George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in AmericaBelcher, Joseph
Religion
George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in America
Belcher, Joseph
Whitefield, George, 1714-1770
"On Sunday morning at eight o'clock, his congregation consisted of
about fifteen hundred people; but at night several thousands came
together to hear him; and the place being too strait for them, many
were forced to go away, and some, it is said, with tears lamented
their disappointment. After sermon he left New York at ten at night,
to fulfil a promise that he had made to preach at Elizabethtown, at
eleven A. M. the next day."
We give a few paragraphs from the same vigorous pen, relating to
the personal manners and the doctrines of our evangelist. "He is a
man of a middle stature, of a slender body, of a fair complexion,
and of a comely appearance. He is of a sprightly, cheerful temper,
and acts and moves with great agility and life. The endowments of
his mind are very uncommon; his wit is quick and piercing; his
imagination lively and florid; and as far as I can discern, both are
under the direction of an exact and solid judgment. He has a most
ready memory, and I think speaks entirely without notes. He has a
clear and musical voice, and a wonderful command of it. He uses much
gesture, but with great propriety. Every accent of his voice, every
motion of his body _speaks_, and both are natural and unaffected. If
his delivery is the product of art, it is certainly the perfection
of it, for it is entirely concealed. He has a great mastery of
words, but studies much plainness of speech.
"His doctrine is right _sterling_. I mean, perfectly agreeable
to the Articles of the church of England, to which he frequently
appeals for the truth of it. He loudly proclaims all men by nature
to be under sin, and obnoxious to the wrath and curse of God. He
maintains the absolute necessity of supernatural grace to bring
men out of this state. He asserts the righteousness of Christ to
be the only cause of the justification of the sinner; that this is
received by faith; that this faith is the gift of God; that where
faith is wrought, it brings the sinner under the deepest sense of
his guilt and unworthiness to the footstool of sovereign grace, to
accept of mercy as the free gift of God, only for Christ's sake. He
denies that good works have any share in our justification: that
indeed they do justify our faith, and necessarily flow from it,
as streams from the fountain; but Christ's external righteousness
imputed to us, and his inherent righteousness wrought in us, is the
only cause of man's salvation. He asserts the absolute necessity of
the new birth, where a principle of new life is ingenerated in the
heart of man, and an entire change is produced in the temper and
disposition of the soul; and that this new production is the work
only of God's blessed Spirit. That wherever this change is wrought,
it is permanent and abiding, and that the gates of hell shall never
prevail against it. He asserts that the special influence and
indwelling of the Spirit, was not peculiar to the first Christians,
but that it is the common privilege of believers in all ages of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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