Preparation: The Power of Whitefield’s Ministry

The spark and sting of his sermons were the product of hard study.

The wonder of the Age”—that was how Presbyterian Samuel Davies described the amazing George Whitefield (1714–1770). No other preacher had such wide influence and revived so much interest in preaching on both sides of the Atlantic. Many regarded him as probably the greatest preacher in the history of English homiletics.

Surprisingly, however, the scholastic side of Whitefield has been largely ignored in favor of emphasizing his eloquence. Also, many have assumed that popularizers in the pulpit necessarily had to be free from the weight of academic apparatus, of wide reading.

Whitefield’s sermons admittedly were not clever essays nor profound treatises, yet neither were they hasty harangues. The spirited urgency with which he delivered them and their seeming artlessness may lead one to think of them as extemporaneous ramblings. In his Journals he let it be known that he was not about the business of producing homiletic masterpieces; but in the irony of God’s working the spark, sting, and seraphic soarings of his countless sermons were also the product of hard study. If the mother of Whitefield’s eloquence was ingenuity, its father was intelligence. We do not diminish his surrender to God’s Spirit, who used him to spearhead America’s Great Awakening, when we focus upon his preparations to preach. Indeed, we miss the secret to much of what made him great and gripping unless we pay proper attention to his reading. Fire without fuel soon burns out. Thousands were warmed by his words because he was well supplied from many rich stores of substance.

Whitefield’s collected sermons show his serious thought, as do his eight Journals. Even more helpful are his private letters (contained in Works). In them most of all he was more inclined to discuss books and recommend authors.

Traditionally evangelists are stereotyped as lolling in mental laziness. At times Whitefield breathed with difficulty because of his asthma, but he was listened to with pleasure because of his adept mind. Behind the rhapsodic voice, passionate outbursts, and enchanting appeals was a reservoir of learning, much disguised and much more distilled. He said something significant in addition to saying it attractively. Books shaped his mind and sharpened it.

The book that most occupied his attention and influenced his life was the Bible. He read it seriously and for long stretches even before he entered Oxford University. He confessed to giving it first place, sometimes to the neglect of his assigned lessons. Following his ordination as an Anglican priest and upon his first transatlantic voyage he recorded, at age 23, “Two most profitable hours in reading God’s Holy Word.” He read while on his knees, a practice he started in college and continued all his life. Meditation on Scripture was his favorite recreation throughout his life.

George Whitefield never scoffed at scholastic pursuits, nor attacked linguistic skills. At 17 he learned Greek and used it on a regular basis during his entire ministry. He cited the Greek New Testament in his correspondence with the bishop of London, and, on occasion, referred to it in sermons. Today Whitefield’s personal copy of the two-volume Greek Testament is housed in London. His notes on the interleaved edition reveal, according to Mr. George Stampe of the Wesley Historical Society, “a wide, if not deep, knowledge of the Greek language.”

Posing as pundit was against his convictions. As an itinerant evangelist and effective communicator he was not above referring to the latest translations, paraphrases, and renderings of the original biblical texts by others. He was familiar with Latin and read Latin theological books.

A roving evangelist in those days of arduous transportation had less time to read than would have been the case with a resident pastor. Rarely at home, Whitefield had little opportunity for sustained and systematic study. Obviously, circulating far and wide and preaching a staggering number of times (18,000) he found it impossible to read as much as he would have liked. The pressure of a full schedule, however, did not prevent him from analyzing doctrines, reviewing popular books, and giving exuberant defense of evangelical views, rights, methods, and men.

He showed and shared his intellectual interests. He urged his correspondents to improve themselves by reading. He distributed books, pamphlets, and tracts to people who could read but could not afford them, such as prisoners, soldiers, and seamen. Students especially were fortunate recipients of his book gifts. He pushed particular books, writing forewords to those being reissued. He edited William Law’s Serious Call for wider distribution, demonstrating that he realized the relevant Christian need not be completely serious about all Law laid down.

Ocean travel in colonial times was slow and hazardous, yet Whitefield looked upon it as welcome respite from his rigorous schedule. From England to America via Gibraltar took 11 to 17 weeks; the direct route took approximately 9 weeks. Whitefield crossed the Atlantic 13 times, gaining opportunity to read, meditate, pray, compose sermons, and write letters. On January 8, 1750, after laboring on land, he wrote, “I want to read, meditate, and write. But I despair of getting much time for these things, till I get upon the mighty waters.” He did not complain, therefore, when the voyage lasted longer than expected.

He was well-traveled and, with it, well-rested; but was he really well-read? In his collected works (seven volumes) he names 120 authors and up to 230 books. He read much more, of course, and those he did mention were, for the most part, his favorites. If his praise of the Puritans means anything, he read them widely. Yet he by no means confined himself to them. He showed he had a circumspect appetite in his driving desire to read.

Fields of Reading

In theology, the key book outside the Bible that altered his life significantly was Henry Scougal’s Life of God in the Soul of Man (1677). On the similar note of regeneration and of similar size were much praised, much prized Joseph Allein’s Alarm to the Unconverted (1672) and Richard Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted (1657). A favorite theme was justification, God’s declarative act by which he regards guilty sinners as righteous in Jesus Christ; among his favorite treatments were Jenk’s Submission to the Righteousness of Christ and Solomon Stoddard’s The Safety of Appearing in the Righteousness of Christ (1687).

Whitefield also liked books that rocked the ecclesiastical boat, such as Jonathan Warn’s The Church of England Man Turned Dissenter and Arminianism, the Back Door to Popery.

He rejoiced in “an excellent Scotch divine,” Thomas Boston, whose Fourfold State of Man and Covenant of Grace he liked. Along similar Calvinistic lines he extolled Edward Fisher’s Marrow of Modern Divinity and Elisha Cole’s Divine Sovereignty. Whitefield himself held to infralapsarianism in the matter of predestination. In eschatology he was amillennial.

Regarding the application of salvation, William Guthrie’s Christian’s Saving Interest, a stock evangelical work of the period, received his hearty appreciation. On the subject of sanctification, he depended heavily upon and delighted in the comprehensive work of Walter Marshall, Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, which, like the earlier volume by Guthrie, was reprinted as late as the 1950s. He acknowledged help in John Edwards’s Veritas Redux, the writings of Nicholas Ridley and Matthew Henry on the subject of the extent of Christ’s Atonement, a matter which led to a separation from John Wesley. Whitefield had no firsthand acquaintance with Calvin, Zwingli, or Melanchthon, as far as I have found in his extant references. His knowledge of Luther’s exegetical comments and aphorism were derived, in the main, from his Table Talk, Galatians Commentary, and The Bondage of the Will. His information in Reformation theology was more biographical than theological, more English than continental, more second generation than first generation. Yet we must not conclude that Whitefield was merely giving the gist of the Reformers, for he could in numerous sermons and letters give a restatement of the classic doctrines of the Reformation in the simplest, most salient language, indicating a digestion of the great doctrines, thoroughly integrated into his thought processes.

Big among the biblical commentators was the Presbyterian who died the year Whitefield was born, Matthew Henry (1662–1714), “my favorite commentator,” “that holy, judicious, and practical expositor.” Henry’s six-volume quarto set was a rich mine of insight, providing quaint and quick information for the busy evangelist. Whitefield also mentioned another near-contemporary, Samuel Clark (1676–1729), whose Bible with Annotations, seemed “best calculated for universal edification.” Expository tools in language aids were familiar to Whitefield, and so were the ponderous and hefty commentary-sermons of William Gurnal on Ephesians 6 and Thomas Goodwin on the first three chapters of Ephesians. Clear and crisp by Puritan standards were the works of Thomas Manton and John Flavel, available to today’s readers in reprint.

Whitefield always eyed books from a devotional angle. Prior to his conversion and during his spiritual infancy he read such books as Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ. The translated works of Prof. August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), the leader of pietism in Germany, prompted Whitefield to write to him.

An experience with Christ beyond participation in the sacraments was a continuous theme in Whitefield’s preaching. He argued this case from the historical fulcrum and illustrated it with biographical and autobiographical detail. He was especially enthusiastic about news reports on the revivals and religious societies scattered throughout the American frontier. He followed with interest the progress made in evangelical charitable works, such as an orphanage in Georgia.

Biography, especially of ministers, delighted him. “Biography … is the best history,” he once said. He continued, “writing and reading the lives of great and good men, is one of the most profitable and delightful kinds of history we can entertain ourselves with.” Among the lives he knew were Archbishop Cranmer, Latimer, Hooper, Bishop Gardner, Bishop Jewel, Bunyan, Luther, Law, Haliburton, Calvin, Philip Henry, Dr. Calamy, and “the venerable Foxe’s history of the martyres.”

When a boy, Whitefield was drilled in plays and poems. In maturity he quoted Homer and Horace, but did not retain much of the youthful enthusiasm he once had. Among poets of his century, he liked George Herbert in England and Edward Taylor in America.

In his youth at Oxford University Whitefield resolved to read or to prefer those books “such as entered into the heart of religion and which led directly into an experimental knowledge of Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Any book that did not result in building up one’s faith was considered unworthy of a Christian’s time. He urged students to read extensively, even though he warned of being “letter-learned.”

God was vitally interested, as he saw it, as much in what we read as in where we go. Instead of indiscriminate reading, a Christian should be noted for indefatigable reading in the best sources. For him Puritanism offered the best in reading material because it was solid and rewarding. He liked the “critical and judicious commentaries”: they edified and could “go to the bottom.” Of the Puritan writers he singled out “the great Preston” (John Preston), “the learned Dr. Owen” (John Owen), “the great” and “that learned pious soul” Dr. Thomas Goodwin, and “the amiable Mr. Howe” (John Howe). Richard Baxter got his frequent notice and approving nod.

Conclusions

Whitefield knew his talent was not in writing learned works. He strove, however, to improve his mental stock, to keep in touch with contemporary thought, and to argue effectively the merits of Reformed theology. Sometimes his sermons were disorganized; yet they were eloquently expressed and passionately delivered. Even from his digressions it was evident that he had not thrown education to the wind. They were always interesting, even instructive. Unlike some evangelists today, Whitefield never made derogatory remarks about painstaking research. He was not an anti-intellectual.

Further, in that era we can find no more articulate and attractive exponent of orthodoxy. To see the multitudes moved and to hear of large numbers embracing Christ and emulating his stance moved him to enormous effort.

To him a deliberately selective library was no drawback. He judged what he read in terms of faithfulness to Scripture, homiletical usefulness, and personal edification.

Certainly he was no lumbering technologist in theology, but Gilbert Thomas is inaccurate in saying that he was “no lucid thinker.” His mind had been tooled by exact study and trained in a theological tradition both celebrated and censured for its precise distinctions. He spoke and wrote clearly and persuasively. To compose and deliver compelling, life-changing sermons, to marshall the strongest arguments in the simplest manner, to adjust his comments to the immediate situation—all these features of his ministry bore an indirect testimony to the hours he spent in bumping against the best brains of the age.

So the fluent, sensitive Whitefield was a disciplined, reflective reader. Without failing to extol the freedom of the spirit’s presence, Whitefield exemplified the need for intense preparation in preaching. Behind the gifted spokesman of evangelical Christianity was the good student.

Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.

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