being tempted myself, because that alone taught me how to give
proper advice to those that came to me when tempted.

"Occasionally, as business and opportunity permitted, I generally
visited one or two sick persons every day; and though silver
and gold I had little of my own, yet, in imitation of my Lord's
disciples, who entreated in the behalf of the fainting multitude, I
used to pray unto Him, and He, from time to time, inclined several
that were rich in this world to give me money, so that I generally
had a little stock for the poor always in my hand.] One of the poor
whom I visited in this manner was called effectually by God as at
the eleventh hour. She was a woman above threescore years old, and,
I really believe, died in the true faith of Jesus Christ.

["About this time God was pleased to enlighten my soul, and bring
me into the knowledge of His free grace, and the necessity of
being justified in His sight by faith _only_.[41] This was more
extraordinary, because my friends at Oxford had rather inclined to
the mystic divinity; and one of them, a dear servant of the Lord,
lately confessed he did not like me so well at Oxford as the rest of
his brethren, because I held justification by faith _only_. And yet,
he observed, I had most success. But, blessed be God! most of us
have now been taught this doctrine of Christ, and, I hope, shall be
willing to die in the defence of it. It is the good old doctrine of
the Church of England. It is what the holy martyrs in Queen Mary's
time sealed with their blood, and which I pray God, if need be, that
I and my brethren may seal with ours.

  [41] What is meant by this? According to Whitefield's own statement,
  he had, some time before, at Oxford, been regenerated by the grace
  of the Holy Ghost,--a blessing which is always connected with
  justification, or the forgiveness of sins. Both are received at the
  same moment, and both by the simple exercise of faith, or trust in
  Christ. The only interpretation to be given to what Whitefield here
  relates is, that he now, at Gloucester, was made _more thoroughly
  to understand_ the great Scripture doctrine of justification by
  faith only. The books from which he obtained this added light are
  immediately specified.

"Burkitt's and Henry's Expositions were of admirable use to lead me
into this and all other gospel truths. For many months have I been
almost always upon my knees, to study and pray over these books.
The Holy Spirit, from time to time, has led me into a knowledge of
Divine things, and I have been directed, by watching and reading the
Scripture in this manner, even in the minutest of circumstances, as
plainly as the Jews were, when consulting the Urim and Thummim at
the high priest's breast.

"Allein's 'Alarm,' Baxter's 'Call to the Unconverted,' and Janeway's
'Life,' which I read at leisure hours, much benefited me. I bless
God, the partition wall of bigotry and sect-religion was soon broken
down in my heart; for, as soon as the love of God was shed abroad in
my soul, I loved all, of whatever denomination, that loved the Lord
Jesus in sincerity of heart.

"During my stay here,] God enabled me to give a public testimony
of my repentance as to seeing and acting plays. For, hearing the
strollers were coming to town, and knowing what an egregious
offender I had been,[42] [I wrestled with God in prayer to put me
in a way to manifest my abhorrence of my former sin and folly.
In answer to this, I was stirred up to extract][43] Mr. Law's
excellent treatise, entitled 'The Absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage
Entertainments.' [God gave me favour in the printer's sight; and, at
my request, he put a little of it in the _News_][44] for six weeks
successively, and God was pleased to give it His blessing.

  [42] "That way."--Edit. 1756.

  [43] "I extracted."--_Ibid._

  [44] "This was put into the _Gloucester Journal_."--Ibid.

["Having been absent for about six months from the University, I
thought it time to think of returning thither; but, before I came to
a resolution, was convinced of the contrary.

"At my first coming to Gloucester, being used to visit the prisoners
at Oxford, I prayed most earnestly that God would open a door for me
to visit the prisoners here also. Quickly after, I dreamed that one
of the prisoners came to be instructed by me; and it was impressed
much upon my heart. In the morning I went to the door of the county
gaol. I knocked, but nobody came to open it. I thought the hour was
not yet come. I waited still upon God in prayer, and in some months
after came a letter from a friend at Oxford, desiring me to go to
one Pebworth, who was broken out of Oxford gaol, and was retaken
at Gloucester.[45] As soon as I read this letter, it appeared to me
that my prayer was now answered. Immediately I went to the prison,
assuredly gathering that the Lord called me thither. I met with the
person, and, finding him and some others willing to hear the word
of God, and having gained leave of the keeper and two ordinaries, I
constantly read to and prayed with them every day I was in town. I
also begged money for them, whereby I was enabled to release some of
them, and cause provisions to be distributed weekly amongst them,
as also to put such books into their hands as I judged most proper.
I cannot say any one of the prisoners was effectually wrought upon;
however, much evil was prevented, many were convinced, and my own
soul was much edified and strengthened in the love of God and man.

  [45] This escaped prisoner is referred to in the following
  letter, written at the time to Wesley, in Georgia:--

     "REV. SIR,--At length, I have an opportunity of writing to my
     spiritual father in Christ. I must first acquaint you that I am
     not yet returned to Oxford. God hath opened to me a door into
     our Castle. The manner of it was a little surprising. A youth
     broke out of Oxford prison, under strong convictions of sin,
     and was apprehended here again. Mr. Broughton heard of it, and
     bid me visit him. I went, and so have continued reading to the
     prisoners ever since.

     "God has been pleased, in some measure, to succeed my labours
     here; and I hope, in time, we shall have a set of _altogether
     Christians_. The Holy Spirit seems to be moving on the hearts of
     some young ladies. One I observed quickened in an instant, who
     immediately set out for Carmarthen, and, I believe, continues
     steadfast amidst a world of temptations. Here are others, also,
     that seem to have some pangs of the new birth. A young country
     lad came to me the other day, and brought me a peck of apples,
     seven miles, on his back, as a token of gratitude for benefits
     received, under God, by my hands. He has such a sense of the
     Divine Presence, that he walks, for the most part, with his hat
     off.

     "The devil, I find, has a particular spite against weekly
     communion; yet I am in hopes we shall have the sacrament
     administered every Sunday at the cathedral. It would have been
     mentioned to the bishop before now, but Oxford friends advised
     to defer it till next summer.

     "But now I have mentioned the bishop: alas! how should I tremble
     to tell you how I have been continually disturbed with thoughts
     that I, a worm, taken from a common public-house, should, ere
     I die, be one myself! If you remember, sir, in my greatest
     affliction last Lent, it was told me I should be a bishop, and
     therefore must be poor in spirit. That thought came home upon
     me with so much force, and so many circumstances have since
     occurred to favour the temptation, that I knew not what to do.
     I communicated it to Mr. Broughton, and, thanks be to God, it
     is somewhat abated. O heavenly Father! for Thy dear Son's sake,
     keep me from climbing. Let me hate preferment! For Thy infinite
     mercies' sake, let me love a low, contemptible life; and never
     think to compound matters between the happiness of this world
     and the next!

     "My friends here are for drawing me into orders; but I trust God
     will still provide for me without it. I know I am not qualified,
     and, therefore, by the help of the Lord Jesus, I will not comply.

     "I hope all our friends continue steadfast and zealous at
     Oxford. I have been with Madam Grenville" (query, Mary
     Granville, afterwards the celebrated Mrs. Delany), "who seems to
     be a Christian indeed. My love, rev. sir, to the young merchant,
     whose example I hope we shall all be enabled to follow, if God
     requires our assistance in Georgia. Mr. Charles and Mr. Ingham,
     I hope, will accept the same from my unworthy hands.

        "Your very humble servant and son in Christ Jesus,
                                      "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."*

     * _Methodist Magazine_, 1798, p. 359.

"Thus employed, I continued in my own city three months
longer--despised indeed by man, but highly blessed by the grace
of God. My understanding was enlightened, my will broken, and my
affections more and more enlivened with a zeal for Christ. Many
such, I believe, were added to our little Society as shall be saved.
Fresh supplies came from unexpected hands to defray my expenses at
the University; and, at the end of nine months, I returned thither,
to the natural joy and comfort of my friends, till I was called into
holy orders--the particular circumstances of which I shall relate in
the following section.

"From the time I first entered the University, especially from the
time I knew what was true and undefiled Christianity, I entertained
high thoughts of the importance of the ministerial office, and was
not solicitous what place should be prepared for me, but how I
should be prepared for a place.][46] That saying of the apostle,
'Not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he fall into the
condemnation of the devil;' and that first question of our excellent
ordination office, 'Do you trust that you are _inwardly_ moved by
the Holy Ghost to take upon you this office and administration?'
used even to make me tremble whenever I thought of entering into
the ministry. [The shyness that Moses and some other prophets
expressed, when God sent them out in a public capacity, I thought,
was sufficient to teach me not to run till I was called. He who
knoweth the hearts of men is witness that I never prayed more
earnestly against anything than I did against entering into the
service of the Church _so soon_. Oftentimes I have been in an agony
of prayer, when under convictions of my insufficiency for so great a
work.] With strong crying and tears, I have often said, 'Lord, I am
a youth of uncircumcised lips! Lord, send me not into Thy vineyard
yet!' [And sometimes I had reason to think God was angry with me for
resisting His will. However, I was resolved to pray _thus_, as long
as I could. If God did not grant my request by keeping me out of it,
I knew His grace would be sufficient to support and strengthen me
whenever He sent me into the ministry.]

  [46] "Being now about twenty-one years of age, some began to enquire
  when I was to take orders; but--" Edit. 1756.

"To my prayers I added my endeavours, and wrote letters to my
friends at Oxford, beseeching them to pray to God to disappoint the
designs of my country friends, who were for my taking orders as soon
as possible. Their answer was, 'Pray we the Lord of the harvest to
send thee and many more labourers into His harvest.' [Another old
and worthy minister of Christ,[47] when I wrote to him about the
meaning of the word 'novice,' answered, it meant a novice in grace,
not in years; and he was pleased to add, if St. Paul were then at
Gloucester, he believed St. Paul would ordain me.] All this did not
satisfy me. I still continued instant in prayer against going into
holy orders, and was not thoroughly convinced it was the Divine
will, till God, by His providence, brought me acquainted with the
present Bishop of Gloucester.[48]

  [47] This was probably the Rev. Thomas Cole, born in Gloucester,
  in the year 1679, and educated for the ministry in the Independent
  Academy at Abergavenny. In 1718, he became the pastor of an
  Independent Church in his native city. When Whitefield was a
  pupil in St. Mary de Crypt School, he used frequently to attend
  Mr. Cole's ministry; and often diverted his schoolfellows by a
  ridiculous relation of some of the good man's pious anecdotes. On a
  schoolfellow admonishing him, and saying, "George, one day you may
  be a preacher yourself," the youngster replied, "If I am, I will not
  tell stories as old Cole does." A few years after this, Whitefield
  preached in Cole's pulpit, and used several anecdotes to illustrate
  the subject of his discourse. When the service was concluded, Mr.
  Cole, good-humouredly, laid his hand on Whitefield's shoulder, and
  said, "I find Whitefield can tell stories as well as old Cole."
  Stimulated by Whitefield's example, Mr. Cole became a sort of
  local itinerant, and, in the villages round about Gloucester, and
  frequently out of doors, preached three or four times every week. He
  was seized by death, whilst preaching at Nymphsfield, on August 4,
  1742, and entered into the joy of his Lord in the sixty-fourth year
  of his age.--_Theological Magazine_, 1803, p. 461.

  [48] "Dr. Benson, the late worthy Bishop of Gloucester."--Edit. 1756.

["Before I conversed with his lordship, God was pleased to give me
previous notice of it. Long ere I had the least prospect of being
called before the bishop, I dreamed, one night, I was talking with
him in his palace, and that he gave me some gold, which seemed to
sound again in my hand. Afterwards, this dream would often come
into my mind; and whenever I saw the bishop at church, a strong
persuasion would arise in my mind that I should very shortly go to
him. I always checked it, and prayed to God to preserve me from ever
desiring that honour which cometh of man. One afternoon it happened
that the bishop took a solitary walk, as I was told afterwards,
to Lady Selwyn's, near Gloucester, who, not long before, had made
me a present of a piece of gold. She, I found, recommended me to
the bishop]; and, a few days after,[49] as I was coming from the
cathedral prayers [thinking of no such thing], one of the vergers
called after me, and said the bishop desired to speak with me. I
[forgetful at that time of my dream] immediately turned back,[50]
considering within myself what I had done to deserve his lordship's
displeasure. [51]When I came to the top of the palace stairs, the
bishop took me by the hand, told me he was glad to see me, and bid
me wait a little till he had put off his habit, and he would return
to me again. [This gave me an opportunity of praying to God for His
assistance, and adoring Him for His providence over me.]

  [49] "One afternoon as I was coming from the cathedral prayers, one
  of the vergers was sent to inform me that his lordship desired to
  speak with me."--Edit. 1756.

  [50] "And imagining it was to chide me, I began to consider."--Edit.
  1756.

  [51] "But to my great surprise."--Edit. 1756.

"At his coming [again] into the room, the bishop told me he had
heard of my character, liked my behaviour at church, and, enquiring
my age, said, 'Notwithstanding I have declared I would not ordain
any one under three and twenty, yet I shall think it my duty to
ordain you whenever you come for holy orders.' [He then made me a
present of five guineas to buy me a book, which, sounding again in
my hand, put me in mind of my dream; whereupon my heart was filled
with a sense of God's love.]

"Before I came home, this news[52] had reached my friends; who,
being fond of my having such a great man's favour, were very
solicitous to know the event of my visit. Many things I hid from
them; but, when they pressed me hard, I was obliged to tell them how
the bishop, of his own accord, had offered to give me holy orders
whenever I would; on which they, knowing how I had depended on the
declaration his lordship had made some time ago, that he would
ordain none under three and twenty, said,--and I began to think
myself,--'That if I held out any longer I should fight against God.'
At length, I came to a resolution, by God's leave, to offer myself
for holy orders the next Ember days.

  [52] "Of the bishop's sending for me."--Edit. 1756.

"The only thing now in dispute was into what part of my Lord's
vineyard I should be sent to labour first. God had given me much
success in Gloucester; and, my friends being desirous of having me
near them, I had thoughts of settling among them. But, when I came
to Oxford, my friends there urged several reasons for my continuing
at the University. 'The Mr. Wesleys had not long gone abroad, and
now no one was left to take care of the prison affairs,' etc. They
further urged, 'That God had blessed my endeavours _there_, as well
as at Gloucester; that the University was the fountain-head; that
every gownsman's name was legion; and that if I should be made
instrumental of converting one of _them_, it would be as much as
converting a whole parish.' At the same time, unknown to me, some
of them sent to that great and good man, the late Sir John Philips,
who was a great encourager of the Oxford Methodists;[53] and, though
he had never seen, but only heard of me, yet he sent word he would
allow me £30 a year, if I would continue at the University. Upon
this, finding the care of the prisoners would be no more than, under
God, I could undertake with pleasure, and knowing the University was
the best place to prosecute my studies, I resolved, God willing,
to wait at Oxford a blessing on the firstfruits of my ministerial
labours.

  [53] This was in the month of March, 1736, immediately after
  Whitefield's return to Oxford (Whitefield's Works, vol. i., p. 13).
  Charles Wesley, on his return from Georgia, writes:--1736, December
  6. I waited upon good old Sir John Philips, who received me as one
  alive from the dead. Here I heard a most blessed account of our
  friends at Oxford; their increase both in zeal and number" (C.
  Wesley's Journal, vol. i., p. 56). Sir Thomas Philips was one of
  the first members of the Society in Fetter Lane ("Life and Times of
  Countess of Huntingdon," vol. i., p. 77). He died a few weeks after
  Charles Wesley saw him. Hence, the following from the _Gentleman's
  Magazine_ for 1737, p. 60:--Died, January 5, 1737, Sir John Philips,
  Bart., of Picton Castle, Pembrokeshire; uncle to Sir Robert
  Walpole's lady. He served in several Parliaments for Pembroke and
  Haverfordwest'; was one of the commissioners for building the fifty
  new churches; and one of the Society for the Reformation of Manners."

"In the meanwhile, having before made some observations upon the
thirty-nine Articles, and proved them by Scripture,[54] I strictly
examined myself by the qualifications required for a minister in
St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, and also by every question that I
knew was to be publicly put to me at the time of my ordination. This
latter I drew out in writing at large, and sealed my approbation of
it every Sunday at the blessed sacrament. At length, Trinity Sunday
being near at hand, and having my testimonials from the college, I
went, a fortnight beforehand, to Gloucester, intending to compose
some sermons, and to give myself more particularly to prayer.

  [54] "At least to my own satisfaction."--Edit. 1757.

["But God's thoughts are not as our thoughts. When I came to
Gloucester, notwithstanding I strove and prayed for several days,
and had matter enough in my heart, yet I was so restrained that
I could not compose anything at all. I mentioned my case to one
clergyman. He said, 'I was an enthusiast.' I wrote to another who
was experienced in the divine life. He gave me some reasons why
God might deal with me in that manner, and withal promised me his
prayers. I joined with him in importunate supplication to know
whether this restraint was from God or not. At last, in reading Mr.
Henry upon the Acts of the Apostles, this passage was much pressed
upon my heart, 'We assayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit
suffered us not.' Looking a little farther, I found a quotation out
of Ezekiel, wherein God said to that young prophet, just after He
had given him a divine and public commission, 'Thou shalt be dumb;
but when I speak unto thee, then thou shalt speak.' This made me
quite easy. The remainder of the fortnight I spent in reading the
several missions of the prophets and apostles, and wrestled with God
to give me grace to follow their good examples.]

"About three days before the time appointed for ordination, the
bishop came to town. The next evening, I sent his lordship an
abstract of my private examination upon these two questions: 'Do you
trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon
you this office and administration?' And, 'Are you called according
to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the laws of this realm?'
The next morning, I waited on the bishop. He received me with much
love, telling me 'he was glad I was come; that he was satisfied with
the preparation I had made, and with the allowance given me by Sir
John Philips. I had myself,' said he, 'made provision for you of two
little parishes; but since you choose to be at Oxford, I am very
well pleased. [I doubt not but you will do much good.'] Upon this,
I took my leave, abashed with God's goodness to such a wretch, but
withal exceedingly rejoiced that, in every circumstance, He made my
way into the ministry so very plain before my face.

"This, I think, was on Friday. The day following I continued in
abstinence and prayer. In the evening, I retired to a hill near the
town, and prayed fervently for about two hours, in behalf of myself
and those that were to be ordained with me.

"On Sunday morning, I rose early, and prayed over St. Paul's Epistle
to Timothy, and more particularly over that precept, 'Let no one
despise thy youth.' [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.] When the bishop laid his hands upon my head,[55]
[my heart was melted down, and] I offered up my whole spirit, soul,
and body to the service of God's sanctuary. I read the Gospel, at
the bishop's command, with power, and afterward sealed the good
confession I had made before many witnesses, by partaking of the
holy sacrament of our Lord's most blessed body and blood.

  [55] "If my vile heart doth not deceive me."--Edit. 1756.

["Being restrained from writing, as was before observed, I could not
preach in the afternoon, though much solicited thereto; but I read
prayers to the poor prisoners, being willing to let the first act of
my ministerial office be an act of charity.

"The next morning, waiting upon God in prayer to know what He would
have me to do, these words, 'Speak out, Paul,' 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. I 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.

"Oh, the unspeakable benefit of reading to the poor, and exercising
our talents while students at the University! Such previous acts
are very proper to prepare us for the work of our Lord, and make us
not unapt to teach in a more public manner. It is remarkable that
our Lord sent out His Apostles on short missions before they were
so solemnly authorized at the day of Pentecost. Would the Heads
and Tutors of our Universities follow His example, and, instead
of discouraging their pupils from doing anything of this nature,
send them to visit the sick and prisoners, and to pray with, and
read practical books of religion to the poor, they would find such
exercises of more service to them, and to the Church of God, than
all their private and public lectures put together.

"Thus God dealt with my soul. At the same time, by His gracious
providence, He supplied me with all things needful for my body
also. For He inclined the bishop's heart to give me five guineas
more; and, by this time, a quarter's allowance was due to me from
Sir John Philips; both which sums put together fully served to
defray the expenses of my ordination, and of taking up my bachelor's
degree, which was conferred on me at Oxford the week after my being
ordained, when I was about one and twenty years of age.

"These changes from a servitor to a Bachelor of Arts--from a common
drawer to a clergyman--were no doubt temptations to think more
highly of myself than I ought to think; and some were therefore
jealous over me, as I trust they always will be, with a godly
jealousy. God, who is rich in mercy, thereby forewarned me of my
danger, stirred up my heart to pray against spiritual pride, and
kept me, as I hope He will to the end, in some measure always
humbled before Him.

"Thus did God, by a variety of unseen acts of providence and grace,
train me up for, and at length introduce me into, the service of His
Church."]

Here ends all that is _biographical_ in Whitefield's "Short Account
of God's Dealings with him from his Infancy to the time of his
entering into Holy Orders." The pamphlet concludes with an address
to the reader, and with Addison's hymn, beginning--

                  "When all Thy mercies, O my God."

What ought to be said respecting this remarkable publication? At the
time, it was pre-eminently remarkable, much more so than it would
have been a hundred years afterwards. The world was not accustomed
to such pious outpourings. It might have passed muster among
Cromwell's Roundheads; and in the present age it would probably
have died a silent death, no one either brandishing the scalping
knife of the censorious critic, or dropping the tear of a loving
lamenter upon its tomb. A hundred and thirty years ago the state
of things was widely different to the circumstances now existing.
Then religion was ridiculed rather than revered. Rare were the
pious biographies committed to the press. It was almost--perhaps an
absolutely--unheard-of thing for a man to publish his own religious
experience. At all events, never before had a young clergyman of
the Church of England, only twenty-five years of age, perpetrated
an act like this. Bishops, priests, deacons, and literati of
all descriptions were unpleasantly surprised; many were almost
savagely indignant. Who was the piously pert neophyte writing in
a strain like this? How should his publication be treated? Would
it be best to be silently contemptuous? That was impossible; for
the writer, though so young, had become one of the most notorious
men in England. Would it be wise to review it out of existence by
philosophical and sober disquisitions on its mysterious expressions,
its general style, and its startling statements? Nay, this would
be _infra dignitatem_. The only way remaining was to treat the book
with disdainful ridicule, and its youthful author with the sarcastic
severity merited by a vain, conceited, bouncing enthusiast, whose
religion had made him mad.

This was the kind of treatment young Whitefield had to meet. Did he
deserve it? Answers to this question will be different, according
to the standpoints occupied. The man of the world will say "Yes."
The response of the educated, fastidious religionist will, perhaps,
be to the same effect--quite as firm, though not so loud. Men who
experience and practise the same religion Whitefield did, will
yield a general approval, but object to particular statements and
expressions.

This, substantially, was done by Whitefield himself, when,
sixteen years afterwards, he published his revised edition. As
already stated, in the preface of 1756, he distinctly declares
that many mistakes have been rectified, and many passages, justly
exceptionable, erased. In the foot notes, the reader has seen the
rectifications; and, in the passages which are bracketed, he has
seen the erasures. There can be no question that the sentences
and paragraphs omitted were faults. Whitefield was simple-minded,
humble, and ingenuous; but, in order to magnify the grace of God,
he sometimes furnished the censorious critic with an opportunity
to pronounce him vain, conceited, self-glorious, proud of prayer
and piety. Such a judgment, however, would be unjust. Whitefield's
autobiography has many faults; but they are mental rather
than moral,--the faults of defective training, inexperience,
youthfulness, and impulsive ardour,--rather than of self-conceit and
pride. No man knew Whitefield better than Wesley did, and no man
had a wider acquaintance with human character; and yet Wesley, in
advanced life, perfectly exonerated Whitefield from charges like the
fore-mentioned, and declared, in reference to the very statements
contained in the book now in question, that, "For their artless
and unaffected simplicity, they may vie with any writings of the
kind."[56]

  [56] Wesley's Works; vol. vi., p. 163.




_COMMENCEMENT OF MINISTRY._

1736.


Sunday, June 20, 1736, was a grand day to Whitefield. In the
imposing old cathedral, founded by Osric, "sub-regulus" of Ethelred,
King of Mercia--an edifice in which Robert of Gloucester, author
of the rhyming "Chronicle of England," had been a monk; and John
Hooper, the immortal martyr, had been Gloucester's first Protestant
prelate--stood a youth, who, five years before, had been a common
tapster in an adjoining public-house. For three years and a half,
by acting as a servitor, he had almost entirely maintained himself
in Pembroke College, Oxford. His progress in learning had been such
that he was soon to be a Bachelor of Arts. By the unsolicited and
exceptional favour of Bishop Benson, at the early age of a little
more than twenty-one, he now presented himself for admission into
holy orders. Notwithstanding his wickedness as a child, and his
fondness for "playing roguish tricks," he had always wished to be a
clergyman, and had, many a time, amused himself and the companions
of his boyhood by imitating ministers reading prayers. In his
eighteenth year, before he went to Oxford, he had told his mother
that he meant, ere long, to be a preacher; and had been rebuked for
his arrogance by the good woman asking what he meant, and telling
him to hold his tongue. But now the fond mother was, probably,
present, in the fine old church, to witness the consummation of
her George's wish--her heart filled to overflowing with honest
pride and pious gratitude. And there, in all likelihood, was
Gabriel Harris, one of Whitefield's earliest friends; and Robert
Raikes, the manager and printer of the _Gloucester Journal_, one
of Whitefield's warm admirers, and the _reputed_ founder of Sunday
schools; and also not a few of Whitefield's young companions, with
whom, in days not long since past, he had acted theatricals, for the
amusement of the mayor and aldermen of the city, and of the head
master of St. Mary de Crypt's pleasure-loving school. The hour was a
solemn one for the young candidate, but it was also full of joy. He
writes:--

                               "GLOUCESTER, _June 20, 1736_.

     "This is a day much to be remembered; for, about noon, I was
     solemnly admitted by good Bishop Benson, before many witnesses,
     into holy orders. I endeavoured to behave with unaffected
     devotion. I trust I answered every question from the bottom of
     my heart. I hope the good of souls will be my only principle of
     action. Let come what will--life or death--I shall henceforwards
     live like one who this day, in the presence of men and angels,
     took the holy sacrament upon the profession of being inwardly
     moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon me that ministration in the
     Church. This I began with reading prayers to the prisoners in
     the county gaol. Whether I myself shall ever have the honour of
     styling myself a prisoner of the Lord, I know not; but indeed,
     my dear friend, I can call heaven and earth to witness that,
     when the bishop laid his hand upon me, I gave myself up to be a
     martyr for Him, who hung upon the cross for me. Known unto Him
     are all future events and contingencies. I have thrown myself
     blindfold, and I trust without reserve, into His almighty hands."

In such a spirit Whitefield entered upon his life-long work. He
coveted the ministry, and yet he seemed to dread it. He was eager
for the fight, but he trembled at being sent before his Master
called him. In one of the last sermons that he preached in England,
on August 30, 1769, he told the crowd, in his London tabernacle, "I
never prayed against any corruption I had in my life, so much as I
did against going into holy orders. I have prayed a thousand times
till the sweat has dropped from my face like rain, that God, of His
infinite mercy, would not let me enter the Church before He called
me. I remember once in Gloucester--I know the room--I look up at
the window when I am there and walk along the street--I know the
bedside, and the floor upon which I prostrated myself, and cried,
'Lord, I cannot go. I shall be puffed up with pride, and fall into
the condemnation of the devil. I am unfit to preach in Thy great
name. Send me not, Lord, send me not yet.'"[57] No wonder that God
honoured the ministry of such a man. He sought no earthly emoluments
or rank. He durst not begin to preach until he was satisfied of a
call from God; but, receiving that, it was no high-sounding boast,
when he declared his readiness, not only to become a prisoner, but a
martyr for his Divine Redeemer.

  [57] Eighteen Sermons, by G. Whitefield. Taken in shorthand by
  Gurney, p. 445.

Three days after his ordination, he wrote to a friend as follows:--

     "GLOUCESTER, _June 23, 1736_.

     "Never a poor creature set up with so small a stock. When the
     good Bishop Benson announced last year, in his visitation
     charge, that he would ordain none under three and twenty, my
     heart leaped for joy. I thought I should have time (as my
     intention was) to make at least a hundred sermons, with which to
     begin my ministry. But so far from this being the case, I have
     not a single one, except that which I made for a small Society,
     and which I sent to a neighbouring clergyman, to convince him
     how unfit I was to take upon me the important work of preaching.
     He kept it for a fortnight, and then sent it back with a guinea
     for the loan of it, telling me he had divided it into two, and
     had preached it morning and evening to his congregation. With
     this sermon I intend to begin, God willing, next Sunday, not
     doubting but that He, who increased a little lad's loaves and
     fishes for the feeding of a great multitude, will, from time to
     time, supply me with spiritual food for whatever congregations
     He, in His all-wise providence, shall be pleased to call me
     to. Help, help me, my dear friend, with your warmest addresses
     to the throne of grace. At present, this is the language of my
     heart--

       "'A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,
          Into Thy hands I fall;
        Be Thou my strength, my righteousness,
          My Jesus, and my all.'

        "Oh, cease not to pray for

     "Yours, etc.,

     "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."

To another friend, he wrote, on June 26th, "To-morrow I am to preach
at Crypt, but, believe me, I shall displease some, being determined
to speak against their assemblies. But I must tell them the
truth, or otherwise I shall not be a faithful minister of Christ."
To-morrow came. Whitefield preached his first sermon; and, three
days afterwards, wrote as follows:--

                               "GLOUCESTER, _June 30, 1736_.

     "MY DEAR FRIEND,--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 together. The sight at first a little awed
     me; but I was comforted with a heartfelt sense of the Divine
     presence, and soon found the unspeakable advantage of having
     been accustomed to public speaking when a boy at school, and of
     exhorting and teaching the prisoners, and poor people at their
     private houses, whilst at the University. By these means, I was
     kept from being daunted over-much. As I proceeded, I perceived
     the fire kindled, till at last, though so young, and amidst a
     crowd who knew me in my childish days, I trust I was enabled to
     speak with some degree of gospel authority. A 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 worthy prelate, as I am informed, wished that the
     madness might not be forgotten before next Sunday."

Thus did the renowned evangelist begin his ministry. Great was
the effect produced. A few mocked; but most of the congregation
displayed profound emotion, and, to use the slang of the young
preacher's enemies, "fifteen were driven mad." Bishop Benson himself
was probably not present; but the next day Whitefield wrote, "Our
good bishop was pleased to give me another present of five guineas,
a great supply for one who had not a guinea in the world."

The reader can easily imagine the scene in the Church of St. Mary de
Crypt, where the usual congregations, as in most other churches at
that period, were far from overflowing. Now there was a crowd--of
whom? old men, who, in years long since past, had been boon
companions of Whitefield's father; aged women, who remembered him
when he was a tiny infant in his mother's arms; topers, not a few,
whom, as a blue-aproned tapster, he had served in the neighbouring
public-house; schoolfellows with whom he had been associated in
many a merry spree; and a mingled multitude who knew him only as
a Gloucester boy, who, by his own exertions, had made himself an
honour to his native town. And what about the preacher? There
he stands, in a position which he had never occupied before, in
diaconal gown and bands, somewhat awed by the multitude before him,
and by a conviction of the responsibility of the office which he was
now assuming; but, at the same time, nerved with fidelity to his
Master, and comforted by a consciousness that God was with him; his
stature above the middle height--slender, and yet well-proportioned;
his manner graceful; his features regular; his complexion fair; his
eyes small, lively, and of a dark-blue colour, one of them with a
squint, occasioned by the measles in his childhood days; his voice
unusual, both in melody and strength, and its fine modulations
accompanied by the exquisite action of an accomplished orator. No
wonder that one of his uneducated hearers said "he preached like a
lion." The comparison was far from perfect. It expressed the force
and vehemence of that oratory which awed his hearers, and made them
tremble like Felix before Paul; but it failed to convey an idea of
the fervent and melting charity, the earnestness of persuasion, and
the outpouring of redundant love, which characterised the preaching
of this youthful evangelist for the next four and thirty years.[58]

  [58] See "Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon," vol. ii. p. 355.

The subject of his first sermon was, "The Necessity and Benefit
of Religious Society;"[59] probably the same sermon he afterwards
preached before the Religious Societies, at one of their quarterly
meetings, in Bow Church, London, and which was immediately
published. "I shall displease some," said Whitefield in a letter
already quoted, "for I am determined to speak against their
_assemblies_." How he fulfilled his determination will be seen by
the following extract from his sermon:--

     "I warn you of the great danger those are in, who, either by
     their subscriptions, presence, or approbation, promote Societies
     of a quite opposite nature to religion. And here I would not be
     understood to mean only those public meetings which are designed
     manifestly for nothing else but revellings and banquetings,
     for chambering and wantonness, and at which a modest _heathen_
     would blush to be present; but also those seemingly _innocent_
     entertainments and meetings which the _politer_ part of the
     world are so very fond of, and spend so much time in; but
     which, notwithstanding, keep as many persons out of a sense
     of _true religion_ as intemperance, debauchery, or any other
     crime whatever. Indeed, whilst we are in this world, we must
     have proper relaxations, to fit us both for the business of
     our profession and religion. But then, for persons who call
     themselves _Christians_, that have solemnly vowed at their
     _baptism_, to renounce the _vanities_ of this sinful world, and
     that are commanded in Scripture to '_abstain from all appearance
     of evil_,' and to have their '_conversation in heaven_,'--for
     such persons as these to support meetings that (to say no worse
     of them) are vain and trifling, and have a natural tendency to
     draw off our minds from God, is absurd, ridiculous, and sinful."

  [59] Whitefield's Life and Journals, 1756, p. 24.

This certainly was plain speaking in the first sermon of a young
man only a little more than twenty-one years of age; but it is
exactly what might be expected from an Oxford Methodist; and
something like it is greatly needed, and would be highly useful in
the pulpits of the present day. Would that preachers now had more
of the uncompromising, bold, conscientious fidelity that marked the
young evangelist among his townsmen in the Church of St. Mary de
Crypt, Gloucester! Prophets "prophesy smooth things; and the people
love to have it so." It was otherwise with Whitefield. "I must tell
them the truth," said he to his friend only a few hours before he
preached his first sermon, "I must tell them the truth, or I shall
not be a faithful minister of Christ." From this he never swerved.
To the end of life it was one of his great guiding principles.
It often brought upon him the ridicule of wicked wits, and the
displeasure of many who imagined themselves Christians; but to all
this Whitefield was indifferent. His Master was Christ; and, "to his
own Master," he was determined to stand or fall (Rom. xiv. 4). Not
long before his death, he said, "I remember when I began to speak
against baptismal regeneration--in my first sermon, printed when I
was about twenty-two years old, or a little more--the first quarrel
many had with me was because I did not say that all people who were
baptized were born again. I would as soon believe the doctrine of
transubstantiation. Can I believe that a person who, from the time
of his baptism to the time, perhaps, of his death, never fights
against; the world, the flesh, and the devil, and never minds one
word of what his god-fathers and god-mothers promised for him, is a
real Christian? No, I can as soon believe that a little wafer in the
hands of a priest is the very blood and bones of Jesus Christ."[60]

  [60] Eighteen Sermons, by G. Whitefield, 1771, p. 351.

So much then in reference to Whitefield's notable sermon in the
Church of St. Mary de Crypt, on June 27th, 1736,--the first of
upwards of eighteen thousand which he preached before he died.[61]

  [61] _Gospel Magazine_, 1776, p. 443.

On June 30th, he returned to Oxford, "where," he says, "I was
received with great joy by my religious friends. For about a week,
I continued in my servitor's habit, and then took my degree of
Bachelor of Arts. My dear and honoured friends, the Reverend Messrs.
John and Charles Wesley, being now for some time embarked for
Georgia, and one or two more having taken orders, the interest of
Methodism, as it was then and is now termed, had visibly declined,
and very few of this reputed mad way were left at the University.
This somewhat discouraged me at times, but the Lord Jesus supported
my soul, and made me easy by giving me a strong conviction that I
was where He would have me to be. I soon found my degree was of
service to me, as it gave me access to those I could not be free
with when in an inferior situation; and, as opportunity offered, I
was enabled to converse with them about the things which belonged
to the kingdom of God. The subscriptions for the poor prisoners,
which amounted to about £40 per annum, were soon put into my hands.
Two or three small charity schools, maintained by the Methodists,
were under my more immediate inspection; which, with the time I
spent in following my studies, private retirement, and religious
converse, sweetly filled up the whole of my day, and kept me from
the too common complaint of having any time hang upon my hands.
The distributing money and books amongst the poor prisoners, and
employing such as could work, I found was of admirable service. For
hereby they were kept from that worst of gaol diseases--idleness;
and were not only convinced that we bore a good will towards
them, but also led them, as it were, under an obligation to hear
the instructions we gave them. This practice was first taken up
by the Messrs. Wesley; and would to God all ordinaries of prisons
would copy their good example! They would deserve well of the
Commonwealth, and if actuated by the love of God, would receive a
glorious reward from Him, who hath said, 'I was sick and in prison,
and ye came unto me.'"[62]

  [62] "Further Account of God's Dealings with George Whitefield,
  1747," p. 6.

       *       *       *       *       *

Whitefield was happy--happy in himself, in his associates, in his
work, and in his hope of heaven. A week after his arrival at Oxford,
he wrote:--

     "The very idea of what we are to be in glory transports me.
     There, there, we shall see the blessed Jesus, whom our souls
     have so eagerly thirsted after in this life, surrounded with
     glory, and attended with myriads of His holy angels, who will
     rejoice at our safe arrival to their holy mansions, and with
     repeated echoes will welcome us to heaven. There, there,
     we shall not only see, but live with Him, not for a day, a
     month, a year, an age, but to all eternity. And who can tell
     the pleasure, comfort, peace, joy, delight, and transport a
     glorified saint will feel in the possession of his wished-for,
     longed-for, ever adorable, ever gracious, blessed, beloved
     triune God, and that for ever? Surely the happiness will be so
     great, that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither can the
     heart of man conceive the thousandth part thereof."

For a few weeks Whitefield devoted himself to the work of
endeavouring to benefit the prisoners in Oxford gaol; and then wrote
as follows:--

     "I began to be more than content in my present state of life,
     and had thoughts of abiding at the University, at least for some
     years, to finish my studies, and do what good I could amongst
     the poor despised Methodists. But, by a series of unforeseen,
     unexpected, and unsought-for providences, I was called from
     my beloved retirement to take a journey to the Metropolis.
     Whilst I was an undergraduate, I was very intimate with one
     Mr. Broughton,[63] a professed Methodist, who had lately taken
     orders, and was curate at the Tower of London. With him, when
     absent, I frequently corresponded; and, when present, we took
     sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God as
     friends. Being called down into Hampshire, he wrote me to be
     of good courage, and bid me hasten to town to officiate in his
     absence. Accordingly, on Wednesday, August 4th, (the prisoners
     being provided for by the coming of Mr. Hervey,[64] another
     young worthy Methodist, who had lately taken Deacon's Orders,)
     with fear and trembling, I obeyed the summons, and went in
     the stage coach to London. There being no other passenger, I
     employed myself a good part of the way in earnest supplication
     to the God of all grace to be my guide and comforter. In the
     evening, I reached the Tower, and was kindly received by my dear
     friend. The remainder of the week was spent in visiting Sir
     John Philips, etc., who were too glad to see me. But God sent
     me something to ballast it; for, as I passed along the streets,
     many came out of their shops to see so young a person in a gown
     and cassock; and one cried out, 'There's a boy parson;' which
     served to mortify my pride, and put me also upon turning the
     apostolical exhortation into prayer, 'Let no man despise thy
     youth.'"[65]

  [63] The Rev. Thomas Broughton, afterwards for many years the
  secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

  [64] The Rev. James Hervey, afterwards Rector of Weston-Favel, and
  author of the well-known "Meditations and Contemplations," etc.

  [65] "Further Account of God's Dealings with Mr. George Whitefield,
  1747," p. 7.

Whitefield remained two months in London, and preached his first
sermon there, on Sunday, August 8th, in Bishopsgate-street Church.
"As I went up the pulpit stairs," says he, "almost all seemed to
sneer at me on account of my youth; but they soon grew serious and
exceedingly attentive, and, after I came down, shewed me great
tokens of respect, blessed me as I passed along, and made great
enquiry who I was."[66]

  [66] _Ibid._, p. 8.

During his residence in the metropolis, Whitefield's work in the
Tower was to read prayers twice a week, catechize and preach once,
and visit the soldiers in the infirmary and barracks daily. But,
besides this, he read prayers every evening at Wapping Chapel, and
preached in Ludgate prison every Tuesday. The chapel in the Tower
was crowded every Sunday, numbers of "religious friends," and
"several young men," coming "from divers parts of London," to hear
him "discourse about the new birth and the necessity of renouncing
all in affection in order to follow Jesus Christ."

When he had been about a month in town, letters came from the
Wesley brothers, and from Ingham, their fellow-labourer in
Georgia. Whitefield's soul was fired, and he longed to join them.
He consulted his friends; but they "all agreed that labourers
were needed at home; that, as yet, he had no visible call to go
abroad; and that it was his duty not to be rash, but to wait and
see what Providence might point out to him." For the time being,
this contented him; and, Mr. Broughton having returned to London,
Whitefield went back to his charge at Oxford.[67]

  [67] "Further Account of God's Dealings with George Whitefield,
  1747," p. 9.

Meanwhile, he wrote the following characteristic letter to Wesley,
in Georgia, a letter which, though containing several of the facts
already narrated, is too interesting to be omitted or abridged.

     "LONDON, _September 2, 1736_.

     "VERY DEAR AND REV. SIR,--Being informed by Mr. Hutton that a
     ship would soon sail towards your coasts, I thought it would
     be unpardonable in me not to write to my spiritual father in
     Christ. But what shall I begin with first? How shall I have room
     or time to relate to you a thousandth part of those mercies
     which God, of His infinite goodness in Christ Jesus, hath
     conferred upon me since I wrote last?

     "If I mistake not, my last was dated from Gloucester, whence,
     after the Lord Jesus had made me an instrument of forming a
     Society of some sincere souls, God called me to Oxford again.
     From thence, after a stay of three months, I returned to
     Gloucester. Directed by Divine Providence, accompanied with the
     earnest solicitations of my friends, I entered into holy orders.
     O pray, rev. sir, that I may be a faithful minister of Christ.

     "You will naturally ask, 'Where hath it pleased God to settle
     you?' Hear, rev. sir, and admire the Divine goodness towards the
     worst of sinners. My friends had laid a plan, and the Bishop had
     united with them, to have me settled in Gloucester. But I made
     it my earnest prayer to Almighty God, through Christ, that I
     might either not go into orders, or continue at Oxford some time
     longer, to fit me for the work of the ministry. God was pleased
     to answer this prayer wonderfully; for, upon my return to
     Oxford, most of our friends being called away to other parts of
     the country, the Lord put it into the heart of our dear friend
     Mr. Morgan[68] to inform Sir John Philips of our affairs; who
     immediately sent me word that he would allow me £30 a year, if
     I would continue at Oxford, and superintend the affairs of the
     Methodists. Providence directed me to accept of his kind offer:
     accordingly, I preach every Sunday to the prisoners, and follow
     your steps as close as possible.

  [68] Doubtless, Charles Morgan, one of the Oxford Methodists.

     "I am now at London, supplying the place of dear Mr. Broughton,
     who is curate at the Tower; he being gone to Dummer, in
     Hampshire, to assist dear Mr. Hutchins,[69] who is gone to put
     his brother under the care of pious Mr. Clayton.[70]

  [69] Another Oxford Methodist, afterwards _Doctor_ Richard
  Hutchins, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.

  [70] The Rev. John Clayton, also an Oxford Methodist, who became
  Chaplain and Fellow of the Collegiate Church, Manchester.

     "Sir John Philips is very much in our interest, and a blessed
     instrument of supplying our wants, and of encouraging us in our
     weak endeavours to promote the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour
     Jesus Christ. But few friends are left at Oxford; yet the Lord
     hath given me great encouragement out of His holy word, and I
     hope that some gownsmen will yet be added to our number. The
     greatest opposition comes from the laity at present. Yet, there
     is much good done. Our fellow-students are pretty quiet, though
     our names stink among them. The Lord make us humble and thankful!

     "The stock for the prisoners is put into my hands. The Lord give
     me wisdom and grace to distribute it as I ought.

     "Farewell, rev. and dear sir. God be with you, and prosper you
     in all your undertakings. May you be made a happy instrument of
     converting the Gentiles. And, after you have served your blessed
     Master the appointed time on earth, may you sit down with Him in
     eternal rest and glory in heaven.

                                        "I am, etc.,

                                    "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."[71]

  [71] Life of C. Wesley, vol. i., p. 70.

About the beginning of the month of October, 1736, Whitefield
returned to his "poor prisoners" at Oxford. He writes:--

     "Oh what a delightful life did I lead here! What communion did I
     daily enjoy with God! How sweetly did my hours in private glide
     away, in reading and praying over Mr. Henry's Comment upon the
     Scriptures! Nor was I alone happy; for several dear youths were
     quickened greatly, and met daily at my room to build up each
     other in their most holy faith."[72]

  [72] "Further Account of God's Dealings with George Whitefield,
  1747," p. 9.

Who were the youths in question? They evidently were new converts,
and therefore cannot be included among the Oxford Methodists raised
up prior to Wesley's embarkation for Georgia. Whitefield has left us
in the dark respecting their names and their future life; but is it
not reasonable to infer that, as several of Wesley's friends ran an
illustrious career, so Whitefield's collegiate converts were also
honoured, by the great Head of the Church, in turning men from sin
to holiness, and from the power of Satan unto God? We know something
of the immense results of the influence exerted by Wesley upon young
men at Oxford, but are entirely ignorant of the subsequent history
of those whom Whitefield gathered together after Wesley left
for Georgia. Some of them were poor, and were indebted for their
maintenance, at least in part, to that woman of singular excellence,
the Lady Betty Hastings,[73] sister of the ninth Earl of Huntingdon,
whose remarkable dowager became Whitefield's chief friend and
patroness. Whitefield writes concerning his young associates and
himself:--

     "God raised up friends for our temporal support. The late
     Honourable Betty Hastings, that elect lady, allowed some of them
     two or three small exhibitions. I also partook of her ladyship's
     bounty; and a gentleman, whose heart was in an especial manner
     knit to me when in London, was stirred up, without being
     solicited, to send me not only money for the poor, but also a
     sufficiency to discharge debts I had contracted for books before
     I took my degree. Upon his recommendation, also, I was chosen
     a corresponding member of the Society for Promoting Christian
     Knowledge, which I rejoiced in, as it gave me an opportunity of
     procuring books at a cheap and easy rate for the poor people."

  [73] Mr. Barnard says, "She was a lady of exactest breeding, of fine
  intellectual endowments, filled with Divine wisdom, renewed in the
  spirit of her mind, fired with the love of her Creator, a friend of
  all the world, mortified in soul and body and to everything that is
  earthly, and little lower than the angels." ("Historical Character
  of Lady Elizabeth Hastings," by Thomas Barnard, M.A., p. 95.) She
  died on December 22, 1739, in the fifty-seventh year of her age.
  ("Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon," vol. i., p. 249.)

Whitefield's life at Oxford was useful and happy. He loved the
place, and was as reluctant to leave it as his friend Wesley had
been twelve months before; and yet his work here was now nearly
ended. Six weeks after his return from London, he again took
his departure, and henceforth lived the life of an evangelistic
wanderer. He writes:--

     "About the middle of November" (1736) "I was once more called
     from my beloved, though little, scene of action. The Rev.
     Mr. Kinchin, now with God,[74] had lately been awakened, and
     accordingly resolved to associate with the despised Methodists.
     He was then minister of Dummer, in Hampshire; and, being likely
     to be chosen Dean of Corpus Christi College, he desired me to
     come and officiate for him, till that affair should be decided.
     By the advice of friends I went, and he came to supply my place
     at Oxford. His parish consisting chiefly of poor and illiterate
     people,[75] my proud heart could not well brook it. I would
     have given all the world for one of my Oxford friends, and
     mourned for lack of them, as a dove that has lost her mate. But
     upon giving myself to prayer, and reading Mr. Law's excellent
     character of _Ouranius_, in his "Serious Call to a Devout
     Life," my mind was reconciled to such conversation as the place
     afforded me. Before I came to Dummer, Mr. Kinchin had used his
     people, according to the rubric, to have public prayers twice
     a day, namely, in the morning, it being winter season, before
     it was light; and in the evening after the people returned from
     their work. He also catechised the lambs of the flock daily,
     and visited from house to house. He loved his people, and was
     beloved by them. I prosecuted his plan, and generally divided
     the day into three parts--eight hours for study and retirement,
     eight hours for sleep and meals, and eight hours for reading
     prayers, catechising, and visiting the parish. The profit I
     reaped by these exercises, and conversing with the poor country
     people, was unspeakable. I frequently learnt as much by an
     afternoon's visit as in a week's study."

  [74] The Rev. Charles Kinchin died January 4, 1742.

  [75] The population of Dummer, even as late as 1801, was only 286.

Whitefield returned to Oxford on June 30, and purposed to spend
"some years" in that sect of learning; but already he had been two
months in London, and was now at Dummer, officiating for his friend
Kinchin. During his six weeks' residence in this small Hampshire
village, two events occurred, one or other of which was likely to
affect the whole of his future life. First, he had the offer of
"a very profitable curacy in London." Had he accepted this, he
probably, instead of becoming one of the illustrious evangelists of
the eighteenth century, would have settled down into an earnest and
useful, but unknown, pastor of a parochial church and congregation.
The offer, to a penniless young parson, was a tempting one; and the
wonder is that it was not eagerly embraced. Whitefield was not only
without means, but was actually in debt. On November 5, just before
he went to Dummer, he wrote to his friend Harris, the Gloucester
bookseller, "Herewith I have sent you £7, to pay for Mr. Henry's
Commentary. Dear Squire Thorold lately made me a present of ten
guineas; so that now (for ever blessed be the Divine goodness!) I
can send you more than I thought I should be able to do. In time I
hope to pay the apothecary's bill." The man was without purse and
scrip; and yet, strangely enough, he declined the offer of the "very
profitable curacy" which had been made to him.

The other event was the return of Charles Wesley from Georgia.
Charles landed in England on December 3; and, on December 22, wrote
in his journal: "I received a letter from Mr. Whitefield, offering
himself to go to Georgia."[76] What happened during this brief
interval of nineteen days? Whitefield shall relate his own story. He
says:--

     "About the middle of December, a letter came from Mr. Broughton
     informing me that Mr. Charles Wesley was arrived at London.
     Soon after came a letter from Mr. Charles himself, wherein he
     informed me that he was come over to procure labourers; but,
     added he, 'I dare not prevent God's nomination.' In a few days
     after this came another letter from Mr. John Wesley, wherein
     were these words--'Only Mr. Delamotte is with me, till God
     shall stir up the hearts of some of His servants, who, putting
     their lives in His hands, shall come over and help us, where
     the harvest is so great, and the labourers so few. What if thou
     art the man, Mr. Whitefield?' In another letter were these
     words--'Do you ask me what you shall have? Food to eat, and
     raiment to put on; a house to lay your head in, such as your
     Lord had not; and a crown of glory that fadeth not away.' Upon
     reading this, my heart leaped within me, and, as it were, echoed
     to the call. Many things concurred to make my way clear. Mr.
     Kinchin was now elected Dean of Corpus Christi College, and
     being thereby obliged to reside at Oxford, he willingly took
     upon him the charge of the prisoners. Mr. Hervey was ready to
     serve the cure at Dummer. Mr. Wesley was my dear friend, and I
     thought it would be a great advantage to be under his tuition.
     Georgia was an infant, and likely to be an increasing colony;
     and the Government seemed to have its welfare much at heart. I
     had heard many Indians were near it, and had thought it a matter
     of great importance that serious clergymen should be sent there.
     Retirement and privacy were what my soul delighted in. A voyage
     to sea would, in all probability, not do my constitution much
     hurt; nay, I had heard that the sea was sometimes beneficial to
     weakly people. And supposing the worst, as I must necessarily
     return to take priests' orders, it would then be left to my
     choice whether I would fix in my native country or go abroad
     any more. These things being thoroughly weighed, I at length
     resolved to embark for Georgia; and knowing that I should never
     put my resolution into practice, if I conferred with flesh and
     blood, I wrote to my relations to inform them of my design,
     and withal told them, 'if they would promise not to dissuade
     me from my intended voyage, I would come and take a personal
     leave of them; if otherwise, knowing my own weakness, I was
     determined to embark without visiting them at all.' A few days
     after, Mr. Kinchin came to Dummer, and introduced Mr. Hervey
     into the cure. They gave me some friendly counsel; and, having
     spent the beginning of Christmas sweetly together, and taken an
     affectionate leave of the Dummer people, I returned once more to
     Oxford, to bid adieu to my friends, who were as dear to me as
     my own soul. My resolution at first a little shocked them; but
     having reason to think, from my relation of circumstances, that
     I had a call from Providence, most of them said, '_The will of
     the Lord be done!_'"[77]

  [76] See C. Wesley's Journal, vol. i., p. 59.

  [77] "Further Account of God's Dealings with George Whitefield,
  1747," p. 12.

The Rubicon was passed. Young Whitefield, at the age of twenty-two,
resolved to be a missionary. In the quietude of a small country
village, he had time to think and to pray about such a calling.
Fortunately, there were no friends at hand, with more affection than
self-denying zeal, ready to interfere with the yearnings of his big
heart of mercy, and to set aside his purpose. True, he had only six
months before resolved to live "some years" at Oxford, to complete
his studies, and to tend his prisoners; but Wesley's characteristic
letter had set his soul on fire, and now he was determined to join
his friend in Georgia.

To Whitefield, the year (1736) had been a most eventful one. The
first three months were spent in Gloucester, partly in forming and
establishing a religious Society; partly in visiting the inmates
of the county gaol; partly in reading authors like Burkitt, Henry,
Baxter, and Alleine; and, to a great extent, in public and private
prayer. There was no prospect of his being admitted into orders,
for he was only twenty-one, and the bishop had publicly declared
that he would ordain no one under twenty-three. Indeed, Whitefield
himself shrank from immediate ordination, and prayed with all his
might against it. In the month of March, he returned to Oxford,
where his friends made him Wesley's successor in the unendowed
chaplaincy of Oxford prison, and where, to his great surprise,
he received from Sir John Philips the offer of a gratuity of £30
a year. In June, he was ordained by Bishop Benson. In July, his
University made him a Bachelor of Arts. In August and September,
the "Boy-Parson" was employed in preaching in London churches and
in London prisons, and with such success that people from all parts
of the vast city began to flock together to hear him. In November,
the youthful preacher, who, to some extent, had startled London,
became the temporary pastor of a pigmy parish of less than three
hundred souls; and here, in the retirement he loved so much, he
suddenly, but not without thought and prayer, determined that he
would embark for Georgia. As soon as possible he hastened back to
Oxford; his collegiate friends, at first, were "a little shocked,"
but afterwards acquiesced; and he himself wrote to Charles Wesley
the following letter--a letter which will fitly close the present
chapter:--

     "OXON, _December 30, 1736_.

     "DEAREST SIR,--Last night I returned from a weeping flock
     at Dummer, and met with a grateful, sweet reception from my
     Oxon friends. But, alas! how transient are our visits in this
     life! for to-morrow I purpose, God willing, to set out for
     Gloucester; or otherwise I shall hardly see the bishop, who, I
     hope, will contribute something towards assisting the Americans.
     Add to this, that friends promise not to dissuade me from my
     enterprise; and I have a brother, I believe, now there, that
     comes on purpose to see me; so that all here bid me hasten away.
     O may such speedy removes teach me to be every moment ready at
     my blessed Master's call; and remind me that I have here no
     continuing city, but seek one to come!

     "I have great reason to bless God for sending me to Dummer. It
     has, I think, been an excellent preparation for Georgia. It has
     brought me to live alone, and much improved both my outward and
     inward man. I have written to Salmon, and will, God willing,
     shortly send to Hall.[78] No one but myself is ready to go from
     Oxford. Dear Mr. Hutchins will go hereafter, I believe; but
     his time, as yet, is not fully come. I trust God will give me
     strength to throw myself blindfold into His hands, and permit
     Him to do with me whatsoever seemeth good in His sight. All
     friends like the German Hymn admirably. Happy shall I be if my
     lot is cast amongst such pious souls;[79] but, I think, God
     calls me in a particular manner to assist your brother.

  [78] Matthew Salmon and Westley Hall, both of them Oxford
  Methodists, who, when the Wesleys went to Georgia, in October,
  1735, intended to go with them, but, at the last moment, changed
  their minds and remained at home.

  [79] The Moravians, who had settled in Georgia.

     "My friend will not take it amiss, if I enquire why he chooses
     to be secretary to Mr. Oglethorpe, and not rather go where
     labourers are so much wanted, in the character of a missionary.
     Did the bishop ordain us, my dear friend, to write bonds,
     receipts, etc., or to preach the Gospel? Or dare we not trust
     God to provide for our relations, without endangering, or at
     least retarding, our spiritual improvement? But I go too far.
     _Habe me excusatum._ You know I was always heady and self-willed.

     "I hear you are to be in Gloucester next week. Will dear Mr.
     Charles take a bed with me at Mr. Harris's? I believe he will
     be welcome. You will write next post, if convenient, and direct
     for me to Mr. Harris's, junior, bookseller, in Gloucester. All
     friends here kindly salute and long to see you. Mr. Kinchin is
     all heart. Dear Mr. Charles, adieu!--Let us wrestle in prayer
     for each other; and believe me to be, dearest sir,

                    "Your affectionate brother in Christ,
                                         "GEORGE WHITEFIELD.

     "P.S.--Is it expedient to go into priest's orders? Tell me, that
     I may acquaint the bishop."[80]

  [80] Life of C. Wesley, vol. i., p. 97.




_A YEAR OF PREACHING._

1737.


Whitefield wished and expected to embark for Georgia without delay;
but, by a series of unforeseen occurrences, he was detained in
England during the whole of the year 1737. In some respects this
was the most important period of his life. He had transferred the
care of the prisoners at Oxford to Dean Kinchin. James Hervey had
succeeded him in the curacy at Dummer. He had no parochial charge,
and probably he wished for none. At the early age of twenty-two, he
was an episcopally ordained evangelist, ready and eager to preach
whenever and wherever an opportunity of doing so was presented.
The year was spent in a continued succession of public services,
which literally startled the nation. He was a new phenomenon in the
Church of England. All eyes were fixed upon him. His popularity
in Bristol, London, and other places was enormous. His preaching
became the subject of public remark; his name, hitherto almost
entirely unknown, became a household word. Thousands and tens of
thousands were making enquiries concerning him. His position was
perilous. Popular favour might have ruined him; but the grace of
God preserved him. This year's evangelistic labours in England
gave a bias to the whole of his future life. Never afterwards did
he desire church preferment. As an ordained clergyman, the whole
of his subsequent career was irregular. He was a _gospel rover_.
No power on earth could confine him to a single parish or a single
church. He prepared the way for Methodist itinerancy. His marvellous
preaching brought Methodism into a notoriety far greater than it
had hitherto attained. Though Wesley, in learning and in mental
acquirements generally, was much superior to young Whitefield, and
though he was his equal in self-denying and laborious piety, it may
be fairly doubted whether Wesley's preaching in 1739 would have
attracted the attention which it did, if Whitefield had not preceded
him in 1737. Whitefield's appearance, voice, elocution, and pulpit
eloquence, drew around him thousands who, in the first instance,
cared but little about his doctrines. They came to see and hear the
orator; they returned more impressed with _what_ he said, than _how_
he said it. The doctrines of the man soon excited as much attention
as the man himself; and when, in the two years following, his more
sober-minded friends, the Wesley brothers, came preaching the same
great truths, the people--friends and foes--were as eager to hear
them as they previously had been to hear him.

That England needed such a ministry as that of Whitefield and the
Wesleys, no one doubts. It would be the height of bigoted absurdity
to say or to imagine that, when they commenced their marvellous
career, England had no converted ministers except themselves.[81]
The episcopal charges, the sermons, and other publications of the
period, afford ample proof that, in the pulpits of the Church of
England especially, there were a considerable number of not only
able and learned, but thoroughly earnest and godly men. The reader
must not forget that, at this very time, the see of London was
filled by a man (Edmund Gibson), who, in a conscientious discharge
of duty, had offended George the Second, not only by inveighing
from the pulpit against masquerades, to which that monarch was
much attached, but by procuring the signatures of several bishops
to an address to the throne, "praying for the entire abolition of
such pernicious diversions." It is true, that this selfsame bishop,
in 1739, warned the people of his diocese against the enthusiasm
of the Methodists; and, at a later period, published a pamphlet,
in which he animadverted somewhat strongly on "the conduct and
behaviour" of the members of this rising sect; but there is nothing,
in either of the publications just mentioned, contrary to the fact
that Dr. Gibson was an able, earnest, godly man. Besides Gibson,
there was Sherlock, successively bishop of Bangor, Salisbury, and
London, a man of great ability, whose sermons contain fine specimens
of pulpit eloquence, and who was even more eminent for his piety
than his learning. There was the celebrated Dr. Waterland, than
whom orthodoxy never had a more valiant defender, a man of immense
learning, who was once offered a bishopric, but modestly declined
it. There was Bishop Butler, who, while rector of Stanhope, in
1736, published his great work, "The Analogy of Religion, Natural
and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature." There was
Archbishop Secker, the intimate friend of Bishop Butler, and who,
for nearly three years, under an assumed name, carried on with
Wesley a friendly correspondence on some of the most vital truths
of the Christian religion. There was the well-known Dr. Jortin, an
able and voluminous author, and a sincere and devout Christian.
Many others might be mentioned, all learned and deeply pious,
though, perhaps, not preaching with clearness the characteristic
doctrines of the Methodists. Ever since the days of Dr. Horneck and
Bishop Beveridge, there had been in the pulpits of the Established
Church a considerable number of earnest preachers, resembling in
spirit, fidelity, and sentiment, the men who, in 1677, had been the
means of instituting the Religious, or, as they might be termed,
the Pre-Methodist Societies, wh

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