George Whitefield Tercentenary Essays

By University of Wales Press

This special issue of The Journal of Religious History, Literature and Culture comprises some of the papers delivered at the ‘George Whitefield after Three Hundred Years’ International Conference held in June 2014 at Pembroke College, Oxford, commemorating the tercentenary of George Whitefield’s birth in 1714.

The Revd George Whitefield (1714–70) was a very important early Methodist leader, clergyman and writer, who has not attracted as much scholarly attention as John and Charles Wesley. This interdisciplinary volume contains articles on ‘George Whitefield and the Secession Movement’s Reaction to the Cambuslang Revival’ by Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh; ‘George Whitefield and Anti-Methodist Allegations of Popery, c.1738–c.1750’ by Simon Lewis; ‘Latitudinarian responses to Whitefield, c.1740–1790’ by G. M. Ditchfield; ‘Preachers, prints and portraits: Methodists and image in Georgian Britain’ by Peter S. Forsaith, with eight attractive images; ‘George Whitefield’s Journals: A Publishing Phenomenon’ by Digby James; and ‘George Whitefield’s Reception in Twentieth-Century German-Speaking Theology’ by Maximilian J. Hölzl.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781783168354

Book preview

GEORGE WHITEFIELD AND THE SECESSION MOVEMENT’S REACTION TO THE CAMBUSLANG REVIVAL

Kenneth B. E. Roxburgh

One of George Whitefield’s earliest connections with Scotland came through the leaders of the Seceding movement. He had been in contact with the Erskine brothers, Ralph and Ebenezer for over two years prior to his arrival in Scotland in 1741.¹ The correspondence had been instigated by Whitefield, who had heard of the success of the Secession in Scotland² and wrote to Ralph Erskine, detailing events surrounding his own ministry in England and Wales. By 4 August 1739, Ralph Erskine was satisfied with the enquiries he had made concerning Whitefield and wrote in his diary that he was praying for him and his colleagues, thanking God ‘for what he has done to them and by them’.³ Although Erskine attempted to influence Whitefield to leave the Church of England, he balked at their ‘insisting only on Presbyterian government, exclusive of all other ways of worshipping God’.⁴ Nevertheless, with hopes that Whitefield could be persuaded to join them as someone ‘on the way of reformation’,⁵ the Associate Presbytery issued an invitation to Whitefield in April 1741 to come to Scotland,⁶ with the proviso that he would preach only within the confines of the Associate Presbytery.⁷ Whitefield was unwilling to accede to their request, believing that his calling was ‘simply to preach the gospel’ to people ‘of whatever denomination’.⁸

Whitefield came to Scotland following a visit to New England, where he had been involved with Jonathan Edwards in furthering the Great Awakening. The connection between Whitefield, Edwards and the leaders of the revival in Scotland would have long-lasting repercussions.⁹ News of the spiritual awakening in New England was eagerly received on the Scottish side of the Atlantic, and by 1741 there were widespread expectations that Scotland would experience a similar outpouring of the Holy Spirit.¹⁰

The revival tradition in Scotland was a vital part of the identity and aspirations of Evangelicals in the Church of Scotland. Accounts of the revivals of Stewarton and Irvine in 1625 and Kirk of Shotts in 1630¹¹ were recalled in 1742 to give a legitimacy to the contemporary out-break.¹² Whitefield arrived in Edinburgh on 30 July 1741. Although he was met by ministers of the Church of Scotland, he fulfilled his promise to the Erskine brothers by proceeding immediately to Dunfermline, being ‘determined to give them the first offer of my poor ministrations’.¹³ Ralph Erskine was evidently favourably impressed by Whitefield, and in letters to both his brother Ebenezer and Adam Gib, Seceding minister in Edinburgh, he noted that ‘the Lord is evidently with him’.¹⁴ Whitefield returned to Edinburgh on 31 July, where he preached ‘to many thousands’.¹⁵ On 5 August, as previously agreed, Whitefield returned to Dunfermline for a meeting with the Associate Presbytery, whom he described as a ‘set of grave venerable men!’¹⁶ According to the account which Whitefield later gave to Thomas Noble in New York, the discussion centred on the question of church government and the covenants, matters which Whitefield did not consider to be of primary importance to the Faith. There appears to have been a difference of opinion between members of the Associate Presbytery, Ebenezer suggesting that they exercised patience, whereas a presbyter ‘immediately replied that no indulgence was to be shown to me’. The end result was ‘an open breach’ of fellowship between Whitefield and the Seceders,¹⁷ although in a letter to Whitefield,¹⁸ Ralph Erskine indicated that he continued to have a high regard for Whitefield. Erskine writes,

I am weary to be so long out of your company […] you shall keep company with none that have a heart more inflamed with love to you than mine is and however you have disappointed me in some things, yet neither my love to you, nor hopes about you, are abated.¹⁹

Yet, he also revealed his disappointment that Whitefield was now associating with ministers of the established Church, ‘wherein the affairs of our Associate Presbytery will be represented to the worst disadvantage’. This in turn led Erskine to inform Whitefield ‘that you are quite lost to us’.²⁰ Reflecting on these events, Whitefield expressed his hope that Scotland would soon experience a revival, believing ‘nothing but that can break down the partition wall of bigotry’.²¹ He would soon discover that such a revival, far from breaking down sectarian animosities, would raise further barriers of bitterness.

Secession

The issue of patronage provoked several schisms within the Church of Scotland, the first of which involved Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine in 1733. Following a sermon in which Ebenezer Erskine had issued a blistering condemnation of an Act of Assembly precluding the voice of the people within a parish to object to a ministerial settlement, he was first of all rebuked by the General Assembly and then, along with three other colleagues, was suspended from the ministry. They all held to their charges and, in December 1733, they constituted themselves as the Associate Presbytery, thereby beginning the first Secession from the Church of Scotland. It was not until 1740 that the General Assembly finally deposed the ministers of the Associate Presbytery. By 1742 it had twenty ministers and thirty-six congregations.

The reluctance of the Seceders to return to the Church, along with their actions in establishing an Associate Presbytery, baptising children, celebrating the Lord’s Supper, licensing preachers and ordaining ministers, eventually brought a hostile reaction from many Evangelicals who had supported their original stand against patronage.²² In 1740, the Seceders appeared before the Assembly and refused to recant or apologise for their actions, and they were deposed ‘by a very great majority’.²³ Despite the reluctance of many Evangelicals to associate themselves with the deposition, the act of 1740 resulted in a wedge being driven between the Seceders and Church Evangelicals.

When Whitefield arrived in Scotland, his visit came at a time when the Presbytery of Dunfermline was trying to reach a decision on how to deal with the problem of Ralph Erskine, who was continuing to exercise his ministry within the Abbey church in Dunfermline, as well as to preach in his own meeting house. On 2 June 1742 the presbytery eventually agreed to ask the magistrates and baillies of Dunfermline to bring Erskine’s ministry in the Abbey church to an end. These two events –Whitefield’s visit and Erskine’s ejection– not only finalised the secession of the Associate Presbytery from the Church of Scotland, but also divided them from their fellow Evangelicals who remained within the establishment.²⁴

The Cambuslang Revival

Whitefield remained in Scotland until 29 October, 1741. He appears to have made Edinburgh the centre of his activities,²⁵ and travelled to various parts of the country, usually returning to Edinburgh after about a week.²⁶ Thomas Davidson, with whom Whitefield stayed in Edinburgh spoke of how ‘many real Christians have been revived by his means […] some of the most notorious and abandoned sinners […] have a promising concern upon their minds about religion.’²⁷ The Seceders, on the other hand, tended to ‘speak slightly of the work of God in his hands, and greedily embrace everything, that may lessen him, and prove injurious to his good name’.²⁸

It was in Glasgow that William McCulloch, the parish minister in Cambuslang, first heard Whitefield preach.²⁹ The visit was to have a marked influence on McCulloch, as he preached a series of sermons on the subject of regeneration, with a renewed enthusiasm and expectation of blessing,³⁰ and by February 1742 the beginning of an awakening started in the parish. As crowds of people began to arrive in Cambuslang, McCulloch provided a daily service during the next several months.³¹ Whitefield did not actually preach in Cambuslang until 18 June 1742 and returned in July to participate in the communion season, when the crowds which heard him were estimated as more than 20,000 people. By 15 July, Whitefield had preached seventeen sermons in the parish and McCulloch spoke of ‘above 500 souls […] savingly brought home to God’.³²

Opposition to the Revival

Almost from the very beginning, the revival at Cambuslang and the surrounding vicinity came under the critical eye of ministers within the established Church³³ and Episcopalians,³⁴ as well as Seceders³⁵ and members of the Reformed Presbytery.³⁶ John Erskine complained of many fellow students of divinity at Edinburgh who ‘are very free in passing their jokes on whatever looks like serious religion’.³⁷ The basic premise, from which the Seceders and the Reformed Presbytery began their opposition, was the conviction that the Church of Scotland must be reformed before the Spirit would be outpoured in revival. The Cameronians were convinced that God would not ‘honour men to be extraordinary instruments of an extraordinary Work of Conversion, who have in so many Ways dishonoured and despised him, as at the present Time-serving Erastian Ministers in Scotland have done’.³⁸

Among the most vociferous critics of Whitefield was Adam Gib,³⁹ the minister of the Secession church in Edinburgh.⁴⁰ His congregation in Edinburgh had 1,279 members in 1744.⁴¹ Gib led the opposition of the Seceders to Whitefield’s ministry, especially after the Cambuslang Revival began to make its inroads on all sections of ecclesiastical life. Gib was ordained and inducted to the Edinburgh congregation in 1741, just a few months before Whitefield arrived in Scotland. In June 1742, he preached a blistering sermon in his church at Bristo which was published as a ‘Warning against countenancing the ministrations of Mr. G. Whitefield’ to demonstrate that ‘his call and coming to Scotland are scandalous; that his practice is disorderly […] that his whole Doctrine is, and his Success must be diabolical’.⁴² In June and July of 1742 he was appointed by the Associate Presbytery to prepare ‘Reasons for a Presbyterial Fast’, in which the Seceders agreed that in accepting Whitefield, ‘multitudes’ were ‘giving heed to seducing Spirits’ and that was not ‘agreeable to and concerned with the saving operations of the Spirit of God’.⁴³ Indeed, Gib claimed that Whitefield’s ministry was being used by Satan to ‘ape the work of God’s Spirit’.⁴⁴

Behind the antagonism of the Seceders to the revival was the conviction that they must not enter into fellowship with any who had opposed their secession testimony, including leaders of the revival,⁴⁵ because Church government was ‘as essential […] to the Mediator’s Glory in the Church, as the Doctrine of Grace is unto the Salvation of men’.⁴⁶ They saw the revival movement in the Church of Scotland as a special threat to their identity.

The Seceders were reticent about accepting the claims of those who asserted that during the revival they had passed through a work of conviction and conversion. This was partly a dispute over the question of sudden conversions versus a view of preparationism prior to an awareness of salvation. James Fisher spoke of the ‘present delusive Convictions’, which had been brought on by the ‘terrors of Satan’ rather than ‘the means of the word’, whereby the Spirit ‘convinces of sin as offensive to God’.⁴⁷ Gib argued that the so-called convictions of sin being experienced in the revival were only ‘imaginary’ and only ‘strong impressions’. Thomas Gillespie, who had a brief liaison with the Seceders when he attended their divinity hall in 1738 for only ten days,⁴⁸ was convinced that the experiences of people he had spoken to ‘appeared solid, scriptural, and entirely agreeable with the sentiments of learned judicious divines, whom I have heard treat the subject of conversion’.⁴⁹ The Seceders, however refuted this and said that these were no more than the ‘common influences of the Spirit’ and perhaps even ‘the Delusions of Satan’.⁵⁰ The anonymous writer of A Warning and Reproof, written to refute Gib’s arguments, asked if a spirit of delusion had ever made ‘people forsake sin […] cause people to walk according to the commands of God […] turn Drunkards, Swearers, Whoremongers, Liars, Sabbath-breakers, Thieves, Backbiters, Defamers etc. to become new Creatures?’⁵¹

Another aspect of the revival which Gib criticised was the physical phenomena which were reported at Cambuslang. He spoke of people who were ‘under strong and