George Whitefield was born in Gloucester in 1714. His mother was an unsuccessful innkeeper with limited success and was distant from her son’s life. This resulted in Whitefield having a poor childhood, but that did not prevent him from having a good education. Since he was a resident of Gloucester, Whitefield attended a Grammar School to receive an education. Despite having the opportunity to have a good education, Whitefield describes his early life as far from God based on his activities and behavior. In his writings, he confesses that he was addicted to lying, filthy speech, belittling people, not going to church, playing cards, and being a romance reader. The one area that was a specific vice to a young Whitefield was skipping school to visit the theatre to watch, practice, and participate in performances.
He was a gifted young actor who could recall lots of information from memory and recite famous speeches. At the age of fifteen, Whitefield left school and gave up pursuits of higher education. Historians believe that his mother was a factor in this because of the need to assist her in business so he could support himself and the family financially. However, his mother’s inn did not flourish, and she had to resign. Whitefield, not being shy with words (and with a dash of humor), said about this time, “I put on my blue apron, washed cups, cleaned rooms, and, in one word, became a professed common drawer for nigh a year and a half.”
Unsure of what to do next, an old classmate of Whitefield encouraged him to go to Oxford. The only problem was that he had to finish Grammar School. This did not sway him, so he went back to school and received his education. After he did that, he entered Pembrook College at Oxford at the age of eighteen. Whitefield was a poor student who needed to work to pay for his time at Oxford. He did this by working hard as a servitor for wealthy students, and while at the college, he started to develop deep religious convictions that he did not have before. He started learning more about Christianity and desired a change to live for Christ. He used his free time to visit prisons, read to prisoners, and always tried to do what was right in his daily life. While searching for like-minded people with similar convictions he stumbled upon two brothers, John and Charles Wesley. These three were devoted to piety and were a works righteousness group at that time known for their strict “method” of living, so they had the title “Methodists.”
The difficulty was that Whitefield lacked an understanding of God’s grace. He recounts that he was running the risk of becoming a Roman Catholic, an ascetic (a monk), a mystic, and having a religion of complete self-denial. Whitefield thought that by persistently and voluntarily denying himself, he would have a “great promotion of the spiritual life.” Despite this dark time in his life, he was recommended five books that helped him greatly: Henry Scougal’s Life of God in the Soul of Man, William Law’s Serious Call, Richard Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, Joseph Alleine’s Alarm to Unconverted Sinners, and Matthew Henry’s Commentary. Reading these alongside Scripture provided him with the much help he desperately needed. Whitefield’s eyes opened to understand the liberty of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the free gift of God’s grace. Whitefield repented of his former ways of seeking Christian perfectionism.
The more he read, the more he fell in love with Christ and the doctrines of grace. These sunk deep into his heart and became the driving force of his Christian convictions and preaching. At twenty-two, not by his own seeking, he was ordained as a deacon in the Anglican church. With guidance from the bishop, he started to preach around London, and to his amazement, he drew crowds who were listening to his words. Whitefield brought something new that people had not experienced before by using his voice to preach passionately with tones, emotions, and voice inflections.
In 1737, the Wesley brothers pressured Whitefield to visit Georgia in North America to assist in the care of an orphan house to help care for the children of colonists. Whitefield agreed and sailed for Georgia, but he only stayed about three months because he needed to return to England. The impact of the orphan house was something he felt great conviction over that occupied much of his attention from this period of his life until he died.
While back in England, he found many churches refusing to accept his preaching style, teachings on the new birth, and the doctrine of regeneration. Whitefield was surprised because he noticed that many Bishops (his superiors) could tolerate Arianism (Jesus was created), Socinianism (Jesus was merely human), and Deism (God does not interfere with His creation) in the churches. Whitefield was bold and did not allow that to hinder him, so he unashamedly declared the atonement of Christ and the inner working of the Holy Spirit. In short, from this period of his life, Whitefield’s field of usefulness within the Church of England narrowed rapidly on every side.
Whitefield being turned away from many churches gave him a unique opportunity which was to adopt a system of “open-air preaching” where no document or wooden pulpit stood between him and his audience. His convictions were strong to preach outdoors as he observed thousands of people who would not attend church, refusing to go to church, and those who went to church were not hearing the Gospel. So, he decided to go out to them based on Luke 14:23 “So the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel them to come in so that my house will be full.’” His first attempt to do open-air preaching was among the colliers (coal miners) at Kingswood near Bristol, in February 1739. After praying, he went up a hill and began to preach to about a hundred colliers from Matthew 5:1–3.
Being turned away from many churches in England because of his unique preaching style gave Whitefield a unique opportunity to adopt an “open-air preaching” system where no document or wooden pulpit stood between him and his audience. His convictions were strong to preach outdoors as he observed thousands of people – those who did not attend church, those who refused to enter a church, and those who went to the gospel-less churches. So, he decided to go out to them based on Luke 14:23 “So the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel them to come in so that my house will be full.’” His first attempt to do open-air preaching was among the colliers (coal miners) at Kingswood near Bristol, in February 1739. After praying, he went up a hill and began to preach to about a hundred colliers from Matthew 5:1–3. Whitefield’s preaching on the saving grace of Jesus Christ, calling sinners to repentance, was so powerful the colliers that these men had “white gutters” made on their cheeks as tears fell from their soot-covered faces as they came out of the coalpits. Hundreds of them, many of whom had never been to church, were brought under the deep conviction of sin and encouragement because Whitefield’s preaching pointed out that Jesus came to save not only the wealthy, and the politicians but also the hardworking blue-collar class. The event at Kingswood also showed Whitefield’s personal care for the soul of the individual as he was not shy to meet with the colliers to talk with them one-on-one.
Whitefield’s preaching to the commoners with his open-air style of preaching soon gained traction. On one occasion, he was asked to be a guest preacher at a church in London, and while praying churchwardens came to ask if he had a preaching license. Whitefield did not have a license, so he was forbidden to preach. After being told this he went outside and started preaching in the churchyard. Two days after his removal from the church he preached in an open field to about 30,000 people majority of whom were not churchgoers. It is said, “the gospel so proclaimed was listened to and greedily received by hundreds who never dreamed of going to a place of worship.” Though he considered himself an Anglican, he had difficulties with the Church of England due to not having a license, but he would not allow denomination or geographical lines to break the importance of unity which can only be found in Christ and upholding Scripture.
In 1739, Whitefield returned to American colonies to preach the gospel. He started in Philadelphia and as he continued to preach wherever he went, even the largest churches could not hold the crowds that came to hear him. So, he went back to preaching in the open fields which resulted in people coming from great distances often exceeding the population of the town he was preaching in. His preaching style was unique, though he was mentored by the Wesleys, Whitefield had different convictions than the Wesley brothers, and he was a convinced Calvinist. Much of his preaching emphasized the “new birth,” which he pointed to as the “conversion experience.” Whitefield never pleaded with people to convert or have to alter calls, but his plea was to have people repent and encourage the new birth through his preaching.
Whitefield continued his preaching journeys in America and Europe, One visit to Ireland was particularly unique as he was almost murdered by a Roman Catholic mob in Dublin. While in America, Jonathan Edwards’s wife, Sarah, remarked, “[Whitefield] makes less of the doctrines than our American preachers generally do and aims more at affecting the heart. He is a born orator.” Whitefield also made the slave communities a part of his revivals, though he was far from an abolitionist. Nonetheless, he increasingly sought out audiences of slaves and wrote on their behalf. Everywhere Whitefield preached, he collected support for the orphanage he had founded in Georgia, though the orphanage was a financial and time-commitment challenge for him, he trusted in God for keeping it. His actions in America (along with many other faithful preachers) sparked a spiritual revival known as “the Great Awakening,” which became one of the most formative events in American history. While in Scotland he preached evening services to thousands and would often go until 2am. There were even times when it was estimated that he preached to an estimated 20,000 people.
Whitefield’s preaching schedule would look something like this:
– Every Sunday he administered the Lord’s Supper to hundreds of communicants at 6:30am. Afterward, he prayed and preached in the morning and afternoon. He would preach again in the evening at 5:30 by addressing the people on the margins of society.
– Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning he would preach at 6am.
– He delivered evening lectures on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
As a result, he delivered about thirteen sermons a week. All the while still maintaining connections with people and sending funds to the orphanage. Unfortunately, Whitefield’s preaching, lectures, and correspondence successes did not benefit his private family life. Whitefield was skeptical of the idea of marriage and feared having a wife would take away from his preaching. When he finally married an older widow, Elizabeth James, sadly, little is mentioned of his wife in his letters and their union never blossomed into a healthy marriage. He left no children.
In 1770, the 55-year-old continued his preaching tour in the North American colonies despite poor health and ignored dangerous signs of asthmatic colds and breathing difficulties. Whitefield stated, “I would rather wear out than rust out.” History notes that his last sermon took place in the fields, atop a large barrel, and he was encouraged to preach one last time. He agreed to preach until a large candle went out. His final message was on the “ inefficiency of works to merit salvation,” it is recounted that in this message Whitefield shouted “Works! works! A man gets to heaven by works! I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand.” The following morning he died in the parsonage of Old South Presbyterian Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 30 September 1770, and was buried, according to his wishes, in a crypt under the pulpit of this church. Despite their differences, John Wesley preached his funeral sermon in London at Whitefield’s request.
Looking at the life of George Whitefield one would see a man’s passion for the Gospel and unity among believers. He was not the strongest theologian, but a man God would use to hit the hearts of the masses, calling them to repentance and to enter into the new birth. He labored hard for the Lord but never trusted in his works to save him, and lived for Christ because of the grace that was bestowed upon him.