J. C. Ryle

“ Nothing was done for the destitute parts of our own country. Nothing was done for education. The Church slept. The dissenters slept. The pulpit slept. The religious press slept. The gates were left wide open. The walls were left unguarded. Infidelity stalked in. The Devil sowed tares broadcast, and walked to and fro. The gentry gloried in their shame, and no man pointed out their wickedness. The people sinned with a high hand, and no man taught them better. Ignorance, profligacy, irreligion, and superstition, were to be seen every where. Such were the times when Whitefield was raised up. ”

“ GEORGE WHITEFIELD.
There are some men in the pages of history, whose greatness no person of common sense thinks of disputing. They tower above the herd of mankind, like the Pyramids, the Parthenon, and the Colosseum, among buildings. Such men were Luther and Augustine, Gustavus Adolphus and George Washington, Columbus and Sir Isaac Newton. He who questions their greatness must be content to be thought very ignorant, very prejudiced, or very eccentric. ”

“ He would show them the amazing love of God the Son in taking our nature on him, and suffering for us, the just for the unjust. He would tell them of Jesus able to save to the uttermost all that would come to God by him—Jesus and his everlasting righteousness, in which the vilest sinners might stand complete and perfect before the throne of God—Jesus and the blood of sprinkling, which could wash the blackest sins away—Jesus, the High Priest, waiting to receive all who would come to him, and not only mighty, but ready to save. ”

“ It was not the writings of Leland, and the younger Sherlock, and Waterland, and Leslie, that rolled back the flood of infidelity one half so much as the preaching of Whitefield, and Wesley, and Fletcher, and Romaine, and Berridge, and Venn. Had it not been for them, I firmly believe we might have had a counterpart of the French Revolution in our own land. They were the men who were the true champions of Christianity. Infidels are seldom shaken by mere abstract reasoning. The surest arguments against them are gospel truth and gospel life. ”

“ Whether you become ministers or missionaries or teachers, never forget you must fight with Whitefield's weapons, if you wish to have any portion of Whitefield's success. Never forget what John Wesley said was Whitefield's theology—"Give God all the glory of whatever is good in man: set Christ as high and man as low as possible, in the business of salvation. All merit is in the blood of Christ, and all power is from the Spirit of Christ." ”

“ Learn then, I beseech you, for one lesson, the amazing power that one single man possesses, when he is determined to work for God, and has got truth on his side.
Here is a man who starts in life with every thing, to all appearance, against him. He has neither family, nor place, nor money, nor high connections on his side. His views are flatly opposed to the customs and prejudices of his time. He stands in direct opposition to the stream of public taste, and the religion of the vast bulk of ministers around him. ”

“ Whitefield no doubt was not a churchman of the stamp of Archbishop Laud and his school. He was not the man to put a Romish interpretation on our excellent Formularies, and to place Church and sacraments before Christ. He was not a churchman of the stamp of Tillotson and the school that followed him. He did not lay aside justification by faith, and the need of grace, for semi-heathen disquisitions about morality and duty, virtue and vice. And he was quite right. Laud and his followers went infinitely beyond the doctrines of our Church. Tillotson and his school fell infinitely below. ”

“ The marks of the Lord Jesus were the only marks he cared for. This catholicity is the more remarkable, when the spirit of the times he lived in is considered. Even the Erskines, in Scotland, wanted him to preach for no other denomination but their own, viz., the Secession Church. He asked them, why only for them; and received the notable answer, that they were the Lord's people. This was more than Whitefield could stand. He asked if there were no other Lord's people but themselves. He told them, if all others were the Devil's people, they certainly had more need to be preached to. ”

“ Whitefield, again, was among the first to show the right way to meet infidels and skeptics. He saw clearly that the most powerful weapon against such men is not metaphysical reasoning and critical disquisition; but preaching the whole gospel, living the whole gospel, and spreading the whole gospel. ”

“ There is a generation of men who under no circumstances will worship God out of their own parish: and as to separation from the Church, they seem to think that nothing whatever can justify it. I do not, of course, expect such men to admire Whitefield or his work. His principle evidently was, that it was far better for men to be uncanonically saved than canonically damned.
Whether by any other line of action Whitefield could have remained in the Church, and retained his usefulness, is a question which, at this distance of time, we are very incompetent to answer. ”

“ But if a churchman is a man who reads the Articles, and Liturgy, and Homilies, in the sense of the men who compiled them—if a churchman is a man who sympathizes with Cranmer, and Latimer, and Hooper, and Jewell—if a churchman is a man who honors doctrines and ordinances in the order and proportion that the Thirty-nine Articles honor them—if this be the true definition of a churchman, then Whitefield was the highest style of churchman—as true a churchman as ever breathed. ”

“ We have hundreds of clergymen in our parishes [Pg 42] now, who preach as full a gospel as Whitefield did, though they may not do it with the same power—clergymen who are not ashamed of the doctrine of regeneration, and do not pronounce a minister a heretic, because he says to ungodly people, "Ye must be born again." Let us thank God for this. A man need not travel many miles now in order to find parishes where the gospel is preached. When driven out of one parish church, he can find truth in another. ”

“ He would unfold to them the amazing love of God the Father to a fallen world—that love from which he gave his only-begotten Son, and on account of which, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ”

“ We are far too apt to look at the gloomy side of things around us, and at that only. We are all prone to dwell on the faults of our condition, and to forget to bless God for our mercies. There are many things we could wish otherwise in our beloved Church, beyond all question. There are defects we could wish to see remedied, and wounds we should gladly see healed. But still, let us look behind us, and compare the Church of our day with the Church of Whitefield's times. ”

“ On the contrary, one of his biographers tells us that he was especially careful to impress on all the members of his congregation the absolute necessity of adorning the doctrine of God in all the relations of life. Masters and servants, rich people and poor, old and young, married and single, each and all were plainly exhorted to glorify God in their respective positions. One day he would tell the young men of his congregation to beware of being like one he heard of, whose uncle described him as such a jumble of religion and business, that he was fit for neither. ”

“ One thing is abundantly clear and beyond dispute, and that is, that his sermons were wonderfully effective. No preacher has ever succeeded in arresting the attention of such enormous crowds of people as those he addressed continually in the neighborhood of London. No preacher has ever been so universally popular in every country he visited, England, Scotland and America, as he was. No preacher has ever retained his hold on his hearers so entirely as he did for thirty-four years. ”

“ As to the substance of Whitefield's theological teaching, the simplest account I can give of it is, that it was purely evangelical. There were four main things that he never lost sight of in his sermons. These four were: man's complete ruin by sin, and consequent natural corruption of heart; man's complete redemption by Christ, and complete justification before God by faith in Christ; man's need of regeneration by the Spirit, and entire renewal of heart and life; and man's utter want of any title to be considered a living Christian, unless he is dead to sin and lives a holy life. ”

“ But while Whitefield addressed the careless and ungodly masses in this style, he never failed to urge on those who made a high profession of religion their responsibility, and to stir them up to walk worthy of their high calling. He never tolerated men who talked well about religion, but lived inconsistent lives. ”

“ Like the famous sculptures of Nineveh, they need the hand of some literary Layard to clear away the rubbish that has accumulated round their names, and show them to the world in their fair proportions. ”

“ Old Venn, in our own Church, was a man of strong common sense, as well as great grace. His opinion was, that "if the greatness, extent, success, and disinterestedness of a man's labors can give him distinction among the children of Christ, then we are warranted to affirm, that scarce any one has equalled Mr. Whitefield." Again, he says, "It is a well-known fact, that the conversion of men's souls has been the fruit of a single sermon from his lips, so eminently was he made a fisher of men." ”

“ He told them that if they loved life, they must immediately repent—they must become new creatures—they must be converted, they must be born again. And I believe the apostles would have done just the same.
But Whitefield was just as full and explicit in setting forth the way to heaven as he was in setting forth the way to hell. When he saw that men's consciences were pricked and their fears aroused, he would open the treasure-house of gospel mercy, and spread forth before a congregation its unsearchable stores. ”

“ But there are also great men whose reputation lies buried under a heap of contemporary ill-will and misrepresentation. The world does not appreciate them, because the world does not know their real worth. Their characters have come down to us through poisoned channels. Their portraits have been drawn by the ill-natured hand of enemies. Their faults have been exaggerated. Their excellences have been maliciously kept back and suppressed. ”

“ We have bishops on the bench now, who love the simple truth as it is in Jesus, and are ready to help forward good works—bishops who are not ashamed to come forward in Exeter Hall, and lend their aid to the extension of Christ's gospel—bishops who would have welcomed a man like Whitefield, and found full occupation for his marvellous gifts. ”

“ I may be wrong, but they appear to me to present just such a combination of excellences as is most likely to make an effective preacher.
First and foremost, you must remember, Whitefield preached a singularly pure gospel. Few men ever gave their hearers so much wheat and so little chaff. He did not get into his pulpit to talk about his party, his cause, his interest, or his office. He was perpetually telling you about your sins, your heart, and Jesus Christ, in the way that the Bible speaks of them. "Oh! the righteousness of Jesus Christ!" ”

“ He told these thousands at once that they were in danger of being lost for ever—that they were in the broad way that leads to destruction—that they were dead, and must be made alive again—that they were lost, and must be found. ”

“ Franklin, the philosopher, was a cold, calculating man, [Pg 36] and not likely to speak too highly of any minister's work. Yet even he confessed that it "was wonderful to see the change soon made by his preaching in the manners of the inhabitants of Philadelphia. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious."
Maclaurin and Willison were Scotch ministers, whose names are well-known to theological readers, and stand deservedly high. Both of them have testified that Whitefield did an amazing work in Scotland. ”

“ He gathers crowds around him who receive his teaching. He is made a blessing to tens of thousands. He turns the world upside down. How striking these facts are!
Here is your encouragement, if you stand alone. You have no reason to be cast down and faint-hearted. You are not weak, though few, if God is with you. ”

“ It is a fact, that eminent statesmen, like Bolingbroke and Chesterfield, were frequently his delighted hearers. Even the artificial Chesterfield was known to warm under Whitefield's eloquence. Bolingbroke has placed on record his opinion, and said, "He is the most extraordinary man in our times. He has the most commanding eloquence I ever heard in any person."
It is a fact, that cool-headed men, like Hume the historian, and Franklin the philosopher, spoke in no measured terms of his preaching powers. Franklin has written a long account of the effect his sermons produced at Philadelphia. ”

“ We have thousands of laymen now, who are fully alive to the duties and responsibilities of members of a Protestant Church—laymen who rejoice in holding up the hands of evangelical ministers, and are righteously jealous for the maintenance and extension of evangelical truth. ”