|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other authors named George:
|
|
|
|
Author's popularity: 0
Vote:  
|
If you like or dislike this author in general or one or more of their quotes in particular, please give us your feedback by clicking on the icon to vote for, or the icon to vote against them.
|
|
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Although believers by nature, are far from God, and children of wrath, even as others, yet it is amazing to think how nigh they are brought to him again by the blood of Jesus Christ. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Among the many reasons assignable for the sad decay of true Christianity, perhaps the neglecting to assemble ourselves together, in religious societies, may not be one of the least. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | An evil, that in any age, especially in these dregs of time wherein we live, cannot sufficiently be inveighed against. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | And now let me address all of you, high and low, rich and poor, one with another, to accept of mercy and grace while it is offered to you; Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation; and will you not accept it, now it is offered unto you? |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | And that there may be always such a heart in you, let me exhort all governors of families, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, often to reflect on the inestimable worth of their own souls, and the infinite ransom, even the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which has been paid down for them. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | And there is still the more occasion for such an alarm, because worldly-mindedness so easily and craftily besets the hearts of men. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | As for the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost, such as working of miracles, or speaking with divers kinds of tongues, they are long since ceased. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | At sundry times, and in diverse manners, God was pleased to speak to our fathers by the prophets, before he spoke to us in these last days by his Son. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | At the day of judgment we shall all meet again. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | But he is unworthy the name of a minister of the gospel of peace, who is unwilling, not only to have his name cast out as evil, but also to die for the truths of the Lord Jesus. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | But still take heed how you hear: for upon your improving the grace you have, more shall be given, and you shall have abundance. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Dare, dare, my dear brethren in Christ, to follow the Captain of your salvation, who was made perfect through sufferings. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Do not waver, but give him that which he desires, your hearts; it is the heart the Lord Jesus Christ wanteth; and when you have an inward principle wrought in your hearts by this same Jesus, then you will feel the sweetness and pleasure of communion with God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Fight the good fight of faith, and God will give you spiritual mercies. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | For in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female, bond nor free; even you may be the children of God, if you believe in Jesus. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | For it pleased God, after he had made all things by the word of his power, to create man after his own image. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Here then I could conclude; but I must not forget the poor negroes; no, I must not. Jesus Christ had died for them, as well as for others. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | If your souls were not immortal, and you in danger of losing them, I would not thus speak unto you; but the love of your souls constrains me to speak: methinks this would constrain me to speak unto you forever. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | It is a poor sermon that gives no offense; that neither makes the hearer displeased with himself nor with the preacher. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | It is an undoubted truth that every doctrine that comes from God, leads to God; and that which doth not tend to promote holiness is not of God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | It is very remarkable, that in the book of life, we find some almost of all kinds of occupations, who notwithstanding served God in their respective generations, and shone as so many lights in the world. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Learn, O saints! From what has been said, to sit loose to all your worldly comforts; and stand ready prepared to part with everything, when God shall require it at your hand. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Let us, therefore, not be weary of well-doing; for we shall reap an eternal harvest of comfort, if we faint not. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Mere heathen morality, and not Jesus Christ, is preached in most of our churches. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | My brethren, if you were left to yourselves, you would be overcome by every temptation with which you are beset. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | My heart is full of love to you. I would speak, till I could speak no more, so I could but bring you to Christ. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | No, if we come in the spirit and power of our Master, in this, as in every other part of his sufferings, we must follow his steps. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | No, the religion of Jesus is a social religion. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Nothing is more generally known than our duties which belong to Christianity; and yet, how amazing is it, nothing is less practiced? |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | 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. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | O my brethren, my heart is enlarge towards you. I trust I feel something of that hidden, but powerful presence of Christ, whilst I am preaching to you. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | O that unbelievers would learn of faithful Abraham, and believe whatever is revealed from God, though they cannot fully comprehend it! Abraham knew God commanded him to offer up his son, and therefore believed, notwithstanding carnal reasoning might suggest may objections. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Take care of your life and the Lord will take care of your death. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The fall of man is written in too legible characters not to be understood: Those that deny it, by their denying, prove it. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The great and important duty which is incumbent on Christians, is to guard against all appearance of evil; to watch against the first risings in the heart to evil; and to have a guard upon our actions, that they may not be sinful, or so much as seem to be so. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The Judge is before the door: he that cometh will come, and will not tarry: his reward is with him. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The reason why the Son of God took upon him our nature, was, the fall of our first parents. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | The righteousness of Jesus Christ is one of those great mysteries, which the angels desire to look into, and seems to be one of the first lessons that God taught men after the fall. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | This discourse, and the present frame of my mind, lead me rather to speak to those, who by feeling Satan's fiery darts, know assuredly that there is a devil. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | 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. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | To preach more than half an hour, a man should be an angel himself or have angels for hearers. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | Various are the pleas and arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against yielding obedience to the just and holy commands of God. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | We are immortal until our work on earth is done. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | When our Lord says, we must be converted and become as little children, I suppose he means also, that we must be sensible of our weakness, comparatively speaking, as a little child. |
Popularity: 0
Vote: | You see, my brethren, my heart is full; I could almost say it is too big to speak, and yet too big to be silent, without dropping a word to you. |
|
Biography
|
George Whitefield was a minister in the Church of England and one of the leaders of the Methodist movement. He was born on December 16, 1714 at the Bell Inn, Gloucester, and died in Newburyport, Connecticut on September 30, 1770. In contemporary accounts, he, not John Wesley, is spoken of as the supreme figure and even as the founder of Methodism. He was famous for his preaching in America which was a significant part of the Great Awakening movement of Christian revivals.
George Whitefield was the son of a widow who kept an inn at Gloucester. He was educated at the Crypt School, Gloucester, and Pembroke College, Oxford, and was a part of the 'Holy Club' at Oxford University with the brothers, John Wesley and Charles Wesley, usually seen as the founders of the Methodist Church. His genuine piety led the Bishop of Gloucester to ordain him before the canonical age.
Whitefield preached his first sermon in the Crypt Church in his home town of Gloucester. In 1738, he went to America, becoming minister of Savannah, Georgia. Returning home in the following year, he resumed his evangelical activities, preaching in the open air when churches refused to admit him.
He parted company with Wesley over the doctrine of predestination; Whitefield was a follower of Calvin in this respect. Three churches were established in his name: one in Bristol and two others, the "Moorfields Tabernacle" and the "Tottenham Court Road Chapel", in London. Some of his followers joined the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion", spreading a Calvinistic form of Methodism in Wales, and Whitefield became the Countess's chaplain. He continued to visit America on a regular basis to preach, and also toured the whole of Britain.
In 1738 Whitefield preached a series of revivals in Georgia. Here he established the Bethesda Orphanage, which still exists to this day. In Georgia there was originally a prohibition on slavery. However in 1749 there was a movement to introduce it there, which Whitefield supported. He owned slaves who worked at the orphanage, and these were bequeathed to the Countess of Huntingdon when he died. When he returned to America in 1740 he preached nearly every day for months to large crowds of sometimes several thousand people as he travelled throughout the colonies, especially New England.
Like his contemporary and acquaintance, Jonathan Edwards, Whitefield preached with a Calvinist theology. He was known for his powerful voice and his ability to appeal to the emotions of a crowd, and unlike most preachers of his time spoke extemporaneously, rather than reading his sermon from notes. It is difficult to say wherein the effect of his preaching lay; certainly not in his language or logic, for his printed sermons contain nothing remarkable; it must have been by earnestness and charm of voice that he could attract to him the rich as well as the poor.
He first took to preaching in the open air with remarkable results at Bristol, which at that time was a center of vice in all its worst forms, and he was the first to provide spiritual privileges for the colliers who lived like heathens near that city. 20,000 of these poor workers crowded to hear him, and the white gutters caused by the tears which ran down their black cheeks showed how visibly they were affected, strong men being moved to hysterical convulsions by his wondrous power. John Wesley joining him there was not a little perplexed at these 'bodily symptoms'; he saw them as evident 'signs of grace', notwithstanding that Whitefield considered them to be 'doubtful indications'. Indeed, modern psychologists would call it symptoms of mass hysteria if there were 'persons that screamed out, and put their bodies into violent agitations and distortions' during a sermon. William Hogarth satirized such effects of Methodist preaching in his print, Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism (1762).
Whitefield's more democratic speaking style was greatly appealing to the American audience. Benjamin Franklin once attended a revival meeting in Philadelphia and was greatly impressed with his ability to deliver a message to such a large audience. He was also known to be able to use the newspaper media for beneficial publicity. His revolutionary preaching style shaped the way in which sermons were delivered. He was one of the fathers of Evangelicalism. He was certainly the best-known preacher in America in the 18th century, and because he travelled through all of the American colonies, and drew great crowds and media coverage, he was one of the most widely recognized public figures in America before George Washington.
References *Stout, Harry S. The Divine Dramatist: George Whitefield and the Rise of Modern Evangelicalism. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1991.
*Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival. The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 1970-1980.
...(more on Wikipedia)
|
|
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "George Whitefield".
|
|
|