George Whitefield
George Whitefield
George Whitefield, also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican cleric who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain and, especially, in the American colonies. Born in Gloucester, England, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford University, where he met the Wesley brothers. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally. In 1740, Whitefield traveled to America, where he preached a series of revivals that came to be known as the "Great Awakening". Whitefield was...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth16 December 1714
It is easy to follow Christ when all things are safe. But your love to Jesus Christ would be seen more, if you must lose your lives, or deny your Jesus. It would be a trial of your love, when fire and faggot [a wooden stick] was before you, if you would rush into that, rather than fly from the truth as it is in Jesus. Though all things are calm now, the storm is gathering and by and by it will break; it is at present no bigger than a man's hand. But when it is full it will break and then you will see whether you are found Christians or not.
Various are the pleas and arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against yielding obedience to the just and holy commands of God.
You might as reasonably expect to find a living man without breath, as a true Christian without the spirit of prayer and supplication.
Numberless marks does man bear in his soul, that he is fallen and estranged from God; but nothing gives a greater proof thereof, than that backwardness, which every one finds within himself, to the duty of praise and thanksgiving.
Thus was the King and the Lord of glory judged by man's judgment, when manifest in flesh: far be it from any of his ministers to expect better treatment.
For it pleased God, after he had made all things by the word of his power, to create man after his own image.
Left to himself, man is half beast and half devil.
It is God alone who can subdue and govern the unruly wills of sinful men.
The fall of man is written in too legible characters not to be understood: Those that deny it, by their denying, prove it.
Man is nothing; he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him" and "you dishonour God by denying election. You plainly make salvation depend, not on God's 'free grace' but on Man's 'free will.'
The reason why congregations have been so dead is because they have dead men preaching to them. How can dead men beget living children?
God, give me a deep humility, a well-guided zeal, a burning love and a single eye, and then let men or devils do their worst!
To preach more than half an hour, a man should be an angel himself or have angels for hearers.
Works? Works? A man get to heaven by works? I would as soon think of climbing to the moon on a rope of sand!