Whitefield and Wesley on Grace and Predestination
Augustus Strong once wrote that “Whitefield the Calvinist, and not Wesley the Arminian, originated the great religious movement in which the Methodist church was born.” That certainly would come as news to many today, particularly Methodists. Methodism grew up and today walks in the shadow of Wesley, not Whitefield. John Wesley’s fingerprints are all over much of American evangelicalism, not George Whitefield. Was it their persona or doctrine that made the difference? Much attention has been given the influence of Whitefield’s and Wesley’s technique and style on revivalism. Less focus it seems has been directed to the significantly different interpretations they gave to crucial biblical data. These two men of such grand passion and zeal for the Lord parted company over their understanding of God’s graciousness and the doctrine of predestination. Those differences on these two doctrines, far from being on the periphery, went to the very core, the heart, of what is classical, historic Christianity Their differences are not peculiar to how Methodists approach the nature and character of God and the nature and character of man but are emblematic of how the whole of modern evangelicalism aligns itself along Whitefield/Calvin and Wesley/Rome. This paper explores their differences over these two doctrines, why that might have been, and how their views shaped the future church movement. Finally, it will examine how the personal relationship between the two men was affected by their doctrinal differences and what evangelicals today might learn from how they dealt with it.
Unlike Wesley, Whitefield was not a skilled theologian but is probably the greatest itinerant preacher who ever lived. Many regard Wesley’s most influential teaching, and what he himself considered his greatest gift to the church, to be his doctrine of Christian perfection, which was derived from the heavy influences of the pietistic movement in Germany particularly the Moravians. Wesley thought the Reformation emphasized justification by faith alone over sanctification and that Luther bordered on antinomianism. It is Wesley’s alterations of Reformed theology while perhaps more subtle nevertheless have a most profound influence on modern evangelicalism. What set Wesley apart from the Reformed tradition was his view on divine grace without which man was lost. He read the Bible and the church fathers to mean that God has bestowed upon all people a prevenient grace (a grace that goes before) that empowers each and every individual to accept or reject Christ. This led him to assert that Christ’s death had atoned for all people and those who resisted this grace were the ones who were lost. Accordingly, a Christian could lose their salvation.
Wesley maintained that the Fall made all people sinners i. e. mortal but in the moral aspect of their imago dei they still have a free will. For Wesley fallen man is basically free with respect to the world and God. Because Wesley thought man was not responsible for original sin, he emphasized the actual sins (or mistakes in judgment because of fallen reason) of the individual that is influenced by original sin. Therefore he saw sin as acts, not condition, which leads to eternal death. Christ makes power available to conquer these sins i. e. Christ empowers individuals to what they already want to do but are too weak to do for themselves. God is thereby glorified when the individual is free and living the victorious Christian life which he cannot take credit for because it’s Christ power at work in you.
Wesley’s doctrine of prevenient grace is a proverbial gordian knot. Lutheran theologian Rod Rosenblatt trying to understand it will drive you to drink. It is often very hard to figure out which side Wesley is on and this doctrine is a classic case in point. Is Wesley on the side of total depravity and total rescue or on the side of Rome in that we a bit of virtue in all of us that only needs to be blown up.
According to Wesley man is totally depraved (although he uses this word differently that the Reformed). He lacks all knowledge and the capacity to do good (even Calvin asserts that the pagan does good as a gracious gift of God but its not justifying). But he does say that every person has some goodness in them which somehow God will respect in the end. Since the Fall God has given prevenient grace (i.e. that which goes before or first in time) which parallels conscience. No one is ever totally devoid of grace. This prevenient grace restores a measure of freedom to every one and that while their wills are biased toward evil they are not committed to it and can choose Christ. This grace to choose is not sufficient for salvation however but is the dawning of the first light. It only (emphasis mine) enables a person to repent and believe when the Gospel is preached (an utterly remarkable statement). In short, everyone receives prevenient grace and has the initial free will to yield to its influence and be prepared for convincing grace and justifying grace and therein to receive salvation. In reading Wesley one can be impressed that he works both sides of the street between Reformed and Arminianism and his defenders seem to try to make him as close to the Reformation as they can but not without some logical gymnastics.
With respect to salvation, Wesley sees it wholly as a work of God and available to all even apart from the preached Gospel. He believed that the pagan could obey the moral light within him. Therefore the pagan was not lost because by the natural light they could obey what they know.
With regard to the doctrine of predestination, Wesley seems to say that he disagrees with Pelegianism, semi-Pelegianism and Calvinism. He saw predestination as a contradiction of God’s word because Christ died for all. He believed it would have dangerous practical consequences and open the door for total moral license and/or apathy to evangelism and missions.
One of Wesley’s favorite verse is Romans 8:16-17 which causes one to continually look inward for assurance.
What separated Wesley from the Reformed was that all people had been given prevenient grace that bestowed upon each person the power to accept or reject Christ. With this view, he held that Christ death atoned for all men and that God’s grace was resisted by only those who were lost. Believers could consciously and deliberately lose their salvation.
Influenced by the pietistic movement, he believed that the proper goal of every believer was Christian perfection, gained through a special work of the Holy Spirit.
While Wesley was closer to Augustinian teaching on holiness, he was far from its essence on the doctrine of grace. According to Warfield, “it was Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church. This doctrine of grace came from Augustine’s hands in its positive outline completely formulated, sinful man depends, for his recovery to good and to God, entirely on the free grace of God; this grace is therefore indispensable, prevenient, irresistible, indectible; and being thus the free grace of God, must have lain in all the details of its conference and working in the intention of all from all eternity.”# Augustine said that, “man is converted not because he wills to be, but he wills to be because he is ordained to election.” Likewise J. I. Packer has observed, “Where the Arminian says ‘I owe my election to my faith,” the Calvinist says ‘I owe my faith to my election.”#
Prevenient grace is the grace that begins to enable a person to choose further to cooperate with saving grace. By offering the human will the restored capacity to respond to grace, a person then may freely and increasingly become an active, willing participant in receiving the conditions for justification. According to Outler, it is function of God’s mercy that is over all his works; it is universal, it can be resisted and it is co-operant rather than irresistible and it is sanctifying.
In Arminian tradition, he believed through prevenient or prepatory grace, which is given to all people, man is able to cooperate with God and respond to Him in salvation. It is exercised on the entire person, giving man a free will. Prevenient grace reverses the effects of Adam’s sin. Believers may turn from grace and lose their salvation. In his atonement Christ provided redemption for all mankind, making all mankind savable but it becomes effective only in those who believe. Wesley taught that the ability to cooperate with God is through the “free gift of of prevenient grace, given to all men as a first benefit of the universal atonement made by Christ fro all men.”# Therefore, because of of the free gift of grace no one is condemned eternally because of original sin or consequences. “Man is not now condemned for the depravity of his own nature, although that depravity is of the essence of sin; its culpability we maintain, was removed by the free gift in Christ. Man is condemned solely for his own transgressions.
Therefore, original sin and its effects are erased and reversed for everyone through God’s grace thus enabling the sinner to respond actively to God or cooperate with God in salvation. Condemnation is by individual sins not Adam’s imputed sin. Wesley published a tract titled “Free Grace” essentially a declaration of war on Calvinism.
Wesley opposed predestination and perseverance with his notion of “conditional salvation within the universal redemption wrought by Christ”, what he called that “grand Christian doctrine, ‘God willeth all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,’# In 1778 when he launched The Arminian Magazine he said it was his intention to publish some of the most remarkable tracts on the universal love of God and his willingness to save all from sin...”#
Wesley believed salvation came through a combination of faith and works yet he never seems to find peace in that view. Faith was more of am intellectual assent and the sinner who truly trusts and receives Christ receives “a deliverance from the power of sin, through Christ formed in his heart. So that he who is justified, or saved by faith, is indeed born again. He is born again of the Spirit into a new life.”# Wesley defined justification as “a pardon, the forgiveness of sins”# and saw imputed righteousness as implying antinominanism. So for Wesley when is born again an actual change inside a person. “Justification implies only a relative, the new birth a real, change. God in justifying us does something for us; in begetting us again, he does the work in us. The former changes our outward relation to God so that instead of enemies we become children; by the later our inmost souls are changes, so that instead of sinners we become saints.”#
“The grace that precedes freedom is that grace that helps us to receive more grace, which prepares our will so that we may become first of all aware of our predicament, so as to come to that repentance that is prior to that faith that is lived out in love to God and neighbor.”# The United Methodist Church takes this and says of prevenient grace, “This grace prompts our first wish to please God, our first glimmer of understanding concerning God’s will, and our ‘first slight transient conviction’ of having sinned against God.”#
Wesley urged his followers to warn the Calvinists “against making void that solemn decree of God, ‘without holiness no man shall see the Lord,’ by a vain imagination of being holy in Christ. O warn them that if they remain unrighteous, the righteousness of Christ will profit them nothing.”#
Wesley’s struggle with the Calvinists centered around to the doctrines of election and predestination. As early as 1725, Wesley wrote his mother that these doctrines consigned “a vast majority of the world to eternal death, without so much as a possibility of avoiding it...How is this consistent with either the Divine Justice or Mercy?” Was it “merciful to ordain a creature to everlasting misery? Was it just to “punish man for crimes which he could not but commit?” He went to claim that the doctrines would make God “the author of sin and injustice.” “To lie under either a physical or a moral necessity is entirely repugnant to human liberty.” He also declared “faith an assent upon rational grounds.”
It began in earnest during the revival when Whitefield began “preaching up the decrees” in England after he came back from his missionary work in Georgia. Wesley’s first reaction was to preach universal atonement and then after casting lots he decided to publish his sermon, “Free Grace: A Sermon Preached at Bristol (1739) and the great controversy and breach with Whitefield erupted. Wesley’s opponents thought his Arminianism committed him to works righteousness. He in turn believed he was at war against antinomianism.
In that provocative sermon at Bristol, Wesley, not only railed against predestination but boldly proclaimed the doctrine of universal redemption. He denounced the Reformed viewed that God’s grace was intended only for a predestined elect because it made “all preaching vain,” “needless to them that are elected” who “will infallibly be saved,” and “useless to them that are not elected, for they cannot possibly be saved. This to Wesley was “a plain proof that the doctrine of predestination is not a doctrine of God.” Moreover, it tended “to destroy the comfort of religion, the happiness of Christianity,” because those who hold to the doctrine often experience “a return of doubts and fears” about their own election. Wesley stated that the true decree was that those who believed in Christ, those who “suffer Christ to make him alive,” were {“elect according to the foreknowledge of God,” and that produces “the strongest encouragement to abound in all good works, and in all holiness,” and was “a wellspring of joy, of happiness also.” This Wesley declared was a decree that was indeed “worthy of God.” To the contrary, predestination tended “to destroy your zeal for good works...particularly for the greatest of all, the saving of souls from death.” It also undermined “several branches of holiness,” such as “meekness and love,” and “naturally” tended “to inspire, or increase, a sharpness or eagerness of temper, which is quite contrary to the meekness of Christ.” Furthermore, and perhaps worst of all, the pernicious doctrine inspired “contempt or coolness towards those whom we suppose outcasts from God.” It “cuts off one of the strongest motives to all acts of bodily mercy, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and the like - viz., the hope of saving their souls from death.” Wesley condemned the doctrine because it destroyed “our zeal for good works,” and represented “the most holy God as worse than the devil...more false, more cruel, more unjust.”#
God elected those whom he knew would of their own free will believe in Christ and persevere in the faith.. Election is conditional, based on man’s response in faith.
In a letter to John Newton in 1765, he wrote “Just as my brother and I reasoned thirty years ago: ‘We think it is our duty to oppose predestination with our whole strength, not as an opinion, but as a dangerous mistake which appears to be subversive of the very foundations of Christian experience and which has, in fact, given occasion to the most grievous offences.”
For Wesley there is no assurance of salvation. A believer “ may shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, that he may fall, not only foully, but finally, so as to perish for# ever.”
In his sermon on the “Method of Grace, Whitefield used the text, “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace’ (Jer 6:14). “If you were ever truly convicted, if your hearts were ever truly cut, if self were truly taken out of you, you would be made to see and feel this. And if you have never felt the weight of original sin, do not call yourselves Christians. I an verily persuaded original sin is the greatest burden of a true convert; this ever grieves the regenerate soul, the sanctified soul. The indwelling of sin in the heart is the burden of a true convert; it is the burden of the true Christian. He continually cries out, ‘O! who will deliver me from this body of death’, this indwelling corruption in my heart?...you must not only be troubled for the sins of your life, the sin of your nature, but likewise for the sins of your best duties and performances...God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought to see that all your duties - all your righteousness...are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor soul, that he will see them to be filthy rags, a menstruous cloth-that God hates them...Our persons are in an unjustified state by nature, we deserve to be damned ten thousand times over; and what must our performances be? We can do no good thing by nature...it is impossible that a man who is unconverted can act for the glory of God; he cannot do anything in faith, and ‘whatsoever is not of faith is sin’. After we are renewed, yet we are renewed but in part, indwelling sin continues in us, there is a mixture of corruption in every one of our duties; so that after we are converted, were Jesus only to accept us according to our works, our works would damn us, for we cannot put up a prayer but it is far from that perfection which the moral law requireth...I can do nothing without sin...Before you can speak peace in your heart, you must not only be made sick of your original sin and actual sin, but you must be made sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances. There must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of our heart. The pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ..Before we can ever have peace with God, we must be justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, we must be enabled to apply Christ to our hearts, we must have Christ brought home to our souls, so as to his righteousness may be made our righteousness, so as his merits may be imputed to our souls...you must not build upon a work within you, but always come out of yourselves to the righteousness of Jesus Christ without you...Come away, my dear brethren - fly, fly, fly for your lives to Jesus Christ, fly to a bleeding God, fly to a throne of grace; and beg of God to break your hearts, beg of God to convince you of your actual sins, beg God to convince you of your self-righteousness - beg of God to give you faith, and to enable you to close with Jesus Christ...#
While Whitefield was a thoroughbred Calvinist and preached traditional Calvinist themes - the bound will, electing power of God and definite atonement curiously and interestingly enough he didn’t get at least at first from Calvin and the reformed. In a letter to Wesley early on in his ministry he confessed, “I never read anything Calvin wrote; my doctrines I had from Christ and His Apostles, I was taught them of God.”#
In his oft repeated sermon “The Lord Our Righteousness” he attacked the clerical enemies of Revival by saying:
“many ministers are so sadly degenerated from their pious ancestors, that the doctrines of grace, especially the personal, all-sufficient righteousness of Jesus is but too seldom, too slightly mentioned. Hence the love of many waxeth cold; and I have often thought, was it possible, that this single consideration would be sufficient to raise our venerable fathers against from their graves; who would thunder in their ears their fatal error.” He further exposited of the necessity of Christ’s righteousness, both His passive and active obedience, being imputed to us.
“Suppose I went a little more round about, and told you, that the death of Christ was not sufficient, without our death being added to it; that you must die as well as Christ, join your death with His, and then it would be sufficient. Might you not then, with a holy indignation, throw dust in the air, and justly call me a setter forth of strange doctrines? And now then, if is be not only absurd, but blasphemous, to join the intercession of saints with the intercession of Christ, as though his intercession was not sufficient; or our death with the death of Christ, as though his death was not sufficient; judge ye, if it be not equally absurd, equally blasphemous, to join our obedience, either wholly or in part with the obedience of Christ, as if that was not sufficient. And if so, what absurdities will follow the denying that the Lord, both as to his active and passive obedience, is our righteousness?’#
In writing about Boston in 1740 Whitefield could have been describing what it is today:
“Boston is a large populous place, and very wealthy. It has form of religion kept up, but has lost much of its power. I have not heard of any remarkable stir in years. Ministers and people are obliged to confess that the love of many is waxed cold. Both seem too conformed to the world...I fear many rest in head-knowledge, are close Pharisees, and have only a name to live. I must needs be so, when the power of Godliness is dwindled away, where the form only of religion is become fashionable among people...”#
As a Calvinist he believed that common grace is extended to all mankind but is insufficient to save anyone. Through irresistible grace God drew to himself those whom He had elected, making them willing to respond. Depravity extends to all of man, including his will. Without irresistible grace man’s will remains bound, unable to respond to God on his own ability. Believers are secure in their salvation; none will be lost because believers will persevere in faith because will persevere.
In may 1740 Whitefield wrote to Wesley that “the work of God is carried on here (and that in a most glorious manner) by doctrines quite opposite to those you hold.”#
“...how the devil loves to represent God as all mercy, or all justice. When persons are awakened, he would, if possible tempt them to despair; when dead in trespasses and sins he tempts them too presume. Lord, preserve us from making shipwreck against either these rocks. Give us such a sense of Thy justice as to convince us that we cannot be saved if we continue in sin, and such a sense of Thy mercy as may keep us from despair, through a living faith in Thy dear Son Who is the Saviour of sinner!”#
On March 15, 1740, he preached in a Baptist-meeting house in Charleston and wrote, “I was led to shew the utter inability of man to save himself, and absolute necessity of his dependence on the rich mercies and free grace of God in Christ for his restoration.”#
In referring to the views of the Moravians and the Wesley’s for sinless perfection and universal redemption, he wrote, “I know no such things asserted in the Gospel, if explained aright. Lord, do Thou cause even this to work for good, and give me grace to oppose such errors, without respect to persons, but with meekness, humility and love. Amen.”#
He said that no reformation of the church has ever occurred with the preaching of the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Noting the objections that cuts off good works and leads to moral license, Whitefield wrote, “It excludes works, indeed, from being any cause of our justification in the sight of God; but it requires good works as a proof of our having this righteousness imputed to us, and as a declarative evidence of our justification in the sight of men,”#
In his sermon on Genesis 3:15, Whitefield wrote, “That the Lord Jesus Christ was the second Adam, with whom the Father entered into covenant for fallen ma; that they can now do nothing of or for themselves, and should therefore come to God beseeching him to give them faith, by which they shall be enabled to lay hold on the righteousness of Christ; and that faith they will then shew forth by their works, out of love and gratitude to the ever blessed Jesus, their most glorious redeemer, for what he has done for their souls. This is a consistent scriptural scheme; without holding this, we must run into one of those two bad extremes; I mean, Antinominanism on the one hand, or Arminianianism on the other: from both which may the good Lord deliver us!”#
Whitefield’s sermon “Christ the Believer’s Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification and Redemption” was based on 1 Cor 1:30 - ‘But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.’ :“...though I will not say, that every one who denies election is a bad man, yet I will says...it is a very bad sign: such a one, whoever he be, I think cannot truly know himself; for, if we deny election, we must partly at least, glory in ourselves; but our redemption is so ordered that no flesh should glory in the Divine presence; and hence it is, that the pride of man opposes this doctrine, because according to this doctrine, and no other, ‘he that glories, must glory only in the Lord’. But what shall I say? Election is a mystery that shines with such resplendent brightness, that, to make the use of words of one who has drunk deeply of electing love, it dazzles weak eyes even of some of God’s dear children...Christ’s whole personal righteousness is made over to, and accounted theirs...in one sense, God now sees no sin in them; the whole covenant of works is fulfilled in them; they are actually justified, acquitted, and looked upon as righteous in the sight of God; they are perfectly accepted in the beloved; they are complete in him; the flaming sword of God’s wrath, which before moved every way, is now removed, and free access given to the tree of life; they are enabled to reach out the arm of faith, and pluck, and live for evermore...those whom God has justified, he has in effect glorified: for as a man’s worthiness was not the cause of God’s giving him Christ’s righteousness; so neither shall his unworthiness be a cause of his taking it away...
God unconditionally, from eternity past, elected some to be saved. Election is not based on man’s future response. “To Whitefield it was clear that Arminianism dulled the all important sense of sin; it made men complacent, whereas election tended to arouse the soul out of its carnal security. Was Wesley right, he asked, in holding that Calvinism killed all hope and led to indifference? Did not the contrary view surrender the vital concept of an almighty God? In his blunt way Wesley once told his friend that”your God is my devil.”#
John Gertsner, who Whitefield the greatest Calvinist evangelist of the eighteenth century, states that Whitefield however was much more amiable to negotiating the decrees of God than Jonathan Edwards. Gertsner asserts that for fear of dividing the evangelical revival Whitefield did not preach in favor of election. But Wesley on the other hand cast lots and then published his views. Gertsner also states that “When Wesley became enamored of Edwards’ works on the New England revival he has them published in England, but he had Edwards’ doctrine of the decrees carefully edited out.”#
Whitefield was convinced that moral reformation emanated from spiritual revival, which was a sovereign work of God. In warning the people of Bristol about their wasting time in reveling and dancing, he wrote, “Oh, that all such entertainments were put a stop to. I see no other was to effect it, but by going boldly, and calling people from such lying vanities in the Name of Jesus Christ. That reformation which is brought about by a coercive power, will be only outward and superficial; but that which is done by the force of God’s Word, will be inward and lasting. Lord, make me meet by Thy grace for such a work, and then send me.”#
“...the outward righteousness if Jesus Christ imputed to us, I believe, is the sole fountain and cause of all the inward communications which we receive from the Spirit of God. Oh, that all of that persuasion were convinced of this; till they are, they cannot preach truth as it is in Jesus.”#
“It is a dreadful mistake to deny the doctrine of assurances, or to think it is confined to a time of persecution, or to the primitive ages of the Church. Not only righteousness and peace, but joy in the holy Ghost, which is the consequence of assurance, is a necessary part of the Kingdom of God within us; and though all are not to be condemned who have not an immediate assurance, yet all ought to labour after it. I really believe one great reason why so many go mourning all their life long, is owing to ignorance of their Christian privileges. They have not assurance, because they ask it not; they ask it not, because they are taught that it does not belong to Christians in these last days; whereas I know numbers whose salvation is written upon their hearts as it were with a sunbeam. They can rejoice in God their Saviour, and give men and devils the challenge to separate them, if they can, from the love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord. Dear Redeemer, enlighten all Thy followers to see their privileges, and never let them cease wrestling with Thee till Thou dost bless them, by assuring them of their eternal salvation.”#
“Whatever men’s reasoning may suggest, if the children of God fairly examine their own experiences - if they do God justice, they must acknowledge that they did not choose God, but that God chose them. And if He chose them at all, it must be from eternity, and that too without anything foresee in them. Unless they acknowledge this, man’s salvation must be in part owing to the free-will of man; and if so, unless men descend from other parents than I did, Christ Jesus might have died, and never have seen the travail of His soul in the salvation of one of His creatures. But I would be tender on this point, and leave persons to be taught it of God. I am of the martyr Bradford’s mind. Let a man go to the grammar school of faith and repentance, before he goes to the university of election and predestination. A bare head-knowledge of sound words availeth nothing. I am quite tired of Christless talkers. From such may I ever turn away.’#
Once when one of this followers asked Whitefield if they would see Wesley in heaven, he said, “I fear not, he will be so near the throne, and we shall be at such a distance, that we shall hardly get sight of him.”#
Whitefield always seemed to refuse to report on the number of conversions from his preaching. In referring to some who claimed to “know when persons are justified” he said, “It is a lesson I have not yet learnt. There are so many stony-ground hearers which receive the word with joy, that I have determined to suspend my judgment, till I know the tree by its fruits.”#
I find Wesley’s and Whitefield’s recollection of their conversion experiences interesting in that they contrast their respective theologies of God graciousness in regeneration and their personal passion as response to it. When all rigor and self imposed asceticism of the Holy Club had availed him nothing, Whitefield cried out in utter helplessness and experienced God’s amazing grace. He recalls it as follows:
“After having undergone innumerable buffetings of Satan, and many months inexpressible trials by night and day under the spirit of bondage, God was pleased (my emphasis) at length to remove the heavy load, to enable me to lay hold on His dear Son by a living faith, and by giving me the spirit of adoption, to seal me, as I humbly hope, even to the day of everlasting redemption. But oh! with what joy - joy unspeakable - even joy that was full of, and big with glory, was my soul filled, when the weight of sin went off, and an abiding sense of pardoning love of God, and a full assurance of faith broke in upon my disconsolate soul! Surely it was the day of my espousals, - a day to be had in everlasting remembrance. At first my joys were like spring tide, and as it were, overflowed the banks. Go where I would, I could not avoid singing of psalms aloud; afterwards it became more settled - and, blessed by God, saving a few casual intervals, has abode and increased in my soul ever since. But to proceed.”# Joy is a key word in throughout his Journals as he was constantly amazed at what God’s grace to him.
Wesley, on the other hand, after the much reported and revered event at Aldersgate when he “felt his heart was strangely warmed” while listening to Luther’s Preface to his Commentary on Romans wrote the following:
“I began to pray with all my might (emphasis added) for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, ‘This cannot be faith; for where is thy joy?’ Then I was taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy that usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, some withholdeth them, according to counsels of his own will.”#
Wesley in his Journal relates describes that when he received copy of Whitefield’s letter he tore it up in front of this congregation. “Every one who had received it, did the same. So that in two minutes there was not a whole copy left. Two months later when Whitefield had returned from Georgia, Wesley “went to him to hear him speak for himself, that I might know how to judge. Whitefield informs him that “he and I preached two different gospels; therefore he not only would not join with, or give me the right hand of fellowship, but was resolved publicly to preach against me and my brother, wheresoever he preached at all.”#
On November 5, 1755, Wesley wrote “Mr. Whitefield called upon me; - disputings are now no more; we love one another, and join hand in hand to promote the cause of our common Master.”#
On October 28, 1765, Wesley writes, “I breakfasted with Mr. Whitefield, who seemed to be an old, old man, being fairly worn out in his Master’s service, though he has hardly seen fifty years, and yet it pleases God that I, who am now in my sixty-third year, find no disorder, no weakness, no decay, no difference from what I was five- and-twenty; only that I have fewer teeth, and more grey hairs.”# Four years later he would say in London, “I had one more agreeable conversation with my old friend and fellow labourer, George Whitefield. His soul appeared to be vigorous still, but his body was sinking apace; and unless God interposes, he must soon finish his labours.”#
James Montgomery Boice recounts an incidence when Whitefield and Wesley were preaching together;
“They conducted several services during the day and returned exhausted to their room to their room together in a boarding house each night. One evening after a particularly strenuous day, the two of them returned to prepare for bed. When they were ready each knelt beside his bed to pray. Whitefield, the Calvinist, prayed like this: “Lord, we thank Thee for all those with whom we spoke this day, and we rejoice that their lives and destinies are entirely in thy hand. Honor our efforts according to thy perfect will. Amen.” He then climbed in bed. Wesley, who had hardly gotten past the invocation of his prayer in this length of time, looked and said, “Mr. Whitefield, is this where your Calvinism leads you?’ Then he put his head down Again and went on praying. Whitefield stayed in be and went to sleep. About two hours later he woke up, and there was Wesley still on his knees beside the bed. Whitefield got up, went around to where Wesley was kneeling an touched him. Wesley was asleep. Whitefield said, “Mr. Wesley, is this where your Arminianism leads you?’#
Writing in his Journal on January 28, 1739, wrote of he and Wesley’s meeting with two Church of England clergymen who opposed their preaching of the the new birth, “God enabled me with great simplicity, to declare what He had done for my soul, which made them look upon me as a madman, and they receive not our witness. Now therefore, I am fully convinced there is a fundamental difference between and them. They believe only an outward Christ, we further believe that He must be inwardly formed in our hearts also. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”#
“None but a sincere Christian can with pleasure practice the duty of self-examination. Lord, grant I may always so live that I may keep a conscience void of offence, both towards Thee and towards man. Then I shall never be less alone than when alone; for Thou, Father of mercies, and God of all consolations, wilt everywhere be with me.”#
In 1750, Wesley patronizingly observed that “even the little improprieties of his [Whitefield’s] language and manner were a means of profiting many who would not have been touched by a more correct discourse, or a more calm and regular manner of speaking”; “how wise is God in giving different talents to different preachers!”# There were a number of occasions when Wesley was invited to occupy the pulpit in a place occupied by Whitefield’s followers. In 1753, for example, Wesley described how he “willingly accepted” such an offer adding “this it behoveth us to trample on bigotry and party zeal.”# As the years passed it seems Wesley’s suspicions evaporated, as in the instance of January 1766 when he reported a visit by Whitefield, who “breathes nothing but peace and love”; “bigotry cannot stand before him.”#
Whitefield became concerned about his differences with Wesley even as Wesley overcame his initial hesitancy of open air preaching and became quite successful. Yet Wesley’s analytical mind seized on what he saw as the misguided views of the Whitefieldians and he preached a trenchant sermon in Bristol against predestination as its being opposed to free grace. Whitefield recoiled from such dissension by saying, “it shocks me to think of it.” Whitefield welcomed all who proclaimed Jesus Christ regardless of denomination, whereas the Wesley’s were often appalled and horrified by the many “enthusiasts” were followed Whitefield.
Whitefield biographer John Pollock describes how sensitive Whitefield was to Wesley’s view and he continually examined his own views against Scripture:
“George Whitefield respected John Wesley too much to dismiss his theological fears. On board the Elizabeth therefore, away from the pressure of crowds, alone in his cabin where the only sound was the wind in the canvas and the creaking of the boards, George studied afresh the great doctrines which he had thundered abroad. At the very time when anti-Methodist pamphleteers were painting him as empty-headed and ill-read he was wrestling with Truth. He looked deep into himself and saw nothing but corruption in ‘my polluted, proud and treacherous heart,’ until he marveled at his own audacity at daring to preach to fellow sinners. He looked deep into the Word of God, and saw the breath and length and depth and height, and marveled afresh at the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. He discharged his soul by writing an Autobiography, to demonstrate what a worm he was and what God’s grace had done. Even this could not ease a fear lest much of his boldness and zeal sprang from vanity and pride, until almost he determined to abandon the ministry altogether.”#
In March 1741 upon his return to England, he wrote of the evidence he saw from leaving his preaching ministry in the hands of the Wesleys:”many of my spiritual children, who at my last departure from England would have plucked out their own eyes to give to me, are so prejudiced by the dear Messrs. Wesleys’ dressing up the doctrine of Election in such horrible colours, that they will neither hear, see nor give me the least assistance.”#
Later that year he wrote Wesley apologizing for revealing that Wesley had used lots to decide whether to publish his “Free Grace” sermon and went on to say, “I find I love you as much as ever and pray God, if it be his blessed will, that we may be all united together...May God remove all obstacles that now prevent our union! Though I hold Particular Election yet I offer Jesus freely to every individual soul. You may carry Sanctification to what degrees you will, only I cannot agree that the in-being of sin is to e destroyed in this life...In about three weeks I hope to be at Bristol. May all disputings cease, and each of us talk of nothing but Jesus and him crucified...”# The following February they met and reached personal reconciliation. Whitefield wrote of this relationship, “Why should we dispute when there is no possibility of convincing? I think this is not giving up the faith but fulfilling our Lord’s new command, ‘Love one another,’ and our love is but feigned unless it produces proper effects. I am persuaded the more the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, the more all narrowness of spirit will subside and give way. Besides, so far as we are narrow-spirited we are uneasy. Prejudices, jealousies and suspicions make the soul miserable.”#
As Whitefield noted how people “glory in being the cause of our own salvation...“we are all Arminians by nature...”#
No doubt thousands ad thousands of people had their lives changed by the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield. That is not at issue. What is at stake howler is whether Wesley or Whitefield’s doctrine correctly describes it - which doctrine is God’s truth.
When it come to election and predestination both men accepted the doctrine. What separated them is the basis upon which that election and predestination is established i. e. God’s foreknowledge of man’s response and their perseverance to the end. or solely according to God’s good pleasure without foreseen merit or anticipated worthiness.
John Wesley was and is the great popularizer of Arminianism. He rejected the absolute inability of human will to choose good, absolute predestination, and irresistible grace. He used Reformed terminology such as original sin, total depravity and justification but often seems to pour into them his own meaning. For instance, he meant a voluntary transgression of the Law i. e. a willful choice to sin.He boldly declared the universal availability of God’s grace and that through grace the living presence of sin can be conquered, and that people have to remain steadfastly in faith lest they fall and be lost. One of his favorite themes was that the “Son of God hath tasted death for every man, God hath now reconciled the world to Himself.” Just as this universal offer of reconciliation through the atoning work of Christ divided Calvinists and Arminians it so divided Wesley and Whitefield and so it also does today.
Several observations about the differences between Wesley and Whitefield. For Wesley, God’s sovereignty is not His unrestricted and coercive strength but the sovereignty of His love. “In disposing the eternal states of men, it is clear, that not sovereignty alone, but justice, mercy and truth holds the reigns. The Governor of heaven and earth, the I AM over all, God blessed forever, takes no step here but as these direct, and prepare the way before his face”.#
In referring to the ladder of merit, Luther wrote, “The monks have taught and persuaded the world of this, that thy can, by that hypocritical holiness of theirs, justify not only themselves, but also others to whom they communicate it.”# In Luther’s breakthrough on God’s “gift of righteousness” there is the great exchange of our guilt and His condemnation and his obedience and righteousness. Today climb up the ladder of merit has the Wesley pietistic influence of Christian perfection which turns believers back in on themselves and examining their own growth in holiness and measuring it in very legalistic ways. Rejecting the Reformation’s Scriptural echo of a believer being sumul justus et peccator, Wesley boldly asserted that human wisdom dictates that “God will punish no man for doing anything which he could not possibly avoid; neither for omitting anything which he could not possibly do.”# Wesley like Rome couldn’t accept that our righteousness is not our own but an alien righteousness, that is the gift of perfect righteousness of someone else. He wrote the doctrine of justification tends “to mislead men; almost naturally leading them to trust in what was done in one moment. Whereas we are every moment pleasing or displeasing to God, according to the whole of our present inward tempers and outward behaviour.”# In other words, human reason says this can’t that simple - besides its really dangerous because it removes all motivation for moral living. People would be lax in their obedience. This is exactly what Paul reminded the Corinthians of when they lost their roots: Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things —and the things that are not —to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God —that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:26-31).
Paul goes on to say that the gospel he received was not from deep human wisdom or power encounters:
When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (! Cor 2:1-5)
In contradistinction to the darkness brought by the Wesley’s Arminianism, George Whitefield boldly proclaimed what the Scripture gospel of justification by faith is all about: “Are any of you depending upon a righteousness of your own? Do any of you here think to save yourselves by your own doings? I say to you...your righteousness shall perish with you. Poor miserable creatures! What is there in your tears? What in your prayers? What in your performances, to appease the wrath of an angry God? Away from the tree of the garden; come, ye guilty wretches, come as poor, lost, undone, and wretched creatures, and accept of a better righteousness than your own. As I said before, so I tell you again, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is an everlasting righteousness; it is wrought out for the very chief of sinners. Ho, every one that thirsteth, let him come and drink of this water of life freely. Are any of you wounded by sin? Do any of you feel you have no righteousness of your own? Are any of you perishing for hunger? Are any of you afraid ye will perish forever? Come, dear souls, in all your rags; come, thou poor man; come, thou poor distressed woman; you, who think God will never forgive you, and that your sins are too great to be forgiven: come, thou doubting creature, who art afraid thou wilt never get comfort; arise, take comfort, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of life, the Lord of glory, calls for thee...O let not one poor soul stand at a distance from the Saviour...O come, come! Now, since it is brought into the world by Christ, so, in the name, in the strength, and by the assistance of the great God, I bring it now to the pulpit; I now offer this righteousness, this free, this imputed, this everlasting righteousness, to all poor sinners who will accept it...Think, I pray you, therefore, on these things; go home, go home, go home, pray over the text, and say, ‘Lord God, Thou hast brought an everlasting righteousness into the world by the Lord Jesus Christ; by the blessed Spirit bring it into my heart!’ then, die when ye will, ye are safe; if it be tomorrow, ye shall be immediately translated into the presence of the everlasting God; that will be sweet! Happy they who have got this robe on; happy they that can say, ‘My God hath loved me, and I shall be loved by Him with an everlasting love!’ That every one of you may be able to say so, may God grant, for the sake of Jesus Christ, the dear Redeemer; to whom be glory forever. Amen.”#
What was the result of this kind of preaching? The following is the account of Nathan Cole who rode to Middletown with his wife to hear the great Englishman:
“When I saw Mr. Whitefield come upon the scaffold he looked almost angelic, a young slim, slender youth, before some thousands of people and with a bold, undaunted countenance...it solemnized my mind and put me in a trembling fear before he began to preach for he looked as if he was clothed with authority from the great God. Hearing him preach gave me a heart wound [so that], by God’s blessing, my old foundation was broken up and I saw that my righteousness would not save me, then I was convinced of the doctrine of election and went right to quarreling with God about it because all that I could do would not save me...”#
The Moravian influence was heavy and persistent . Interestingly a little over a week after his confrontation with Whitefield, he wrote “I had a long conversation with Peter Bohler. I marvel how I refrain from joining these men. I scarce ever see them but my heart burns within me. I long to be with them; yet I am kept from them.”#
In Pietism and Methodism great emphasis was placed on a constant fellowship with Christ as the great means of sanctification. By exalting sanctification at the expense of justification, they did not always avoid the dangers of self-righteousness. Wesley did not merely distinguish justification and sanctification, but virtually separated them and spoke of entire sanctification as a second gift of grace, following the first, of justification by faith. While he spoke of sanctification as a process, he yet held that the believer should pray and look for full sanctification at once as a separate act of God.
While he seemed to make Wesley as close to the reformation as possible, Wesley at times had no such desire. While he was comfortable with being called an Arminian, in fact he almost had a fetish to rehabilitate Pelagius. “Who was Pelagius? By all I can pick up from the ancient authors, I guess he was a wise and an holy man.”# In 1775, he would declare that the Reformation’s system of decrees had been “hatched by Augustine in spite to Pelagius”# And in 1781 Wesley of Pelagius that “I doubt whether he was more an Heretic than Catellio, or Arminius...and very probably held no other heresy than you and I do now.”#
“We speak of the Methodist Church beginning in a revival. And so it did. But the first and chief actor in that revival was not Wesley, but Whitefield (an uncompromising Calvinist). Though a younger man than Wesley, it was he who first went forth preaching in the field and gathering multitudes of followers, and raising money and building chapels. It was Whitefield who invoked the two Wesleys to his aid. And he had to employ much argument and persuasion to overcome their prejudices against the movement....When Whitefield called on Wesley to engage with him in the popular movement, he shrank back...So largely was the Methodist movement owing to Whitefield that he was call the ‘Calvinist establisher of Methodism’ and to the end of his life he remained the representative of it in the eyes of the learned world. Walpole, in his Letters, speaks only once of Wesley in connection with the rise of Methodism, while he frequently speaks of Whitefield in connection with it. Mant, in his course of lectures against Methodism, speaks of it as an entirely Calvinistic affairs. Neither the mechanism nor the force which gave rise to it originated with Wesley. Field preaching, which gave the whole movement its aggressive character, and fitted and enabled it to cope with powerful agencies which were armed against it, was begun by Whitefield, whilst ‘Wesley was dragged into it reluctantly.’ In the polite language of the day “Calvinism’ and ‘Methodism’ were synonymous terms, and the Methodists were called ‘another sect of Presbyterians...It was Calvinism, and not Arminianism, which originated (so far as any system of doctrine originated) the great religious movement in which the Methodist Church was born. While, therefore, Wesley is to be honored for his work in behalf of that Church, we should not fail to remember the great Calvinist, George Whitefield, who gave that Church her first beginnings and her most distinctive character. Has he lived longer, and not shrunk from the thought of being a founder of a Church, far different would have been the results of his labors. As it was, he gathered congregations for others to form into Churches and built chapels for others to preach in.”#
© 1997 Dave Brown's E-mailcoramdeo@erols.com
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