WHITEFIELD

THE METHOD OF GRACE

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

George Whitefield, evangelist and leader of Calvinistic Methodists, who has been called the Demosthenes of the pulpit, was born at Gloucester, England, in 1714.  He was an impassioned pulpit orator of the popular type, and his power over immense congregations was largely due to his histrionic talent and his exquisitely modulated voice, which has been described as “an organ, a flute, a harp, all in one,” and which at times became stentorian.  He had a most expressive face, and altho he squinted, in grace and significance of gesture he knew perfectly how to “suit the action to the word.”  But he had not the style or scholarship of Wesley, and his printed sermons do not fully bear out his reputation.  Whitefield died in 1770.

WHITEFIELD

1714—­1770

THE METHOD OF GRACE

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.—­Jeremiah vi., 14.

As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers, so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskilful guides.  And yet, in all ages, we find that there have been many wolves in sheep’s clothing, many that daubed with untempered mortar, that prophesied smoother things than God did allow.  As it was formerly, so it is now; there are many that corrupt the word of God and deal deceitfully with it.  It was so in a special manner in the prophet Jeremiah’s time; and he, faithful to his Lord, faithful to that God who employed him, did not fail from time to time to open his mouth against them, and to bear a noble testimony to the honor of that God in whose name he from time to time spake.  If you will read his prophecy, you will find that none spake more against such ministers than Jeremiah, and here especially in the chapter out of which the text is taken he speaks very severely against them.  He charges them with several crimes; particularly he charges them with covetousness:  “For,” says he, in the thirteenth verse, “from the least of them even to the greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely.”

And then, in the words of the text, in a more special manner he exemplifies how they had dealt falsely, how they had behaved treacherously to poor souls:  says he, “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”  The prophet, in the name of God, had been denouncing war against the people; he had been telling them that their house