Study of George Whitefield

We're continuing our studies this afternoon of the great British evangelist, George Whitefield, and I want to share with us today some observations of Whitefield by a very close traveling companion of Whitefield towards the end of Whitefield's life. His name is Cornelius Winter, and Cornelius Winter is an interesting individual. He had a profound influence upon William Jay of Bath, England.

Jay, of course, had a pastor in Bath for 63 years, and he was a convert of Cornelius Winter. Well, Cornelius Winter was requested by William Jay to provide personal observations about George Whitefield because of his close connection with him, and I want to share that with us today. This is a rare document taken from my biography on Whitefield, my two-volume work published by Revival Literature, and I just want to read us Cornelius Winter's personal remarks about George Whitefield.

Usually for an hour or two before he entered the pulpit, he claimed retirement, and on a Sabbath day morning more particularly, he was accustomed to have Clark's Bible, Matthew Henry's Comment, and Cruden's Concordance within his reach. His frame at that time was more than ordinarily devotional. I say more than ordinarily because, though there was a vast vein of pleasantry usually in him, the intervals of conversation evidently appeared to be filled up with private ejaculation connected with praise.

His rest was much interrupted, and his thoughts were much engaged with God and the night. He has often said, at the close of his very warm address, this sermon I got when most of you who now hear me were fast asleep. He made very minute observations and was much disposed to be conversant with life from the lowest mechanic to the finest characters in the land.

He let nothing escape him but turned all into gold that emitted of improvement, and in one way or another the occurrence of the week or the day furnished him with matter for the pulpit. A specimen, when in an extraordinary trial was going forward, he would be present, and on observing the formality of the judge putting on his black cap to pronounce sentence, I have known him to avail himself of it in the close of a sermon with his eyes full of tears and his heart almost too big to admit a speech, dropping into a momentary pause. I am now going to put on my condemning cap, sinner.

I must do it. I must pronounce sentence upon you. And then, in a tremendous strain of eloquence, he would recite our Lord's words, Go ye cursed, not without a very powerful description of the nature of the curse.

I again observed that it would only be by hearing him and by beholding his attitude and his tears that a person could well conceive of the effect, for it was impossible but that solemnity must surround him who under God became the means of making all solemn. He had a most peculiar art of speaking personally to you in a congregation of four thousand people when no one would suspect his object. It was truly impressive to see him ascend the pulpit.

My intimate knowledge of him amidst my acquitting him of the charge of affectation, he always appeared to enter the pulpit with a significance of countenance that indicated he had something of importance which he wanted to divulge and was anxious for the effect of the communication. His gravity on his descent was the same. As soon as ever he was seated in his chair, nature demanded himself and demanded relief and gained it by a vast discharge from the stomach, usually with a considerable quantity of blood before he was at liberty to speak.

He was averse to much singing after preaching, supposing it diverted the savior of the subject. Nothing awkward, nothing careless appeared about him in the pulpit, nor do I ever recollect his stumbling upon a word. To his ordinary as well to his public appearance, this observation applies, oh whether he frowned or smiled, whether he looked grave or placid, it was nature acting in him.

Professed orators might object to his hands being lifted up too high, and it is to be lamented that in that attitude rather than in any other, he is represented in print. His own reflection upon that picture was, when it was first put into his hands, oh sure I do not look such a sour creature as it sets me forth, if I thought I did I should hate myself. It is necessary to remark that the attitude was very transient and always accompanied by some expression which would justify it.

He sometimes had occasion to speak of Peter's going out and weeping bitterly, and then had a fold of his gown at command which he put before his face with as much gracefulness as familiarity. I hardly ever knew him to go through a sermon without weeping, more or less, and I truly believe his were the tears of sincerity. His voice was often interrupted by his affection, and I have heard him say in the pulpit, you blame me for weeping, but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are upon the verge of destruction, and for aught you know you are hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ offered to you.

His freedom in the use of his passions often put my pride to the trial, I could hardly bear such unreserved use of tears, and the scope he gave to his feelings, for sometimes he exceedingly wept, stamped loudly and passionately, and was frequently so overcome that for a few seconds you would suspect he never could recover, and when he did, nature required some little time to compose himself. You may be sure from what has been said that when he treated upon the sufferings of our Savior, it was not without great pathos. He was very ready at that kind of painting, would frequently answer the end of real scenery, as though Gethsemane was within sight, he would say something, stretching out his hand like, look yonder, what is that, is it sea, is it my agonizing Lord, and as though it were no difficult matter to catch the sound of the Savior praying, he would exclaim, hark, hark, do you not hear, you may suppose that as this occurred frequently, the efficacy of it was destroyed, but no, though we often knew what was coming, it was as new to us as though we had never heard it before.

That beautiful phrase used by the prophet Jeremiah, oh earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord, was very subservient to him, and never used impertently. The difference of the times in which Mr. Whitfield made his public appearance, materially determined the matter of his sermons, and in some measure the matter of his address, he dealt for more in the explanatory and doctrinal mode of preaching on a Sabbath day morning, than perhaps at any other time, and sometimes made a little, but by no means improper, show of learning. If he had read upon astronomy in the course of the week, you could be sure to discover it.

He knew how to convert the central motion of the heavenly bodies to the disposition of the Christian towards Christ, and the fatal attraction of the world would be very properly represented by reference to the centrifugal. Whatever the world might think of him, he had his charms for the learned as well as for the unlearned, and he held himself to be a debtor both to the wise and to the unwise, each received his due at such times, the pure and the peasant alike went away satisfied. Although he heard the voice of God ever sounding in his ears, the important admonition, work while it is called today, this was his work in London at one period of his life, after administrating the Lord's Supper to several hundred communicants, at half an hour after six in the morning, reading the first and second service in the desk, which he did with the greatest propriety, and preaching full an hour, he read prayers and preached in the afternoon, a previous to the evening service at half an hour after five, and afterwards addressed the Lord's Society in public.

His afternoon sermon used to be more general and exhortory, in the evening he drew his bow at a venture, vindicated the doctrines of grace, fenced them with articles and homilies, referred to the mortar seal, and exemplified the power of divine grace in their sufferings by quotations from the venerable Fox. Sinners were then closely plied, numbers whom from curiosity come to hear a sense or two, were often compelled to hear the whole sermon. How many in the judgment day will rise to prove that they heard to the salvation of the soul that the Society, which after sermon was encircled in the area of the tabernacle, consisted of widows, married people, young men and spinsters, placed separately, all of whom, when a considerable part of the congregation was resettled, for hundreds used to stay upon the occasion, used to receive from him in the colloquial style of various exhortations comprised of short sentences and suitable to their various situations.

The practice of Christianity in all its branches was then usually inculcated, not without some pertinent antidote of a character worthy to be held up for an example and in whose conduct the hints recommended were exemplified. To the young man, for instance, a young man in the mercantile line, whose uncle described him as such a jumble of religion and business that he was fit nor neither, a widow would be held up to view, remarkable for her confidence in God, a young woman would be described commendable for her chastity. Perhaps Mr. Whitfield never preached greater sermons than at six in the morning, for at that hour he did preach winter and summer on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

At these times his congregations were of the select description, and young men received admonitions similar with what were given in the society and were cautioned while they neglected the duty required from them under the bond of an indenture not to anticipate the pleasures and advantages of future life. Beware of being golden apprentices, silver journeymen, and copper masters was one of the cautions I remember upon those occasions. His style was now colloquial with little use of motion, pertinent expositions with suitable remarks and all comprehended within the hour.

A Christian experience principally made the subject of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening lectures, when frequently having funeral sermons to preach, the character and experience of the dead helped to elucidate the subject, led to pressed diligence in the Christian course to reflect upon the blessing of faith on earth and glory in heaven. Mr. Whitfield adopted the custom of the inhabitants of New England in their best days of beginning the Sabbath at six o'clock on Saturday evenings. The custom could not be observed by many, but it was convenient to a few, a few compared with the multitude, but abstractedly considered a large and respectful company.

Now ministers of every description found a peculiar pleasure in relaxing their minds from the fatigues of study and were highly entertained by his peculiarly excellent subjects which were so suitable to the auditory that I believe it was seldom disappointed. It was an opportunity peculiarly suited to apprentices and journeymen in some business which allowed that they are leaving work sooner than on other days and availing themselves at least of the sermons from which I also occasionally obtained my blessings. Had my memory been retentive and had I studiously treasured up his rich remarks, how much more easily might I have met your wishes and have answered the design of this letter, but though I have lost much of the letter of his sermons, the savor of them yet remains.

The peculiar talents he possessed, subservient to great usefulness, can be but faintly guessed from his sermons in print, though as formerly God has made the reading of them useful, I have no doubt that in the future they will have their use. The eighteen taken in shorthand and faithfully transcribed by Mr. Gurney have been supposed to do discredit to his memory and therefore they were suppressed, but they who have been accustomed to hear him may collect from them much of his genuine preaching. They were far from being the best specimens that might have been produced.

He had preached many of them when, in fact, he was almost incapable of preaching at all. His constitution, long before they were taken, had received its material shock and they were all except the two last, the production of a Wednesday evening when the current business of the day, he was fatigued and worn out. The Good Shepherd was sent him on board the ship.

He was much disgusted with it and expressed himself to me as in the letter of the third volume of his works. It is not verbatim as I have delivered it, in some places it makes me speak false concord and even nonsense, in others the sense and connection is destroyed by the injudious disjoint of paragraphs and the whole is entirely unfit for the public review. His manuscript journal as quoted by Dr. Gillies notes, September 15th, this morning came a surreptitious copy of my tabernacle farewell sermon taken in the shorthand.

Writer professes verbatim as I spoke it, but surely he is mistaken. The whole is so injudicially paragraphed and so wretchedly unconnected that I owe no thanks to the misguided, though it may be well meant, zeal of the writer and publisher, be whom they will. But such conduct is an affordable tax upon popularity.

He was then like an ascending Elijah and many were eager to catch his dropping mantle. In the sermons referred to there were certainly many jewels, though they may not be connected in a proper order. Whatever fault criticism may find with his sermons from the press, they were in the delivery powerful to command the most devoted attention.

I have been informed by good judges that if many of the speeches in our two houses were to be given in their original state, they would not appear to the first advantage, nor would Mr. Whitfield's sermons have had criminal defects had they been revised with his own pen.