♦Tweeddale, the Synod of Perth and Stirling, and by the Presbytery of
Edinburgh; and, to complete the whole, six hundred of the followers of
the Erskines, by whom Whitefield was first invited to visit Scotland,
assembled in Edinburgh on November 16, and swore to observe the League
and Covenant; and “solemnly engaged to strengthen one another’s hands,
in the use of lawful means, to extirpate Popery, Prelacy, Arminianism,
Arianism, Tritheism, Sabellianism, and _George Whitefieldism_.” The
service “was conducted by the Rev. Adam Gibb and his helpers, with
great solemnity, and the generality of the people evidenced an uncommon
seriousness and concern.”[205]
Of course, all this created great commotion; but limited space will
only permit the insertion of the following letter, which was printed
in the _Edinburgh Courant_:――
“SIR,――On the 27th of October, the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield
set out from this place” (Edinburgh) “to London. During the time
of his stay here, he preached about twenty times in the Orphan
Hospital Park, three times in the Tolbooth Church, and twice
in that of the Cannongate, to very large congregations; and
was much approven of, by the generality of serious Christians,
as a well-accomplished gospel preacher. As his conversation in
private, as well as public, gave entire satisfaction to those
who were most intimate with him, it is not a little surprising
to them to find him represented and asserted to be a person of
suspicious character. He declared, upon his arrival here, that
he was to make no public collections; and he did not. Neither
did he ask money or anything else from any person.[206] As it is
reported he will pay us a visit next summer, it is not doubted
but it will be very acceptable to all who rejoice that Christ is
preached, and sinners are saved through Him.”
Dr. Stonehouse, of Northampton, has been mentioned. Whitefield wished
him to become a minister; but Stonehouse was timorous, and afraid of
being called a Methodist. Whitefield desired to have an interview with
him, on his return from Scotland, and hence the following letter:――
“GLASGOW, _September 28, 1748_.
“MY VERY DEAR SIR,――I purpose to preach at Oundle, in my way
to London. Glad shall I be to see two such friends, as you
and Mr. Hervey, though _incog_. I will endeavour to send you
timely notice. I would have neither of you expose yourselves
to needless contempt on my account. I think I can say that I am
willing to be forgotten, even by my friends, if Jesus Christ may
thereby be exalted. But then, I would not have my friends act
an inconsistent part towards that Friend of all――that Friend of
sinners, the glorious Emmanuel. Whilst you are afraid of men,
you will expose yourself to a thousand inconveniences. Your
polite company (unless you converse with them more as their
physician than as their companion) will prevail on you to such
compliances as will make you smart, when you retire into your
closet and reflect on the part you have acted. Before I shook
off the world, I often came out of company shorn of all my
strength, like poor Samson when he had lost his locks. But this
is a tender point.
“Go on, dear sir, and prove the strength of Jesus to be
yours. Continue instant in prayer, and you shall see and feel
infinitely greater things than you have yet seen or felt. I am
of your opinion, that there is seed sown in England, which will
grow up into a great tree. God’s giving some of the mighty and
noble a hearing ear forebodes future good. I do not despair of
seeing you a proclaimer of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
God be praised! that Mr. Hervey is so bold an advocate for his
blessed Lord.”
Whitefield was always in trouble, from one quarter or another. While
the ecclesiastical courts of Scotland were interdicting his preaching,
without mentioning his name, Lavington, the Bishop of Exeter, was
lashed into an unchristian rage against him. His Lordship of Exeter had
recently delivered a charge to the clergy of his diocese. Some unknown
wag circulated what pretended to be a manuscript copy of the charge,
but containing declarations of doctrine and Christian experience worthy
of Whitefield and Wesley themselves. Without authority, the _pretended_
charge was printed, and occasioned the publication of several pamphlets
in reply and congratulation. Meanwhile, however, Lavington, the
inveterate hater of Methodists and Moravians, was dubbed a Methodist.
This, to his lordship, was intolerable, and drew forth from him an
angry “declaration,” in which he charged the Methodist chiefs with
being the authors of the fraud. The charge was utterly unfounded; the
Countess of Huntingdon interfered; with great difficulty she obtained
a recantation from the infuriated prelate; and this was published in
the leading journals of the day. The following letter refers to this
disreputable _fracas_.
“GLASGOW, _October 5, 1748_.
“VERY DEAR SIR,――I received yours this morning, and think it my
duty to send you an immediate answer.
“You might well inform my Lord of Exeter that I knew nothing
of the printing of his lordship’s pretended charge, or of the
pamphlets occasioned by it. When the former was sent to me in
manuscript, from London to Bristol, as his lordship’s production,
I immediately said, it could not be his. When I found it printed,
I spoke to the officious printer, who did it out of his own head,
and blamed him very much. When I saw the pamphlet, I was still
more offended. Repeatedly, in several companies, I urged the
injustice as well as imprudence thereof, and said it would
produce what it did,――I mean a ♦declaration from his lordship,
that he was no Methodist. I am sorry his lordship had such an
occasion given him to declare his aversion to what is called
Methodism; and, though I think his lordship, in his declaration,
has been somewhat severe concerning some of the Methodist
leaders, I cannot blame him for saying, that he thought ‘some of
them were worse than ignorant and misguided,’ supposing that his
lordship had sufficient proof that they caused to be printed a
charge which he had never owned nor published.
“If you think proper, you may let his lordship see the contents
of this. I will only add, that, I wish a way could be found,
whereby his lordship and other of the right reverend the bishops
might converse with some of us. Many mistakes might thereby be
rectified, and perhaps his lordship’s sentiments, in some degree,
might be altered. If this cannot be effected, (I speak only
for myself,) I am content to wait till we all appear before the
great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. Meanwhile, I heartily pray,
that their lordships may be blessed with all spiritual blessings,
and wishing you the like mercies, I subscribe myself, very dear
sir, your affectionate, obliged, humble servant,
“GEORGE WHITEFIELD.”
Whitefield reached London at the beginning of November, and immediately
resumed preaching, twice a week, in the house of the Countess of
Huntingdon, “to the great and noble.”[207] Here he had to encounter
another trouble. In a letter, dated October 20th, 1748, Howell Harris
gives an account of his labours, in South and North Wales, during the
last nine weeks. He had visited thirteen counties, had travelled a
hundred and fifty miles every week, and had preached two sermons every
day, and sometimes three or four. During the last week of his tour, he
had never taken off his clothes; and, in one instance, had travelled
above a hundred miles, from morning to the evening of the ensuing day,
without any rest, preaching on the mountains at midnight, in order
to avoid the persecution of Sir Watkin William Wynn. Such was the
malevolence of the Welsh baronet towards the poor Methodists, that,
only a few days before, for simply meeting together to worship God,
a number of them had had to pay fines, varying from five shillings to
twenty pounds. Encouraged by those who ought to have known better, the
mobs, in many places, were almost murderously violent; and, near to
Bala, Harris received a blow on the head nearly sufficient to “split
his skull in two.”[208] Whitefield was informed of these outrageous
proceedings; he reported them to the Countess of Huntingdon; her
ladyship laid the particulars before the Government; and, to the no
small mortification of Sir Watkin Wynn, the fines he had exacted from
the Methodists were ordered to be returned.[209]
Five years ago, Whitefield had formed an acquaintance with Dr.
Doddridge, the great Dissenting tutor; he now visited the equally
celebrated Dr. Watts, whom the Dissenters of the day might properly
have regarded as their _patriarch_. Watts had looked upon Whitefield
with disfavour, and had chidden Doddridge for lowering the dignity of
the Dissenting minister and tutor, by preaching in Whitefield’s wooden
meeting-house. For more than thirty years, Watts had been a beloved and
honoured guest in the mansion of Sir Thomas Abney, Stoke Newington. He
was now dying, and, on November 25th, away Whitefield went to see him.
Being introduced, Whitefield tenderly enquired, “how he found himself?”
“I am one of Christ’s waiting servants,” replied the dying Doctor.
Whitefield assisted in raising him up in bed, that he might with more
convenience take his medicine. Watts apologised for the trouble he
occasioned. Whitefield answered, “Surely, I am not too good to wait on
a waiting servant of Christ.” Whitefield took his leave; and half an
hour afterwards Dr. Watts was dead.[210] Thus met and parted the great
hymnist and the great preacher, until they met again in “the palace of
angels and God.”[211]
A week after Watts’s death, Whitefield set out for Gloucester and
Bristol. In the latter city, his preaching was the means of converting
a Welsh shoemaker, who subsequently became one of Wesley’s best
itinerant preachers, and who, in his wide wanderings, composed a few
of the finest hymns ever sung in the Christian Church,――hymns not
surpassed by the best of Dr. Watts’s, and which, after a century’s use,
are as much in favour among the Methodists as ever.
Thomas Olivers was now twenty-three years of age. His life had been
rambling and wicked. Getting into debt had been a regular practice,
and profane swearing had become his habitual sin. The first night that
he spent in Bristol he was literally penniless. Having obtained work,
he went to lodge in the house of a man who had been a Methodist, but
was now “a slave to drunkenness.” In the same house, there was “a
lukewarm Moravian.” Olivers and the Moravian disputed “about election,”
till they quarrelled. The Moravian, a tall, lusty fellow, struck the
Welshman. Olivers says, “I knew I should have no chance in fighting
him, and therefore, for a whole hour, I cursed and swore, with all the
rage of a fiend, in such a manner as is seldom equalled on earth, or
exceeded even in hell itself.” Soon after this, Olivers met a multitude
of people in the streets of Bristol, and asked where they had been.
One answered, “To hear Mr. Whitefield.” Olivers thought, “I have often
heard of Mr. Whitefield, and have sung songs about him: I’ll go and
hear him myself.” Accordingly, he went. Whitefield’s text was, “Is
not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” Olivers was there and then
convinced of sin, and resolved to give his heart to God. The next
Sunday, he went to the cathedral at six in the morning; and, as the
Te Deum was read, “felt as if he had done with earth, and was praising
God before His throne.” At eight, he went to hear Whitefield preach;
at ten, he went to Christchurch; at two in the afternoon, he again
attended church; at five, he heard Whitefield, and concluded the day
at a Baptist meeting. He writes: “The love I had for Mr. Whitefield was
inexpressible. I used to follow him as he walked the streets, and could
scarce refrain from kissing the very prints of his feet.”
Five years after this, Thomas Olivers had paid all his debts, and was
one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers. His subsequent history was too
remarkable to be condensed in a work like this.
Whitefield’s Orphan House was again causing him anxiety. He wrote to a
friend in America: “I want to make it a seminary of learning. If some
such thing be not done, I cannot see how the _southern_ parts will be
provided with ministers. All here are afraid to come over.”[212] He had
also heard that his wife had lessened the Orphan-house family, and was
about to return to England.[213] And, further, he had been informed
that the trustees were about to allow the employment of slaves in
Georgia.[214] These circumstances led him to write a long and
remarkable letter to the trustees. The following is an extract:――
“GLOUCESTER, _December 6, 1748_.
“HONOURED GENTLEMEN,――Not want of respect, but a suspicion that
my letters would not be acceptable, has been the occasion of my
not writing to you these four years last past. I am sensible,
that in some of my former letters, I expressed myself in too
strong and sometimes in unbecoming terms. For this I desire to
be humbled before God and man. I can assure you, however, that,
to the best of my knowledge, I have acted a disinterested part.
I have simply aimed at God’s glory, and the good of mankind.
This principle drew me first to Georgia; this, and this alone,
induced me to begin and carry on the Orphan House; and this,
honoured gentlemen, excites me to trouble you with the present
lines.
“I need not inform you, how the colony of Georgia has been
declining, and at what great disadvantages I have maintained
a large family in that wilderness. Upwards of £5000 have been
expended in that undertaking; and yet, very little proficiency
has been made in the cultivation of my tract of land; and that
entirely owing to the necessity I lay under of making use of
white hands. Had negroes been allowed, I should now have had a
sufficiency to support a great many orphans, without expending
above half the sum that has been laid out. An unwillingness to
let so good a design drop induced me, two years ago, to purchase
a plantation in South Carolina, where negroes are allowed. This
plantation has succeeded; and, though I have only eight working
hands, in all probability, there will be more raised in one
year, and with a quarter of the expense, than has been produced
at Bethesda for several years past. This confirms me in the
opinion, I have long entertained, that, Georgia never can be
a flourishing province, unless negroes are employed.
“But, notwithstanding my private judgment, I am determined,
that, not one of mine shall ever be allowed to work at the
Orphan House till it can be done in a legal manner, and with the
approbation of the Honourable Trustees. My chief end in writing
this, is to inform you, that, I am as willing as ever to do all
I can for Georgia and the Orphan House, if either a limited use
of negroes is approved of, or some more indentured servants be
sent from England. If not, I cannot promise to keep any large
family, or cultivate the plantation in any considerable manner.
“I would also further recommend to your consideration, whether,
as the Orphan House is intended for a charitable purpose, it
ought not to be exempted from all quit-rents and public taxes?
And, as most of the land on which the Orphan House is built is
good for little, I would humbly enquire, whether I may not have
a grant of five hundred more acres, not taken up, somewhere near
the Orphan House?
“If you, Honourable Gentlemen, are pleased to put the colony
upon another footing,――I mean in respect to the permission of
a limited use of negroes,――my intention is to make the Orphan
House, not only a receptacle for fatherless children, but also
a place of literature and academical studies. Such a place is
much wanted in the southern parts of America, and, if conducted
in a proper manner, must necessarily be of great service to any
colony. I can easily procure proper persons to embark in such a
cause.”
From such a pen, this is a strange production. Whitefield, with his
large heart, urging the introduction of slavery into the province of
Georgia, and almost threatening to abandon his Orphan House unless his
proposal be granted! Whitefield’s honour is best cared for by saying as
little about the incident as possible.
Having spent five days at Gloucester, during which he preached
five times, and received the sacrament at the cathedral; and having
similarly employed himself for a week at Bristol, Whitefield, at the
request of the Countess of Huntingdon, returned to London on December
17th, and resumed his ministry in the Tabernacle, and in the mansion
of her ladyship.
“I am now,” he wrote, “thirty-four years of age; and alas! how little
have I done and suffered for Him, who has done and suffered so much for
me! Thanks be to His great name for countenancing my poor ministrations
so much.”[215]
A letter to Dr. Doddridge, to whom Whitefield had submitted his
Journals for revision,[216] may properly close the year 1748,――a year,
which, like all previous ones of his career, had been thronged with
adventures and striking incidents.
“LONDON, _December 21, 1748_.
“REVEREND AND VERY DEAR SIR,――I was glad, very glad, to receive
your letter, dated November 7th, though it did not reach me till
last night. I thank you for it a thousand times. It has led me
to the throne of grace, where I have been crying, ‘Lord, counsel
my counsellors, and shew them what Thou wouldest have me to
do!’ Alas! alas! how can I be too severe against myself, who,
Peter-like, have cut off so many ears, and, by imprudences, mixed
with my zeal, have dishonoured the cause of Jesus! I can only
look up to Him, who healed the high-priest’s servant’s ear, and
say, ‘Lord, heal all the wounds my misguided zeal has given!’
Assure yourself, dear sir, everything I print shall be revised.
I always have submitted my poor performances to my friends’
corrections. Time and experience ripen men’s judgments, and make
them more solid, rational, and consistent. O that this may be my
case!
“I thank you, dear sir, for your solemn charge in respect to my
health. Blessed be God! it is much improved since my return from
Scotland, and I trust, by observing the rules you prescribe, I
shall be enabled to declare the works of the Lord.
“But what shall I say concerning your present trial?[217] I most
earnestly sympathise with you, having had the same trial from
the same quarter long ago. The Moravians first divided my family;
then my parish, in Georgia; and, after that, the Societies which
I was an instrument of gathering. I suppose not less than four
hundred, through their practices, have left the Tabernacle.
But I have been forsaken in other ways. I have not had above a
hundred to hear me, where I had twenty thousand; and hundreds
now assemble within a quarter of a mile of me, who never come
to see or speak to me, though they must own, at the great day,
that I was their spiritual father. All this I find but little
enough to teach me to cease from man, and to wean me from that
too great fondness, which spiritual fathers are apt to have for
their spiritual children. But I have generally observed, that,
when one door of usefulness is shut, another opens. Our Lord
blesses you, dear sir, in your writings;[218] nay, your people’s
treating you as they are now permitted to do, perhaps, is one of
the greatest blessings you ever received from heaven. I know no
other way of dealing with the Moravians, than to go on preaching
the truth as it is in Jesus, and resting upon the promise,
‘Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be
plucked up.’ Seven years will make a great alteration. I believe
their grand design is to extend their economy as far as possible.
This is now kept up by dint of money, and, I am apt to think,
the very thing, by which they think to establish, will destroy
their scheme. God is a gracious Father, and will not always let
His children proceed in a wrong way. Doubtless, there are many
of His dear little ones in the Moravian flock; but many of their
principles and practices are exceeding wrong, for which, I doubt
not, our Lord will rebuke them in His own time.
“But I fear that I weary you. Love makes my pen to move too
fast, and too long. Last Sunday evening, I preached at the other
end of the town, to a most brilliant assembly. They expressed
great approbation; and some, I think, begin to feel. Good Lady
Huntingdon is a mother in Israel. She is all in a flame for
Jesus.”
Whitefield’s remarks concerning the Moravians may, perhaps, seem
somewhat harsh; but they were not untrue, and will prepare the reader
for other critiques hereafter.
Whitefield mentions his “brilliant assembly” in the mansion of the
Countess of Huntingdon. In a letter to the Countess of Bath, he wrote,
“It would please you to see the assemblies at her ladyship’s house.
They are brilliant ones indeed. The prospect of catching some of
the rich, in the gospel net, is very promising. I know you will wish
prosperity in the name of the Lord.”[219]
No wonder that, after one of his first services at Lady Huntingdon’s,
Whitefield said, “I went home, never more surprised at any incident in
my life.”[220] Such congregations were unique. Nothing like them had
heretofore been witnessed. There were gatherings of England’s proud
nobility, assembled to listen to a young preacher, whose boyhood had
been spent in a public-house; whose youth, at the university, had
been employed partly in study, and partly in attending to the wants
of fellow-students, who declined to treat him as an equal; and whose
manhood life, for the last thirteen years, had been a commingling of
marvellous popularity and violent contempt,――a scene of infirmities
and errors, and yet of unreserved and unceasing devotion to the cause
of Christ and the welfare of his fellow-men. Such was the youthful
preacher,――a man of slender learning, of mean origin, without Church
preferment, hated by the clergy, and maligned by the public press. Who
were his aristocratic hearers? The following list is supplied by the
well-informed author of “The Life and Times of the Countess of
Huntingdon”:――
Lady Fanny Shirley, who had long been one of the reigning beauties
of the court of George the First; the Duchess of Argyll; Lady Betty
Campbell; Lady Ferrers; Lady Sophia Thomas; the Duchess of Montagu,
daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough; Lady Cardigan; Lady Lincoln;
Mrs. Boscawen; Mrs. Pitt; Miss Rich; Lady Fitzwalter; Lady Caroline
Petersham; the Duchess of Queensbury, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon,
and celebrated for extraordinary beauty, wit, and sprightliness,
by Pope, Swift, and Prior; the Duchess of Manchester; Lady Thanet,
daughter of the Marquis of Halifax, and wife of Sackville, Earl of
Thanet; Lady St. John, niece of Lady Huntingdon; Lady Luxborough,
the friend and correspondent of Shenstone, the poet; Lady Monson,
whose husband, in 1760, was created Baron Sondes; Lady Rockingham,
the wife of the great statesman, a woman of immense wit and pleasant
temper, often at court, and possessed of considerable influence in the
higher circles of society; Lady Betty Germain, daughter of the Earl of
Berkeley, and through her husband, Sir John Germain, the possessor of
enormous wealth; Lady Eleanor Bertie, a member of the noble family of
Abingdon; the Dowager-Duchess of Ancaster; the Dowager-Lady Hyndford;
the Duchess of Somerset; the Countess Delitz, one of the daughters
of the Duchess of Kendal, and the sister of Lady Chesterfield; Lady
Hinchinbroke, granddaughter of the Duke of Montagu; and Lady Schaubs.