Men of One Book: A Comparison of Two Methodist Preachers, John Wesley and George Whitefield. By IAN J. MADDOCK.

Abstract

Much of the literature devoted to John Wesley and George Whitefield, preachers extraordinaire of the eighteenth-century evangelical revival, is partisan and polarized. Each attracts their champions within Methodist and Reformed circles today, as they did in their own generation. Studies of their lives and influence are abundant, both popular and scholarly, including comparative surveys such as Timothy Smith’s Whitefield and Wesley on the New Birth (1986) and James Schwenk’s Catholic Spirit: Wesley, Whitefield, and the Quest for Evangelical Unity in Eighteenth-Century British Methodism (2008). Ian Maddock here offers another analysis of their ministry as preachers, seeking to identify commonalities without obscuring the differences. The conclusions are, unfortunately, predictable and do not break new ground. We discover that Wesley and Whitefield shared a commitment to the Scriptures, a defining mark of evangelicalism, and assumed a high level of biblical literacy amongst their listeners and readers. Both aimed at homiletical clarity, simplicity, and persuasiveness. Both wanted to convert the world, and viewed the Bible as ‘the divine charter of human salvation’ (p. 175). They did not seek merely to convey information but to persuade their congregations to repent of their sins and believe the gospel. Their sermons were consistently christocentric, not just theocentric. They both taught justification by faith and the pursuit of holiness as non-negotiable. Both put sermons into print to reach a wider audience, though not verbatim. They looked to the New Testament to justify open-air preaching (the Sermon on the Mount, Peter and John in Solomon’s Colonnade, Paul at the Areopagus), a return to the days of the primitive church, and saw conversions as proof of God’s approval. Church of England pulpits were closed to them, but they considered it more important to obey God than bishops. All well and good, but probably these conclusions could be guessed in advance.