SEVENTH VISIT TO AMERICA.
September, 1769, to September, 1770.
Embarks for America—Letter to Wesley—Detention in the Downs—Ordination Service at Deal—Last Sermons at Ramsgate—Arrival at Charleston—At Bethesda—Letter to Charles Wesley—Memorable Day at the Orphan House—Whitefield’s Memorable Sermon there—Orphan House Accounts—Rules for Orphan House Academy—Subsequent History of Orphan House—Wesley’s Letter respecting Orphan House—Happy—Another Gospel Tour—Meets Wesley’s Missionaries—Rev. Dr. Kirkland—Preaching on a Felon’s Coffin—A Rebuke—Whitefield’s Popularity—Whitefield’s Preaching Places during Last Two Months of his Life—His Last Letters—Riots at Boston—His Last Sermon—Rev. Jonathan Parsons—Whitefield’s Death—His Funeral—Benjamin Randall—Mourning at Savannah—Whitefield’s Corpse—HisCenotaph—Proposed Monument—Visits to Whitefield’s Sepulchre—One of his Bones Stolen—His Will—Elegies, Charles Wesley’s, Cowper’s—Funeral Sermon by Wesley—Funeral Sermons Preached—Funeral Sermons Published—Rev. Jonathan Parsons on Whitefield—Dr. Pemberton on Ditto—Rev. Henry Venn on Ditto—Toplady on Ditto—Rev. John Newton on Ditto—The Scots’ Magazine on Ditto—The Pennsylvania Journal on Ditto—Dr. Gillies on Ditto—Concluding Remarks, [569]–635
INDEX.
NAMES OF PERSONS AND PLACES.
[635]–645
THE LIFE
OF
The REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD, B.A.
SECOND VISIT TO SCOTLAND.
June to October, 1742.
WHEN Whitefield arrived in Edinburgh, a minister told him, that, though seven months had elapsed since his departure, scarcely one of his converts had“fallen back, either among old or young.”[1] This was a remarkable fact; but there was also another, equally deserving notice. As already shewn, up to the time of Whitefield’s first visit to Scotland, the churches of that country, like those of England, were in the most deplorable condition. In many instances, ministers were unfaithful; in most instances, congregations were dead; and, as it respects the outside populace, it is not an extravagance to say, that, speaking generally, they were almost entirely regardless of religion, and were steeped in worldliness, frivolity, and vice. In the interval, however, between Whitefield’s first and second visits, a most marvellous work of God had taken place. How far Whitefield’s labours and influence, in 1741, had contributed to this, it, perhaps, would be presumptuous to say. So far as it concerns the cause of Christ, this is of little consequence. Every reader of the unvarnished facts will form his own opinion onthe subject. Many of these facts have been already given; and others must now be mentioned. Cambuslang was then a small parish, about four miles from Glasgow; and here Whitefield had preached with amazing power and success only a few months before. The minister of Cambuslang—the Rev. William McCulloch—was a man of “genuine piety, and of considerable capacity;but had nothing particularly striking either in the manner or substance of his preaching.”[2] During most of the year 1741, he had strongly pressed on his congregation the nature and necessity of the new birth. In the third week of February, 1742, three days were specially employed in prayer. On the fourth day, Thursday, February 18, “about fifty persons came to Mr. McCulloch’s house, under convictions and alarming apprehensions respecting the state of their souls, and desiring to speak with him.” After this, numbers of others daily resorted to him, and he soon found it necessary to preach a sermon every day, and, after the sermon, to spend some time with the penitents, “in exhortations, prayers, and singing of psalms.” In less than three months, more than three hundred were converted. Though the parish was of small extent, and most of the people lived within a mile of Mr. McCulloch’s church, not fewer than twelve “societies for prayer” were begun by the converts. In the month of April, the Rev. Mr. Willison, one of Whitefield’s correspondents, visited the place, and wrote: “The work at Cambuslang is a most singular and marvellous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. I pray it may be a happy forerunner of a general revival of the work of God, and a blessed means of union among all the lovers of Jesus.”