(December 16, 1714–September 30, 1770), was an evangelist of the Great Awakening in the American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War. He attended Oxford with John and Charles Wesley, who began the Methodist movement. He confronted the established churches, resulting in doors being closed to him. He resorted to preaching out-of-doors, and the colonial population responded with crowds sometimes over thirty thousand. Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography that he was able to hear Whitefield’s voice nearly a mile away!
George Whitefield’s preaching throughout the Eastern seaboard, greatly contributed toward the thirteen individualistic colonies melding into one country. Benjamin Franklin was so impressed by his preaching that he printed Whitefield’s Journal, which grew to be tremendously popular. As no church could hold the large number of people that attended the crusades, Franklin built an auditorium in Philadelphia for Whitefield to preach in, which was latter donated as the first building of the University of Pennsylvania. A bronze statue of George Whitefield stands in front of it.
In 1733, when he was converted, George Whitefield exclaimed:
Joy—joy unspeakable—joy that’s full of, big with glory!549
In a sermon, George Whitefield proclaimed:
Never rest until you can say, “the Lord our righteousness.” Who knows but the Lord may have mercy, nay, abundantly pardon you? Beg of God to give you faith; and if the Lord give you that, you will by it receive Christ, with his righteousness, and his all. …
None, none can tell, but those happy souls who have experienced it with what demonstration of the Spirit this conviction comes. … Oh, how amiable, as well as all sufficient, does the blessed Jesus now appear! With what new eyes does the soul now see the Lord its righteousness! Brethren, it is unutterable. …
Those who live godly in Christ, may not so much be said to live, as Christ to live in them. … They are led by the Spirit as a child is led by the hand of its father. …
They hear, know, and obey his voice. … Being born again in God they habitually live to, and daily walk with God.550
George Whitefield declared:
Would you have peace with God? Away, then, to God through Jesus Christ, who has purchased peace; the Lord Jesus has shed his heart’s blood for this. He died for this; he rose again for this; he ascended into the highest heaven, and is now interceding at the right hand of God.551
Sarah Edwards, the wife of Jonathan Edwards, wrote to her brother in New Haven concerning the effects George Whitefield’s ministry:
It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible. … Our mechanics shut up their shops, and the day laborers throw down their tools to go and hear him preach, and few return unaffected.552
Benjamin Franklin wrote in his autobiography of the effect George Whitefield’s preaching was having on the colonies:
It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro’ the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.553
In 1752, George Whitefield wrote to his friend Benjamin Franklin:
My Dear Doctor. … I find that you grow more and more famous in the learned world.554
In 1764, George Whitefield received a letter from Benjamin Franklin, in which Franklin ended with the salutation:
Your frequently repeated Wishes and Prayers for my Eternal as well as temporal Happiness are very obliging. I can only thank you for them, and offer you mine in return.555
In 1769, George Whitefield wrote Benjamin Franklin on the night before his last trip to America. In this last surviving letter, Whitefield shares his desire that both he and Franklin would:
Be in that happy number of those who is the midst of the tremendous final blaze shall cry Amen.556
The last letter George Whitefield received from Benjamin Franklin revealed Franklin’s heart:
Life, like a dramatic piece, should … finish handsomely. Being now in the last act, I began to cast about for something fit to end with. … I sometimes wish, that you and I were jointly employ’d by the Crown to settle a colony on the Ohio … to settle in that fine country a strong body of religious and industrious people! …
Might it not greatly facilitate the introduction of pure religion among the heathen, if we could, by such a colony, show them a better sample of Christians than they commonly see in our Indian traders?557
In 1770, as he was dying, Whitefield declared:
How willing I would ever live to preach Christ! But I die to be with Him!558