"I wish Mr. Whitefield would not have risen above any pretences to the ordinary influences of the Holy Spirit, unless he could have given some better evidences of it. He has acknowledged to me in conversation that he knows an impression on his mind to be divine, though he cannot give me any convincing proofs of it. I said many things to warn him of the danger of delusion, and to guard him against the irregularities and imprudences which youth and zeal might lead him into; and told him plainly that, though I believed him very sincere, and desirous to do good to souls, yet I was not convinced of any extraordinary call he had to some parts of his conduct. He seemed to take this free discourse in a very candid and modest manner."[214]
A witness of another kind may be introduced. Samuel Johnson was nearly of the same age as Whitefield. Both had been students in Pembroke College, Oxford. Johnson was fallible, faulty, and full of personal prejudices; but he was a man of great ability, and of unblemished truthfulness. He knew Whitefield, and was not unqualified to pronounce an opinion concerning him. That opinion must be judged by its own merits; but being expressed by a distinguished contemporary, it deserves attention. Boswell, Johnson's biographer, writes:—
"Of his fellow-collegian, the celebrated Mr. George Whitefield, he said: 'Whitefield's popularity is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds, were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree."[215] "He never drew as much attention as a mountebank does; he did not draw attention by doing better than others, but by doing what was strange. Were Astley to preach a sermon standing upon his head on a horse's back, he would collect a multitude to hear him; but no wise man would say he made a better sermon for that. I never treated Whitefield's ministry with contempt: I believe he did good. He devoted himself to the lower classes of mankind, and among them he was of use. But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions.'"[216]
Doubtless there is truth in Johnson's opinion, that, one reason why Whitefield had such crowds to hear him was because it was a perfect novelty to have a clergyman of the Church of England preaching, in gown and cassock, in the open air. It was a further novelty to see such a clergyman standing up to preach without reading the appointed liturgy of the Church, and using extemporaneous prayers in lieu of it. It is also probable that Whitefield created considerable sensation by employing language such as the clergy in their churches were not wont to use. All this may be conceded; and it might likewise be allowed, that, to a large extent, Dr. Trapp and the editor of the Weekly Miscellany defeated their own purposes, and that, by their virulent attempts to dishonour Whitefield, they helped to make him more popular. On the other hand, however, it must be borne in mind that opinions like those of Doddridge and Watts were widely entertained both by Churchmen and Dissenters, and that such a fact was not likely to contribute to the largeness of Whitefield's congregations. The reasons above assigned, for Whitefield's popularity, may be perfectly correct, but they are not complete; for to them must be added the following: (1) Whatever his faults might be, Whitefield was a natural orator of the highest order. (2) The truths which distinguished his preaching were truths exactly adapted to the wants and yearnings of human nature,—such as meet the necessities of human beings of all classes, in all lands, and belonging to all ages. (3) Speaking generally, these truths, until recently, had been forgotten, and were not preached in the churches and chapels of England. (4) Whitefield preached them with a fervour which shewed that he believed them. (5) Above all, in answer to the long-continued prayers of the Religious Societies, and by the sovereign grace of God, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, was now moving the masses of the people, and making them anxious concerning their personal salvation; and, further, He was connecting with Whitefield's ministry a "power from on high," like that which distinguished the Apostles' ministry at Pentecost, and making it the means of turning men "from sin to holiness, and from the power of Satan unto God." Let the reader ponder such facts as these, and, perhaps, his wonder will cease at the tens of thousands who tramped from London to Kennington Common to hear the unpolished and imperfect sermons of this youthful Methodist, whose years had not yet reached twenty-five.
While Whitefield was preaching to his large congregations on Kennington Common and in Moorfields, Wesley was similarly employed at Bristol and Kingswood. It is a curious fact that, though Whitefield was forbidden to preach in Newgate Prison, Bristol, Wesley was admitted. Another notable incident must be mentioned. In Bristol and its neighbourhood, Wesley was daily witnessing the most remarkable conversions,—conversions accompanied by those mysterious convulsions that have perplexed all his biographers. In London, Whitefield had prodigious congregations, and his oratorical powers were far greater than those of his friend Wesley; but where were his conversions? His congregations were often powerfully affected; and, on May 12th, he speaks of "many" coming to him, and telling him "what God had done for their souls by his preaching in the fields;" but this, in substance, is all that he himself records. Perhaps this difference in ministerial results may be accounted for by the fact, that nearly the whole of the conversions under Wesley's ministry took place in the meetings of the Religious Societies, where united prayer was always joined to scriptural exposition. On the other hand, during this month of May, Whitefield devoted himself almost exclusively to the work of preaching to vast crowds in the open air, where private spiritual enquiries and united prayers for penitents were impracticable. Besides, at the first, Whitefield strongly objected to such conversions as his friend Wesley was witnessing; and plainly told him that, though he doubted not that God was in the work, yet he equally believed the devil was interposing. He wrote:—
"Were I to give so much encouragement to those convulsions as you have given, how many would cry out every night? I think it is tempting God to require such signs."[217]
Whitefield, however, was not without conversions; and two notable instances must be mentioned here.
Wesley, a few months before he died, said, "Joseph Humphreys was the first lay preacher that assisted me in England, in the year 1738."[218] Who was Joseph Humphreys? The following particulars are gleaned from a pamphlet of forty-four pages, published in 1742, and entitled, "An Account of Joseph Humphreys' Experience of the Work of Grace upon his Heart. Bristol: printed by Felix Farley."
Joseph Humphreys was born at Burford, in Oxfordshire, October 28, 1720, where his father, for nearly thirty years, was the minister of a Dissenting congregation. Joseph was educated at a grammar school at Fairford, in Gloucestershire. His father died in 1733; and being, says Joseph, "uncommonly zealous in his day both for faith and holiness, he was almost universally despised both by Church-people and Dissenters." After his father's death, Joseph was sent to a school in London, "where young men were trained for the ministry." At this early period of his life, he had determined to be a minister, and says, "I used to write sermons of my own composing, thundering exceedingly against all unrepenting sinners." "The pupils every evening took their turns in prayer;" and Joseph thought himself "highly blessed in having his lot cast with such pious, serious young men." He was soon shocked, however, by the fact "that these same young men indulged in light and foolish talking and jesting, playing at draughts, fives, blindman's buff, hunt the shoe, and such-like ludicrous games, quite unbecoming such as professed godliness." By degrees, Joseph grew to be as light-hearted as the rest, and, without confessing it, became an infidel. After indulging in a frightful excess of wickedness, he again began to be religious; and writes:—
"I was for joining the Papists, Church-people, and Dissenters of all denominations in one; I was for reconciling the Arians, Socinians, Arminians, and Calvinists altogether; I would have had them lay aside all disputable points, and harmonize in those things wherein they were all agreed. I liked those men who were for reducing the Christian Articles to a few; and if any one called the Pope Antichrist, I thought he was very ignorant and uncharitable."