1714 TO 1732.
George Whitefield was born in the Bell Inn, Gloucester, on the 16th day of December (O.S.), 1714.
His genealogy, as given by his first biographer, Dr. Gillies, is brief, but not without interest:—
"The Rev. Mr. Samuel Whitefield, great-grandfather of George, was born at Wantage, and was rector of North Ledyard,[1] in Wiltshire. He removed afterwards to Rockhampton, in Gloucestershire. He had five daughters—two of whom were married to clergymen, Mr. Perkins and Mr. Lovingham; and two sons—Samuel, who succeeded his father in the cure of Rockhampton, and died without issue; and Andrew, who was a private gentleman, and lived retired upon his estate. Andrew had fourteen children, of whom Thomas was the eldest.
"Thomas was first bred to the employment of a wine-merchant in Bristol, but afterwards kept the Bell Inn, in the city of Gloucester. In Bristol he married Elizabeth Edwards, who was related to the Blackwells and the Dimours of that city; by whom he had six sons and one daughter.
"Elizabeth, the daughter, was twice reputably married at Bristol. John lies interred with the family in St. Mary de Crypt Church, in Gloucester. Joseph died an infant. Andrew settled in trade at Bristol, and died in the twenty-eighth year of his age. James was captain of a ship, and died suddenly at Bath. George was the youngest of the family, and, at his death, left two surviving brothers, Thomas and Richard.
"The father died in December, 1716, when George was only two years old. The mother continued a widow seven years, and was then married to Mr. Longden, an ironmonger in Gloucester, by whom she had no issue. She died in December, 1751, in the seventy-first year of her age."
So much for pedigree. Though Whitefield's ancestry was far from aristocratic, it was not ignoble.
Nothing is known of the years of Whitefield's boyhood, except what is furnished by himself. In the year 1740, he published an octavo pamphlet of seventy-six pages, entitled "A Short Account of God's Dealings with the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, A.B., Late of Pembroke College, Oxford: from his Infancy to the Time of his entering into Holy Orders." This was written on board the Elizabeth, during his first voyage to America, and contains not a few unguarded and objectionable expressions—expressions which brought upon him the ridicule of his enemies, and which he himself afterwards regretted. In 1756, he "revised, corrected, and abridged" this imprudent publication; and, in the Preface, confessed that "many mistakes were rectified," and "many passages, that were justly exceptionable, erased."
In the present work, Whitefield, as far as possible, is made to be his own biographer; and though, perhaps, it is scarcely fair to print again what he himself erased, yet, as the sentences and paragraphs which he subsequently omitted were the occasion of many of the virulent attacks made upon him by his earliest opponents, these attacks cannot be properly understood without the text from which they had their origin.
Besides this, the publication in question is now extremely scarce. Not one in a thousand of Whitefield's admirers has ever seen it. It has never been re-published in its entirety since it was first issued, in the year 1740. It exhibits, not only Whitefield's honesty, but his weaknesses and faults, at the early age of twenty-five; and, without it, the reader cannot have a full and correct conception of Whitefield's character at the commencement of his marvelous and illustrious career.
For such reasons, the pamphlet of 1740 is here given in its completeness, without abridgment and without revision. The words and passages, however, which he himself, in 1756, altered or erased, will be marked by being enclosed in brackets, or by notes.
Another remark must be added. What Whitefield says of his boyhood's wickedness must be received with caution. To exalt the grace of God in his conversion, he seemed desirous to magnify his own depravity and sin. Without intentional exaggeration, he, perhaps, makes himself worse than he really was. At all events, the following extract from his preface deserves attention:—
"In the accounts of good men which I have read, I have observed that the writers of them have been partial. They have given us the bright, but not the dark side of their character. This, I think, proceeded from a kind of pious fraud, lest mentioning persons' faults should encourage others in sin. It cannot, I am sure, proceed from the wisdom which cometh from above. The sacred writers give an account of their failings as well as their virtues. Peter is not ashamed to confess that, with oaths and curses, he thrice denied his Master; nor do the Evangelists make any scruple of telling us, that out of Mary Magdalene Jesus Christ cast seven devils.
"I have, therefore, endeavoured to follow their good example. I have simply told what I was by nature, as well as what I am by grace. I am not over cautious as to any supposed consequences, since none can be hurt by these but such as hold the truth in unrighteousness. To the pure all things will be pure.
"As I have often wished, when in my best frames, that the first years of my life might be put down as a blank, and had no more in remembrance, so I could almost wish now to pass them over in silence. But as they will, in some degree, illustrate God's dealings with me in my riper years, I shall, as I am able, give the following brief account of them."
After this exordium, which the reader will find useful in interpreting what follows, Whitefield proceeds with the first section of his autobiography.
"I was born in Gloucester, in the month of December, 1714. [My father and mother kept the Bell Inn. The former died when I was two years old; the latter is now alive, and has often told me how she endured fourteen weeks' sickness after she brought me into the world; but was used to say, even when I was an infant, that she expected more comfort from me than any other of her children. This, with the circumstance of my being born in an inn, has been often of service to me in exciting my endeavours to make good my mother's expectations, and so follow the example of my dear Saviour, who was born in a manger belonging to an inn.
"My very infant years must necessarily not be mentioned; yet, I can remember such early stirrings of corruption in my heart, as abundantly convinces me that I was conceived and born in sin,—that in me dwelleth no good thing by nature, and that if God had not freely prevented me by His grace, I must have been for ever banished from His presence.]
"I can truly say, I was froward from my mother's womb. I was so brutish as to hate instruction, and used purposely to shun all opportunities of receiving it. I can date some very early acts of uncleanness. [I soon gave pregnant proofs of an impudent temper.] Lying, filthy talking, and foolish jesting I was much addicted to [even when very young]. Sometimes I used to curse, if not swear. Stealing from my mother I thought no theft at all, and used to make no scruple of taking money out of her pocket before she was up. I have frequently betrayed my trust, and have more than once spent money I took in the house, in buying fruits, tarts, etc., to satisfy my sensual appetite. Numbers of Sabbaths have I broken, and generally used to behave myself very irreverently in God's sanctuary. Much money have I spent in plays, and in the common entertainments of the age. Cards and reading romances were my heart's delight. Often have I joined with others in playing roguish tricks, but was generally, if not always, happily detected. For this, I have often since, and do now, bless and praise God.
"It would be endless to recount the sins and offences of my younger days. They are more in number than the hairs of my head. My heart would fail me at the remembrance of them, was I not assured that my Redeemer liveth, ever to make intercession for me. However the young man in the Gospel might boast how he had kept the commandments from his youth, with shame and confusion of face I confess that I have broken them all from my youth. Whatever foreseen fitness for salvation others may talk of and glory in, I disclaim any such thing. If I trace myself from my cradle to my manhood, I can see nothing in me but a fitness to be damned. [I speak the truth in Christ, I lie not.] If the Almighty had not prevented me by His grace, and wrought most powerfully upon my soul, quickening me by His free Spirit when dead in trespasses and sins, I had now been either sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, or condemned, as the due reward of my crimes, to be for ever lifting up my eyes in torments.
"But such was the free grace of God to me, that though corruption worked so strongly in my soul, and produced such early and bitter fruits, yet I can recollect very early movings of the blessed Spirit upon my heart, sufficient to satisfy me that God loved me with an everlasting love, and separated me even from my mother's womb for the work to which He afterwards was pleased to call me.
"I had some early convictions of sin; and once, I remember, when some persons, as they frequently did, made it their business to tease me, I immediately retired to my room, and kneeling down, with many tears, prayed over that psalm wherein David so often repeats these words—'But in the name of the Lord will I destroy them.' I was always fond of being a clergyman, and used frequently to imitate the ministers reading prayers, etc. Part of the money I used to steal from my parent I gave to the poor, and some books I privately took from others, for which I have since restored fourfold, I remember were books of devotion.
"My mother was very careful of my education, and always kept me in my tender years [for which I never can sufficiently thank her] from intermeddling in the least with the public business.
"About the tenth year of my age, it pleased God to permit my mother to marry a second time. It proved what the world would call an unhappy match as for temporals, but God overruled it for good. [It set my brethren upon thinking more than otherwise they would have done, and made an uncommon impression upon my own heart in particular.]
"When I was about twelve, I was placed at a school called St. Mary de Crypt, in Gloucester—the last grammar school I ever went to. Having a good elocution and memory, I was remarked for making speeches before the Corporation, at their annual visitation.[2] But I cannot say I felt any drawings of God upon my soul for a year or two, saving that I laid out some of the money that was given me, on one of those forementioned occasions, in buying Ken's 'Manual for Winchester Scholars'—a book that had much affected me when my brother used to read it in my mother's troubles, and which, for some time after I bought it, was of great benefit to my soul.
"During the time of my being at school, I was very fond of reading plays, and have kept from school for days together to prepare myself for acting them. My master, seeing how mine and my schoolfellows' vein ran, composed something of this kind for us himself, and caused me to dress myself in girl's clothes, which I had often done, to act a part before the Corporation. The remembrance of this has often covered me with confusion of face, and I hope will do so, even to the end of my life.
["And I cannot but here observe, with much concern of mind, how this way of training up youth has a natural tendency to debauch the mind, to raise ill passions, and to stuff the memory with things as contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as light to darkness, heaven to hell. However, though the first thing I had to repent of was my education in general, yet I must always acknowledge my particular thanks are due to my master, for the great pains he took with me and his other scholars, in teaching us to speak and write correctly.]
"Before I was fifteen, having, as I thought, made a sufficient progress in the classics, and, at the bottom, longing to be set at liberty from the confinement of a school, I one day told my mother, 'Since her circumstances would not permit her to give me an University education, more learning I thought would spoil me for a tradesman; and, therefore, I judged it best not to learn Latin any longer.' She at first refused to consent, but my corruptions soon got the better of her good nature. Hereupon, for some time, I went to learn to write only. But my mother's circumstances being much on the decline, and being tractable that way, I from time to time began to assist her occasionally in the public-house, till at length I put on my blue apron and my snuffers,[3] washed mops, cleaned rooms, and, in one word, became professed and common drawer for nigh a year and a half.
"[But He who was with David when he was following the sheep big with young, was with me even here. For] notwithstanding I was thus employed in a common inn, and had sometimes the care of the whole house upon my hands, yet I composed two or three sermons, and dedicated one of them in particular to my elder brother. One time, I remember, I was much pressed to self-examination, and found myself very unwilling to look into my heart. Frequently I read the Bible when sitting up at night. Seeing the boys go by to school has often cut me to the heart. And a dear youth, now with God, would often come entreating me, when serving at the bar, to go to Oxford. My general answer was, 'I wish I could.'
"After I had continued about a year in this servile employment, my mother was obliged to leave the inn. My brother, who had been bred up for the business, married; whereupon all was made over to him; and, I being accustomed to the house, it was agreed that I should continue there as an assistant. [But God's thoughts were not as our thoughts.
"By His good Providence] it happened that my sister-in-law and I could by no means agree; [and at length the resentment grew to such an height, that my proud heart would scarce suffer me to speak to her for three weeks together. But notwithstanding I was much to blame, yet I used to retire and weep before the Lord, as Hagar when flying from her mistress Sarah—little thinking that God by this means was forcing me out of the public business, and calling me from drawing wine for drunkards, to draw water out of the wells of salvation for the refreshment of His spiritual Israel.]
"After continuing for a long while under this burden of mind, I at length resolved, thinking my absence would make all things easy, to go away. Accordingly, by the advice of my brother and consent of my mother, I went to see my elder brother, then settled at Bristol.
"Here God was pleased to give me great foretastes of His love,[4] and fill me with such unspeakable raptures, particularly once in St. John's Church, that I was carried out beyond myself. I felt great hungerings and thirstings after the blessed Sacrament, and wrote many letters to my mother, telling her I would never go into the public employment again. Thomas à Kempis was my great delight, and I was always impatient till the bell rang to call me to tread the courts of the Lord's house. But in the midst of these illuminations, something surely whispered, 'This will not last.'
"And, indeed, so it happened. For—oh that I could write it in tears of blood!—when I left Bristol, as I did in about two months, and returned to Gloucester, I changed my devotion with my place. Alas! all my fervour went off: I had no inclination to go to church, or draw nigh unto God. In short, my heart, though I had so lately tasted of His love, was far from Him.
"However, I had so much religion left, as to persist in my resolution not to live in the inn; and therefore my mother gave me leave, though she had but a little income, to have a bed upon the ground, and live at her house, till Providence should point out a place for me.
"Having now, as I thought, nothing to do, it was a proper season for Satan to tempt me. Much of my time I spent in reading plays, and in sauntering from place to place. I was careful to adorn my body, but took little pains to deck and beautify my soul. Evil communications with my old schoolfellows soon corrupted my good manners. By seeing their evil practices, the sense of the Divine presence[5] I had vouchsafed unto me insensibly wore off my mind, and I at length fell into abominable secret sin, the dismal effects of which I have felt, and groaned under ever since.
"[But God, whose gifts and callings are without repentance, would let nothing pluck me out of His hands, though I was continually doing despite to the Spirit of Grace. He saw me with pity and compassion, when lying in my blood. He passed by me; He said unto me, Live; and even gave me some foresight of His providing for me.
"One morning, as I was reading a play to my sister, said I, 'God intends something for me which we know not of. As I have been diligent in business, I believe many would gladly have me for an apprentice, but every way seems to be barred up, so that I think God will provide for me some way or other that we cannot apprehend.'
"How I came to say these words I know not. God afterwards showed me they came from Him.] Having thus lived with my mother for some considerable time, a young student, who was once my schoolfellow, and then a servitor of Pembroke College, Oxford, came to pay my mother a visit. Amongst other conversation, he told her how he had discharged all college expenses that quarter, and received a penny. Upon that my mother immediately cried out, 'This will do for my son.' Then, turning to me, she said, 'Will you go to Oxford, George?' I replied, 'With all my heart.' Whereupon, having the same friends that this young student had, my mother, without delay, waited on them. They promised their interest to get me a servitor's place in the same college. She then applied to my old master, who much approved of my coming to school again.
"In about a week I went and re-entered myself, [and being grown much in stature, my master addressed me thus: 'I see, George, you are advanced in stature, but your better part must needs have gone backwards.' This made me blush. He set me something to translate into Latin; and though I had made no application to my classics for so long a time, yet I had but one inconsiderable fault in my exercises. This, I believe, somewhat surprised my master then, and has afforded me matter of thanks and praise ever since.
"Being re-settled at school, I spared no pains to go forward in my book.] God was pleased to give me His blessing, and I learned much faster than I did before. But all this while I continued in [secret] sin; and, at length, got acquainted with such a set of debauched, abandoned, atheistical youths, that if God, by His free, unmerited, and especial grace, had not delivered me out of their hands, I should long since have sat in the scorner's chair [and made a mock at sin]. By keeping company with them, my thoughts of religion grew more and more like theirs. I went to public service only to make sport and walk about. I took pleasure in their lewd conversation. I began to reason as they did [and to ask why God had given me passions, and not permitted me to gratify them? Not considering that God did not originally give us these corrupt passions, and that He had promised help to withstand them, if we would ask it of Him. In short, I soon made a great proficiency in the school of the devil. I affected to look rakish], and was in a fair way of being as infamous as the worst of them.
"But, oh stupendous love! God even here stopped me, when running on in a full career to hell. For, just as I was upon the brink of ruin, He gave me such a distaste of their principles and practices, that I discovered them to my master, who soon put a stop to their proceedings.
"Being thus delivered out of the snare of the devil, I began to be more and more serious, and felt God, at different times, working powerfully and convincingly upon my soul. One day in particular, as I was coming downstairs, and overheard my friends speaking well of me, God so deeply convinced me of hypocrisy, that, though I had formed frequent but ineffectual resolutions before, yet I had then power given me over my secret and darling sin. Notwithstanding, some time after being overtaken in liquor, as I have been twice or thrice in my lifetime, Satan gained his usual advantage over me again,—an experimental proof to my poor soul, how that wicked one makes use of men as machines, working them up to just what he pleases [when by intemperance they have chased away the Spirit of God from them].
"Being now near the seventeenth year of my age, I was resolved to prepare myself for the holy sacrament, which I received on Christmas Day. I began now to be more and more watchful over my thoughts, words, and actions. I kept the following Lent, fasting Wednesday and Friday, thirty-six hours together. My evenings, when I had done waiting upon my mother, were generally spent in acts of devotion, reading 'Drelincourt on Death,' and other practical books, and I constantly went to public worship twice a day. Being now upper-boy, by God's help, I made some reformation amongst my schoolfellows. I was very diligent in reading and learning the classics, and in studying my Greek Testament, but was not yet convinced of the absolute unlawfulness of playing at cards, and of reading and seeing plays, though I began to have some scruples about it.
"Near this time, I dreamed that I was to see God on Mount Sinai, but was afraid to meet Him. This made a great impression upon me; and a gentlewoman to whom I told it said, 'George, this is a call from God.'
["Still I grew more serious after this dream; but yet hypocrisy crept into every action. As once I affected to look more rakish, I now strove to appear more grave than I really was. However, an uncommon concern and alteration were visible in my behaviour, and I often used to find fault with the lightness of others.
"One night, as I was going on an errand for my mother, an unaccountable but very strong impression was made upon my heart that I should preach quickly. When I came home, I innocently told my mother what had befallen me; but she, like Joseph's parents when he told them his dream, turned short upon me, crying out, 'What does the boy mean? Pri'thee hold thy tongue,' or something to that purpose. God has since shown her from whom that impression came.]
"For a twelvemonth, I went on in a round of duties, receiving the sacrament monthly, fasting frequently, attending constantly on public worship, and praying often more than twice a day in private. One of my brothers used to tell me he feared this would not hold long, and that I should forget all when I came to Oxford. This caution did me much service, for it set me upon praying for perseverance; and, under God, the preparation I made in the country was a preservative against the manifold temptations which beset me at my first coming to that seat of learning.
"Being now near eighteen years old, it was judged proper for me to go to the University. God had [sweetly] prepared my way. The friends before applied to recommended me to the master of Pembroke College. Another friend took up £10 upon bond, which I have since repaid, to defray the first expense of entering; and the master,[6] contrary to all expectations, admitted the servitor immediately."
Thus ends Whitefield's history of his own boyhood. His confession of youthful wickedness is more minute than profitable. It was scarcely wise for a young evangelist of twenty-five, who had attained an unexampled popularity, and thereby brought upon himself the rancour of envious observers, to print such an enumeration of juvenile sins and follies. Indeed, the wisdom of doing this may be justly questioned in any case. A man may and ought to confess to God; but he is under no obligation to confess to men like himself. As already stated, the foregoing details would not have been reproduced in the present work, had it not been that this was necessary to exhibit the imprudent ingenuousness of the youthful preacher, and to show that his own unguarded writings fairly exposed him to some of the bitter pamphleteering with which he was soon attacked. Augustine had written similar Confessions, and so also had Jean Jacques Rousseau; but the world is none the better because Augustine and Rousseau made the world their father confessor. Whitefield's enemies were not slow to use the advantage against him with which he had furnished them; and, even nine years after the publication of his pamphlet, he had to pay a penalty for some of its well-meant, but inconsiderate expressions. "Mr. Whitefield's account of God's dealings with him," said Dr. Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, "is such a boyish, ludicrous, filthy, nasty, and shameless relation of himself, as quite defiles paper, and is shocking to decency and modesty. 'Tis a perfect jakes of uncleanness."[7] The reader, with the "account" unabridged before him, can easily form an opinion of the truthfulness, or rather free-tongued censure, of Whitefield's episcopal castigator. Whitefield assigned a reason for what he did; and, though the sufficiency of that reason may not be admitted, yet all will give Whitefield credit for sincerity and good intentions, and no spiritually minded man will laugh at the penitential spirit which the confessions unquestionably evince.
As in the case of many others, Whitefield's boyhood was a strange admixture of sin and penitence. At intervals, we find the boy a liar, a petty thief, a pretended rake, a dandy, and almost an infidel; and then we find him spending his scantily collected pence in buying the manual of Bishop Ken; composing sermons; delighting in Thomas à Kempis; reading books like Drelincourt's "Christian Defence against the Fears of Death;" promoting a reformation of manners among the boys in the school of St. Mary de Crypt; religiously watching over his own thoughts, words, and actions; praying in private; worshipping in public; receiving the sacrament once a month; and, during Lent and at other times, frequently fasting for eighteen hours together. The Oxford Methodists, of whom perhaps he had never heard, were now approaching the very climax of their ascetic practices; and the quondam tapster of the Bell Inn, Gloucester, by a strange experience, was prepared to join them. Bad companions had nearly ruined him; but now his companions were to be of another sort.
In the midst of all his wickedness and youthful frolics, Whitefield displayed an undauntedness which helped to make him what he afterwards became. His educational advantages were not great. Unlike the Wesleys, his home was not favourable to his mental improvement. The public-house in which he was born and bred was widely different from the Epworth parsonage. Practically he was fatherless whilst the Wesley brothers had for a father a man who, though sometimes improvident in attending convocations and in the publishing of books, had, in learning, but few superiors, and, as a clergyman of the Church of England, was excelled by none. Whitefield's mother was, evidently, an affectionate, sensible, and worthy woman; but, in most respects, immeasurably inferior to Susannah Wesley. Besides having had the unspeakable advantages of their Epworth home-education, John Wesley was privileged to spend five years and a half at the Charterhouse, London; and his brother Charles about the same length of time in the equally famed school of Westminster. On the other hand, Whitefield had no education, worth mentioning, until he was twelve years old; from twelve to fifteen he spent in the school of St. Mary de Crypt, partly in acquiring learning and partly in acting plays; from fifteen to seventeen, he was chiefly employed as tapster in his mother's tavern; and then came the turning-point of his existence. After listening to the story of the poor servitor of Pembroke College, who, by serving others, had paid all his college expenses, and had saved a penny, Whitefield's mother said, "George, will you go to Oxford?" "Yes," said George, "with all my heart." And, within a week, he was again at the school of St. Mary de Crypt; and, within a year, an undergraduate of an Oxford college. George's decision, prompt action, and hard-working ambition displayed pluck, not unworthy of the man, who, in later years, braved brutal mobs with heroic boldness, and who, when the present comforts of oceanic travelling were things unthought about, again and again crossed the turbulent Atlantic; and, constrained by the love of Christ his Saviour, tramped American woods and swamps, seeking sinners, and trying to save them.
One other fact is noticeable. From childhood George Whitefield was an orator. A hundred and fifty years ago dramatic performances appear to have been an important part of the education of the public schools of England. Thus it was in the Westminster School, where Charles Wesley was "put forward to act dramas," because of his lively cleverness; and thus it was at St. Mary de Crypt, Gloucester, where Whitefield, on account of his "good elocution and memory," was "remarked for making speeches before the Corporation at their annual visitation;" and where the master of the school composed dramatical pieces in which Whitefield and his schoolfellows might display their histrionic genius and powers. The marvellously exciting eloquence of Whitefield was not so much an acquirement as a gift of nature; and this helps to explain his inordinate delight in theatrical literature, previous to his conversion.