Wow, that's just peachy. Alright, we're finishing up the biography part of our study of Whitfield today, looking at the close of his life. Next week, Lord willing, we'll come back and talk about his theology, his impact, things along that line. So we're going to cover a pretty good chunk of his life here today, beginning in 1755 and taking us all the way to the end of his life. I've entitled this, Rather Wear Out Than Rust Out. Rather Wear Out Than Rust Out, a phrase that he uses, I believe, on the last day of his life. And somebody has cited this little poem that well illustrates the life of George Whitefield. Only one life will soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. And as I lay dying, how good it shall be if the lamp of my life has been burned for thee. It's interesting that the two best biographies of Whitfield, both Dalimore and Johnston's newer edition of his life, both actually begin the life of Whitfield with his death. With Whitfield standing on that staircase on the way up to his bedroom, he was implored by a group of people to share a message with them and he took a candle and he held the candle. He said, I will preach for as long as the candle burns. and preach for like almost two hours. And both begin that way and say, what a beautiful picture that is of a burning light that George Whitefield was. This is how Dale Amore describes it in his work. Speaking of an eyewitness account, he was very tired from preaching that day as he made his way toward the assembled congregation, an elderly bystander Observing him more uneasy than usual, said to him, Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach. To which Mr. Whitfield answered, True, sir, but turning aside, he clasped his hands together, and looking up, spoke, Lord Jesus, I am weary in your work, but not of thy work. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for you once more in the field, seal your truth, and come home and die. Another gentleman who was present wrote, Mr. Whitfield rose and stood erect, and his appearance alone was a powerful sermon. He remained several minutes unable to speak, and then said, I'll wait for the gracious assistance of God, for he will, I am certain, assist me once more to speak in his name. This is his last sermon before that scene in the house of the Presbyterian minister. He delivered perhaps one of his best sermons. I go, he cried, I go to a rest prepared. My son has arisen, and by aid from heaven has given light to many. It is now about to set. No, it is about to rise to the zenith of immortal glory. Many may outlive me on earth, but they cannot outlive me in heaven. O thoughts divine, I shall soon be in a world where time, age, pain, and sorrow are unknown. My body fails, my spirit expands. How willingly would I live to preach Christ, but I die to be with Him. Whitefield's sermon on this occasion was from the scripture, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. It was two hours in length and though preached under the disadvantage of a stage in the open air, was delivered with such clearness, pathos, and eloquence that many hearers stated it was the greatest sermon they had ever heard from him. Following this tremendous effort, Whitfield continued his journey and late that afternoon arrived at the home of Reverend Jonathan Parsons, pastor of Old South Presbyterian Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts. Parsons reported, while they were at supper, I asked Mr. Whitfield how he felt himself after his journey. He said he was tired, therefore he supped early and would go to bed. By that time the street in front of the house had filled with people. As he began to make his way up the stair, several of them were at the door begging him to preach. Unwilling, despite his weariness, to forego any opportunity to declare the gospel, Responded to the request and stood on the landing halfway up the stairs candle in hand preaching Christ He was soon greatly alive to his subject and becoming heedless of time continue to speak till finally the candle flickered Burned itself out and died away that dying flame that burned out candle representative that evening of a man himself and of his life so we're finishing the course here with a with Whitfield's life covering the last 15 years. Let's have a word of prayer as we get underway, shall we? Father, we thank you for this morning's study. We pray, Lord, that the fire of your grace that so touched the life of this godly servant of yours would find its mark in each of our hearts, that we too would be both warmed and enlightened by your gospel and by your word taking hold upon this minister's life. We pray, Father, that we would grow in grace the knowledge of our Savior, that we would be desirous in both action and prayer of seeing the nations turn to you. We pray, Lord, that you would build us up in our holy faith, through Jesus our Savior. Amen. Alright, we are going to begin then with the fifth trip that he had in America. It stretched from May 26, 1754 through March of the following year. I think that we touched on this a little bit. This was the trip that he took where he was kind of stuck in Portugal before leaving. He did not preach for like 11 weeks, which was the longest stretch for him. because he was in a land that did not speak English. He talks about seeing some Roman Catholic activities, their parades and so forth, and the idolatry that they were involved in. And this begins to become a theme. This rest from preaching strengthens him. His health had declined. We talked about the vomiting of great quantities of blood and so forth that had been taking place along the way, a form of asthma which eventually would kill him. And that continues to be the theme now for the next 15 years. We find him preaching less frequently, and yet his preaching was always as it were riding upon the ties of his health. If his health was poor, he had to pull back. When his health was strong, he went forth gangbusters like he had before. And so this is the theme for the rest of his life for the next 15 years as he dies in 1770. In fact, one of the chapters that Dalamore has in his book is entitled, The Invalid. He's so weak now. He is riding horseback less and less. He now hires, it's called a chase in the book, but it's some sort of, I don't know, carriage that he's riding in. And so that is a blessing to him. He returns to America then, in his fifth tour, and comes to find Bethesda, the orphanage, flourishing. And so things are going well there, and he again embarks upon an evangelistic tour that takes him northward to New York State, to Philadelphia, to New Jersey, and eventually to New England. Again, he's done these tours time and time again. He'll go to some center place and go out and preach. Again, the responses are just overwhelming. People are hearing that he is back after a period of time and they want to hear this preacher. One of the things that happens at this time, he stops in New Jersey, the college of New Jersey that he was a supporter of, and they confer upon him the Master of Arts, an honorary degree, which he doesn't ever use. He takes these as thanks, but I think it may be only one or two occasions do we find him putting MA after his name. It's also interesting, the side light here is that he talks about his visits in these various places. He stays at a wealthy, I think it was a widow by the name of Baird who put him up for a while and the whole Baird clan apparently was in the Reformed faith and Presbyterianism. It's interesting that he ministers to this family and this is the family that later, the grandsons of this man would marry two daughters of Charles Hodge. So here you see all these connections going on with Presbyterians and other Reformed greats of a later period. So this is his fifth of seven journeys to America and then he is heading back now to England. This is eight years now that he goes back to his homeland, and just to get a little bit of a glimpse of his life, again, what is he doing at this time? He's thicker now, but still, as I just highlighted, he is still being a powerful preacher. In a letter that he writes to Professor Frank of Hale University in Germany, He says this, times without number has this tabernacle groaned but having obtained help from God I yet continue in my poor way to preach to all that are willing to hear the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. In the summer I range and with the table for my pulpit and the heavens for my sounding board I am enabled generally thrice a day to call many thousands to come to Jesus that they may have life. He's preaching three times a day. He's preaching to thousands every day. I mean, his pattern is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Before, he was preaching three times a day. Now, I think he's cutting it back generally to two times a day. And he'll preach on one side of London in the morning and another side of London in the evening. And so getting different crowds coming in and hearing these various messages. And they continue to flock to him. He's just a phenomenon that they would go to him and listen to him in this way. It goes on. Winter I am confined to this metropolis, but to my great mortification through continual vomiting, lack of rest, and of appetite, I've been reduced for some time to the short allowance of preaching only once a day, except on Sundays when I generally preach thrice. Thousands attend every evening at both ends of the town, and on the Lord's days many, many go away for lack of room. The Divine Presence is apparently amongst us, and every week produces fresh instances of the power of converting grace. So there is no abatement of God blessing his preaching. It's not like you have the Great Awakening in the 1740s and the 1750s and 60s. Things are beatering off. He continues to see great numbers coming and this is a great blessing to the churches, all the various churches, and especially the Church of England that saw the evangelical movement growing. He continues his preaching tours to Scotland, to Ireland, and to Wales. How many times did he go to Scotland? 15 times. 15 tours. And as we highlighted last time, as he's repairing the divisions within the church, Scotland's beginning to step back from their original opposition to him. He is preaching in Ireland. It's at this time that we talked about the mob getting a hold of him. And he preaches in Wales. He sailed at this time to Holland for a month. This is the only time where his preaching did not attract thousands and thousands when he was in Holland. He went to Rotterdam, he went to Amsterdam, he went to The Hague, he went to several of the great cities of that reformed land. His health continues to fail, he is resorting to doctors in Scotland and to mineral waters in Bath, but the only thing that would really help him was rest. He had to recognize that when he had done too much, he had to say no to the people who were constantly clamoring, please come and speak, come and preach. We've entitled this section, then, Sunshine and Shadow in England. Not everything was rosy. He continues to attract the attention and attacks of unbelievers, and a particularly vociferous attack came from the world of theater, their TV back then. Their theater, there was a play that was written called The Miner. And this author came up with four different characters, including a woman, a Mrs. So-and-so, and Dr. Squintum. And Dr. Squintum was the name given to Whitfield because of his slight abnormality where one of his eyes was a little bit off. And they greatly magnified that and blew that out of proportion and ascribed all sorts of lewd things to this Dr. Squintum. He was supposedly a holy preacher and apparently somewhere in the play he gives this woman a bath. So, I mean, just the wickedness involved in this was horrible. The godly responded. Those who had authority, such as Countess Selina, tried to address this, but to no avail. Just as he is about to leave after this long stay in England, he's about to leave. He wanted to leave earlier, but there was a war going on. What war was happening at that time? No, that's 1770s. There was a French and Indian war, or the Seven Years War between France and America. Shipping was not flowing freely back and forth, so that's one of the reasons for his long stay. Now that the war is over, he's ready to leave, and this bishop from the Church of England writes, a treatise against him, so he decides to stay. A bishop by the name of Warburton describes he is attacking both what he calls infidelity and fanaticism. In the fanaticism he is attacking the older writings of Whitefield and going after some of his indiscretions which he had already retracted and had repented of and so again very warmly, very effectively replies to this and puts down this So, with that done, Whitfield leaves on his sixth tour in America. This is one of his roughest journeys. It takes almost the whole summer to get across the pond in 1763. Now, Whitfield appears quite differently than he had when he was a young man. Listen to this eyewitness account of him as he arrives in the new land. He says it was more than eight years since he had been last in America, and we may well suppose the people could not but have been amazed at the change in his appearance. This is Gallimore writing. The Whitfield they had known during his first visits to the colonies had been a slim and lithe young man marked by an easy dignity of person, a radiant countenance, and a strong alacrity of movement. But now the slim figure had given place to a rather ungainly corpulence. His movement seemed sluggish, his whole person appeared feeble, and his countenance was very much that of a worn-out man. Only when he became greatly aroused in preaching did he recapture something of his former strength and seem again to some extent the George Whitefield of earlier years." Apparently he's putting on weight. Apparently he's slowing down. You see the fatigue in just his very carriage and how he walks and how he acts, how he is carrying himself. Nevertheless, he is still carrying that body around and seeking to do all that he can for the work of the Lord. He is found in Boston the following spring, again serving. And here we want to highlight his philanthropy. He is not only preaching and leading these huge crowds in worship and so forth, but he is as well concerned about the needs of the schools. We've already seen his concern about education. We've already seen some of the works that he's done already. Here he expresses that philanthropy further. For instance, Yale had stood against him. The president, a man by the name of Clapp, had written against him, preached against him, but now his heart has melted and he has changed and he welcomes Whitfield with open arms to Yale to preach. The Harvard Library at this point had burned down Here, again, Whitfield steps in and helps to purchase replacements. He is involved in the founding of Dartmouth College, a college that would be founded after his decease, but he was part of the ground level movement to see that college brought about. He helps an Indian school. He is serving the Indians. In fact, there was an interesting fellow who was converted. He came to England, an Indian man, and was preaching throughout the churches there with great effect. And that too was helping raise funds for bringing Indians to the Lord. We already noticed his endeavor with Ben Franklin in a school that eventually would be the University of Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania was started by Ben Franklin with the assistance of George Whitfield. In fact, the statue on the cover of your handout today of him standing there is taken from a courtyard at the University of Pennsylvania. So here he is showing his care for the needs of the schools and so forth. He heads back south at last to Bethesda in February of 1765 and here he furthers his concerns about education and goes about establishing Bethesda College. There's an interesting story behind this. He had gone to the Archbishop of the Church of England when he was in London and had submitted to him a request for support of building a school in Georgia. He said, I have been offered 2,000 acres from the governor there. We have another 1,800 acres offered to us. We have funds that are coming in from various denominations, Christians, philanthropists who want to see this school built. Would you support this? Would you take the lead in this and give a charter for establishing the school? And the archbishop responded and said, yes, if it is thoroughly Church of England. That is, it has to be Church of England. All the students have to be taught the ways of Church of England. And he basically was a straitjacket on the school. And Whitefield, on the one hand, was not convinced that that's the right way to go. And secondly, he had received a lot of gifts from Baptists, Presbyterians, groups that were not a part of the Church of England. He says, we can't do that. He then withdrew his request for this charter and ultimately took it to the authorities in Georgia to apply then to the king for stuff to charter which is what took place. So here are four or five colleges which Whitfield himself had a hand in supporting and getting off the ground in the early colonial period there. He takes another tour at this point northward. He is to Charleston in early March. He is preaching in the Carolinas and Virginia, which really needed a lot of help. It's interesting. It's at this time, I think, that he writes to Wesley and highlights, he says, there is such an opportunity here for evangelists to come in and to gather churches. That's ultimately what led Wesley to begin sending evangelists from England to America. In fact, in 1769, as Whitefield is going to America for the last time, the first two Wesleyan Methodist itinerants are coming along at the same time on the Atlantic Ocean. So it's only at the end of Whitefield's life that you're seeing Methodism being brought forth from Wesley. Whitefield clearly had the lead in these matters. In early May, Whitfield finds himself in Delaware and departs for England on June 10, 1765. This is a good place to highlight the relationship that he had with Ben Franklin. I think that we talked about Franklin earlier, didn't we? We had mentioned how it was Franklin who was in Philadelphia and as Whitfield was preaching, from this corner, it was a courthouse and this courthouse was on a corner and it had streets that went out adjacent both at 90 degree angles on the left and on the right and so people were flocking in and filling these streets and hearing him standing on the courtyard steps preaching there on public property. The ACLU would have a fit, wouldn't they? And what Franklin does is he begins stepping back on these streets to where he can no longer hear the voice of Whitfield. And then calculated, giving X amount of space for each individual, how many he could reach if it were a semi-circle reaching both ways. And he estimated somewhere around 30 or 35,000. So anybody who says that these numbers are totally trumped up, totally blown up, I mean, here's a man who was not an evangelical. He saw the benefits of religion. He saw the benefits of the gospel. He saw the benefits of a godly church. He was, even though Franklin himself was rather immoral, He saw the benefits of moral society. There was a bigness of mind that was had even among unbelievers of that time who saw the fruit of these things. Remember, it was Franklin who, in the middle of the Constitutional Convention, asked the moderator to pause for a word of prayer. Remember that? Franklin did that. Not because he necessarily believed in prayer, but he said it would be very good for the spirits right now just to kind of calm down. So he saw the benefits of these things. Whitfield witnessed to Franklin consistently, just drawing him to the Lord, hoping that he would turn and apparently he never did. But I wanted to bring up this testimony from this rather, he was a hostile hand, even though he made money off of Whitfield printing his sermons, even though they had a cordial relationship. Whitfield was welcomed in Franklin's home, he showed hospitality to him. But he did not go along with his evangelical principles. Listen to what Franklin says, mentioning Mr. Whitfield, I cannot forbear expressing the pleasure it gave me to see in the newspapers an account of the respect paid to his memory by your assembly, speaking to the Council of Georgia. I knew him intimately upwards of 30 years. I'm going to bring this back next Sunday. his integrity, disinterestedness, and indefatigable zeal in prosecuting every good work I have never seen equaled, I shall never see excelled." What a great testimony from Franklin of Whitefield. So, let's come then back to England with Whitefield and we have entitled this section English Relief He arrives July the 7th, 1765. It's here that he preaches at the first service of a newly built tabernacle in Bath. The Countess Selina, we met her before when we talked about how Whitfield was all things to all men. And here was this wealthy widow and she begins having this Methodist society meeting in her home. She becomes a believer, she becomes a Calvinist, and so forth. She is very suspicious of John Wesley's Arminianism. and she has a concern for reaching the wealthy and the powerful in England. She recognizes that a lot of the wealthy would vacation in this place called Bath. Why is it called Bath? Hot Springs, exactly. They would go there for relief. In the upstate New York where I passed her, there was several places that had the word Bath. They had Ballston Spa, that was north of us, where the wealthy down in New York City would travel up for health reasons to enjoy these things. So the wealthy would come to this area called Bath, the future site of one of the greatest English preachers, a man by the name of William Jay. And so the Celtist recognizes that they need a church there, so she builds this large building. And so she wants to, as it were, spread this gospel net. And the First Service finds Whitefield preaching there. Another interesting sidebar, she knew that the Church of England priests were scorning the Methodist movement, these lowly dissenters, these non-conformists. And so she actually built into this building this section, a seating section, that had like a veil next to it. So these priests could kind of sneak into the side and sit in these pews that were kind of veiled to the view of the rest of the people, and they could hear the preaching then, and perhaps be converted. They called that section the Nicodemus Quarter. The Nicodemus snuck in at night, you know, and wanted to hear about Jesus, so that's awesome. This is a great time of ministry again for healing some of the problems that were going on in England. And it's at this time that Whitfield is kind of passing the baton on to others. Remember we've highlighted the burdens that he's carried, the financial burdens that he had for the orphanage, the burdens that he had really overseeing two churches in the London area, a chapel and a tabernacle. And he kept on trying to find somebody to replace him but never could. It's at this time that he steps in and heals a division. Some of the ministers coming out of Wesley were teaching this horrific perfectionist doctrine. There were ministers who were saying, I haven't sinned in months and I don't expect to sin before I die. I mean, that was causing all sorts of division and problems in the evangelical movement. He comes and does a good job of addressing that. Howell Harris had gone off the deep end for a while. He had health problems. He comes back at this point. This is the days of the rise of Roland Hill at Cambridge. This is the time when Selina erects a college to train ministers, which opens in August of 1768. Again, Whitefield is found there preaching at the opening, the commencement there. We are introduced to a man by the name of John Fletcher. Fletcher arrives on the scene here and learns about Methodism. If you want to read more about the revivals, especially in England, and the men who led them, this is a wonderful beginning. Christian Leaders of the 18th Century, that is the 1700s, by J.C. Ryle. And he has chapters in here on not only Whitefield and Wesley, but also William Grimshaw. William Romaine of Lettuce fame, Daniel Rowlands, John Berridge, Henry Venn, Walter of Truro, and this man James Hervey, and also Fletcher of Madeleine. I want to just highlight this ministry of Fletcher very briefly. Listen, he is such a remarkable man. as he served there. He was encouraged by Whitefield to go into open air preaching and be an itinerant evangelist and so forth and he never had the energy for that. Recognizing his calling was to serve one parish, one church, and he did so very well. Listen to the description that Wesley gives of him. He says, from the beginning of his settling there at Madelay, he was a laborious or hard-working workman in the Lord's vineyard, endeavoring to spread the truth of the gospel and to suppress vice in every possible way. Those sinners who tried to hide themselves from Him, He pursued every corner of His parish by all sorts of means, public and private, early and late, in season and out of season, entreating and warning them to flee from the wrath to come. Now get this, some made an excuse for not attending the church service on a Sunday morning that they could not awake early enough to get their families ready. They were late for Sunday school. He provided for this also, taking a bell in his hand, he set out every Sunday for some months at five in the morning and went around the most distant parts of the parish inviting all the inhabitants to the house of God." Somehow, you know, isn't there a proverb that talks about rising early and blessing somebody with a loud voice will be counted a curse? But you get the drift. He was such a marvelous gospel preacher. Listen, this one call to sinners. He says, come to Him just as you are, and He will make you what you should be. Come to Him just as you are, and He will make you what you should be. When He counsels you to buy of Him the gold of faith and the garment of salvation, take Him at His gospel word. Come without regard to your stuff. The poorer you are, the better. The oil of His grace flows more abundantly into empty vessels. His love is most glorified in the relief of the most miserable objects. His royal bounty scorns the vile compensation of your wretched merits. He sells like a king, like the king of kings, without money and without price. That's James Hervey. Again, read about these men. They're awesome in their commitment to the Lord and their faithfulness. And they're stepping out boldly for the gospel of the Lord Jesus. At this time also, he renders aid to six expelled students from Oxford. Six students were kicked out. What were they kicked out of school for? They were kicked out of school for praying, for singing hymns, and for sharing the Bible, teaching the Bible in homes. That's what they were picked out for. I understand that things like this are going to happen in our day. Somebody was speaking on Wednesday night that there was a college in California where they had their ears open that if anybody is criticizing in the least gay marriage, that has to be brought to the attention of the authorities. There's coming a day when Christians will be kicked out of schools because of their stand for righteousness, their stand for godliness, and that's what was taking place here. It's at this time that he receives much-needed relief in his ministry and those two churches I mentioned earlier, and the help comes from the Navy and from the Army. A Navy man by the name of, what a great name this is, Terrell Joss, comes to his aid. He had been converted and takes over the work in one of his ministries and from an army captain by the name of, his last name is Scott. So they come and they take over these works and of course relieves him immensely of this responsibility as his health continues to fail. It's also at this time that his wife Elizabeth passes away. She dies at the age of 65 in August of 1768. Whitfield preached the sermon at his wife's funeral. That's, to me, just quite remarkable. He preached on Romans 8 and verse 20. What's that? Did she what? I don't know if he did. The other GW. GW Fisher. Yeah, probably. I don't know. All right, let's move on then to the last section here, the seventh journey to America. He leaves on September the 4th, 1769. And here I want to read a section here from Dalimore again regarding the term, The World is My Parish. In 1739, while crossing the Atlantic on the way to his first itinerant ministry in America, Whitfield had declared, The whole world is my parish. Incidentally, that's a phrase that is oftentimes ascribed to Wesley. Whitefield said it at least a month before Wesley did. Sorry, Wesley. And now in 1769, when about to sail to America for the last time, he repeated the declaration asserting all the world is my parish. Throughout the 30 intervening years, he had relentlessly fulfilled this declaration. He carried the gospel to virtually every county in England, to much of Wales, and to all the populous areas of Scotland. He preached in Gibraltar, Bermuda, Holland, and Ireland, and only ill health prevented him from going still further, from extending his ministry into Canada, and from fulfilling his intention to reach the West India Islands. He repeatedly traversed the American colonies from Georgia in the south to New Hampshire in the north, ministering in cities and towns, but also many newly settled areas of the frontier. Moreover, in all of these lands, his congregations were in the largest they had ever witnessed, with the exception, as we mentioned earlier, of Holland. Thus George Whitfield reached with the gospel a very large part of the English-speaking world of his day, and the essential nature of his life is found in his twice-uttered assertion, The whole world is my parish. So, he arrives in Charleston, which is in South Carolina, and then goes south to Georgia, to Bethesda. The college buildings are being constructed. Everything is going as planned. The college is getting underway. I want to share with you here, we have some college students that are back with us today. Here are some rules that they had at the College of Bethesda. Number one, morning prayer to begin constantly every day at half past five. Evening prayer every night, on every Sunday besides a short prayer with a psalm or hymn early in the morning, full prayers and a sermon at ten. The same at three in the afternoon, the first lesson to be read at dinner, the same at supper, and a short hymn at each meal. Number two, great care to be taken that all read, write, speak, and behave properly. What a simple rule. Number three, all the statutes to be read to every student at admission and three times a year at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas publicly. Number four, no cards, dice, or gaming of any kind to be allowed, no video games, on pain of expulsion, and no music but divine psalmody. Whoa. 5. All over to be taught bland manual exercise, but not bound to attend on musters or other exercises, which was a civil thing. 6. No one to be suffered to run into arrears for above half a year and a certain amount of caution money to be paid. All students seventhly to furnish their own rooms and sleep on mattresses. 8. No one suffered to go to Savannah without leave. Don't go to Savannah without permission. Number 9, breakfast at 7, dinner at 12, supper at 6. Do all the year, and the utmost neatness to be maintained in every room. Number 10, all orphans and students to learn and repeat the 39 articles. What are the 39 articles? Church of England, very good. They're like our confession of faith, only not so much. Number 11, the homilies to be read publicly every year by the students in rotation. Those are a collection of sermons that they had in the Church of England. So there was some effect, some Church of England teaching here, but not totally. Number 12, all to be thoroughly instructed in the history of Georgia and the Constitution of England before being taught the history of Greece and Rome. England and Georgia first. Rome and Greece, those pagan nations second. Number 13, young Negro boys to be baptized and taught to read. Young Negro girls to be taught to work with a needle. And then 14, following books of divinity were to be read. All sorts of great books like Matthew Henry's Commentary and the writings of Philip Doddridge. You have Boston's Fourfold State and his book on the Covenant here. And on and on it goes. Which college is this? This is down in Bethesda. It's interesting because later slaves were not allowed to raid. I don't think that was a rule across the board. There were slave owners who wickedly kept their slaves from imprisonment. You need to understand something about slavery. Slaves could buy their freedom. Slaves were given X amount of duties per day. They were to get those duties done, and whatever they had with their free time after that was up to them. They could work some more, make extra money, and eventually purchase their own freedom. Now, an aid to that, of course, would be educated. And for slave masters, who had this angle that they don't want them to be freed, would keep them from that kind of education. But most of the evangelicals, if not all of the evangelicals, were insisting on bringing the gospel to them. And really coming down hard upon, I mean, we've already seen where Whitfield had preached very sharply against cruel masters. So you can't just paint with a broad brush that all the slaveholders said your slaves cannot read. You can't do that. I think that they did. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure that they're here saying that they can't learn to read, but they focused upon what they're going to need as godly wives to care for their homes and so forth. I don't know exactly what's behind that. I don't think it necessarily rules out that women weren't supposed to read, but whether or not they were really pushing it, I guess, is the real question. We're happy for women that can read, aren't we? Oh man, we're running out of time. He leaves Bethesda then for the last time. The burden is off of his back. He finally pays off the debt. Just on the very year before he dies. He leaves Bethesda in April of 1770, takes a boat that takes him up to Philadelphia, May the 9th. He has a preaching tour there and then north to upstate New York in Albany, where he anticipated there was a Congress of the Indian Nations gathering there. He had hoped to be able to speak there, but that had fizzled out for some reason. And so instead he stays in Albany and does a preaching tour to that region around him, including to a place called Schenectady. which was spelled D-A-D-Y at the end. It's here that a very interesting providence takes place. Listen to what Pollard gives in his biography at this time. A very interesting situation takes place when he's in Albany. One day in the later part of his tour, he received a letter from a horse thief under sentence of death, who'd heard him preach when he passed that way earlier, before the man's arrest, and now longed to hear him again before execution. Whitfield did not know whether he could reach the place in time. The man wrote further pressing letters, and by a very peculiar providence, Whitfield arrived on the day when a huge crowd had gathered to see the man hanged. The sheriff postponed the execution so that Whitfield might preach under a tree about half a mile away and allow the felon in chains with his escort to stand close to the preacher. The solemnity of the occasion underlined the message of judgment and of grace. To people who had come to see a man die and to the criminal with a mind concentrated wonderfully by the prospect of being about to be hanged, George pictured the terrors of death for the unrepentant and the joy of heaven for a penitent thief or anyone else who trusted in the Jesus that died on a gallows long ago. The crowd dispersed to take up positions around the crossroads and its gallows. When all was ready, George walked the half mile beside the horse thief, and knew by their conversation that they would certainly meet again in heaven. George believed it might be very soon. At the gallows, like any prison chaplain, he went up into the cart, which, after the rope had been adjusted around his neck, would be led away, leaving the criminal to hang until he died. Hands in arms, trust, the thief told the crowd that he had truly repented and knew that he was forgiven for Jesus Christ's sake, that the Lord Jesus was wonderfully real to him at this moment and would in a few minutes receive him, a penitent thief. into paradise. He urged all of his hearers to repent likewise. George Whitfield climbed on the coffin, addressed a few more words to the onlookers, and gave the blessing. Preached from the top of a coffin. Remember earlier in his ministry, when he was not allowed to preach in a church, he went out into the cemetery outside of the church and stood on a tombstone and preached from there. It goes on and says, he did not wait to see the cart move and the man drop. His nerves could no longer stand the sight of a jerking, blindfolded body struggling for breath as the rope slowly throttled the thief into heaven. He is worn out at this time. He heads off to Boston in September and then to Portsmouth, New Hampshire on September the 23rd, which is where we began our study today. There are several anecdotes I would love to share at this time, but I just don't have the full range of time at this point to give what occurred even at this late juncture in his life. But I do want to close with the eyewitness account of the death of Whitfield, as given from Johnston in Volume 1 of his work. which I'm looking for here. George Whitfield, evangelist, finishes his last preaching engagement on earth and struggles up the stairs. We now turn to the pen of Dr. Gillies and the eyewitness account of Whitfield's assistant, Richard Smith. who now joins him upstairs in the Mass. We began with him preaching with that candle. When the candle goes out, he goes up to his room. And he had an assistant with him, a man by the name of Smith. And this is what Smith writes. And then retired upstairs, he said that he would sit and read till I came to him, which I did as soon as possible. I found him reading in the Bible with Dr. Watt's Psalms lying open before him. He asked me for some water gruel. some sort of oatmeal or something, and took about half his usual quantity and kneeling down by the bedside closed the evening with prayer. After a little conversation he went to rest and slept till two in the morning when he awoke me and asked for a little cider of which he drank about a wine glass full. I asked him how he felt for he seemed to pant for breath. He told me his asthma was coming on him again. He must have two or three days rest. Two or three days riding without preaching would set him up again. Soon afterwards he asked me to put the window up a little higher, though it was half up all night. Forth said he, I cannot breathe, but I hope I shall be better by and by. A good pulpit sweat today may give me relief. I shall be better after preaching. I said to him I wished he would not preach so often. He replied, I'd rather wear out than rust out. I then told him I was afraid He took cold in preaching yesterday. He said he believed he had, and then sat up in the bed, prayed that God would be pleased to bless his preaching where he had been, and also bless his preaching that day, that more souls might be brought to Christ, and prayed for direction whether he should winter at Boston or hasten southward. He prayed for a blessing on his Bethesda college and his dear family there, and for the tabernacle and chapel congregations, and all connections on the other side of the water, and then laid himself down to sleep again. This was near three o'clock. At a quarter past four, he waked and said, My asthma, my asthma's coming on. I wish I'd not given out word to preach at Hart Haverhill on Monday. I don't think I shall be able. I shall see what today will bring forth. If I'm no better tomorrow, I'll take two or three days' ride. He then desired me to warn him a little gruel, and in breaking the firewood, I waked Mr. Parsons, who, thinking I knocked for him, rose and came in. He went to Whitfield's bedside and asked him how he felt himself. He answered, I'm almost suffocated. I can scarcely breathe. My asthma quite chokes me. I was then not a little surprised to hear how quick and with what difficulty he drew his breath. He got out of bed and went to the open window for air. This was exactly at five o'clock. I went to him and for about the space of five minutes saw no danger, only that he had a great difficulty in breathing as I'd often seen before. Soon afterwards he turned himself to me and said, I am dying. I said, I hope not, sir. He ran to the other window panting for breath but could get no relief. It was agreed that I should go for Dr. Sawyer and on my coming back saw death on his face and he again said, I am dying. His eyes were fixed, his under lip drawing inward every time he drew breath. He went towards the window and we offered him some warm wine with lavender drops, which he refused. I persuaded him to sit down in the chair and have his cloak on. He consented by a sign, but could not speak. I then offered him the glass of warm wine. He took half of it, but seemed as if it would have stopped his breath entirely. In a little time he brought up considerable quantity of phlegm and wind. I then began to have some small hopes. Mr. Parsons said he thought Whitfield breathed more freely than he did and would recover. I said, no sir, he is certainly dying. I was continually employed in taking the phlegm out of his mouth with a handkerchief and bathing his temples with drops, rubbing his wrists and so on to give him relief if possible, but all in vain. His hands and feet were as cold as clay. The doctor came in and saw him in a chair leaning upon my breast. He felt his pulse and he said, he is a dead man. Mr. Parsons said, I do not believe it. You must do something, doctor. He said, I cannot. He's now near his last breath. And indeed, so it was. For he fetched but one gasp and stretched out his feet and breathed no more. This was exactly at six o'clock. He continued rubbing his legs, hands, and feet with warm cloths, and bathed him with spirits for some time, but all in vain. I then put him into a warm bed, the doctor standing by, and often raised him upright, continually rubbing him and putting spirits to his nose for an hour, till all hopes were gone. The people came in crowds to see him. I begged the doctor to shut the door. In the last visit, but one which Whitfield paid to America, he spent a day or two at Princeton. This is an added little item here in Gilly's. I'm going to skip over that. He goes on, the author here, Johnston, he says, there is an observation that needs to be stated from a medical standpoint. The author has for some 50 years suffered from asthma and can observe Whitfield's sufferings from a vantage point that perhaps none of his previous biographers have been able. There are two facts from the record of these last hours of his life that bear mentioning, as they may have contributed to Whitfield's demise. One was the lit fire Wood smoke is deadly to asthmatics, and few can tolerate it. Notice just after Smith breaks the firewood and starts a fire, that is when Whitfield remarks, I'm also almost suffocated. And secondly was the glass of wine. The ingredients in wine can choke an asthmatic, and he took half of it, but it seemed as if it would have stopped his breath entirely. These two incidents recorded in the death of Whitfield have gone unnoticed by history and biographers, but the combination of the lit fire and the glass of wine could very well have been the coup de grace that ended the life of Whitfield in his already weakened condition. Nevertheless, we see the dramatic events unfold before us as God brings his servant home to be with him. Now in the next chapter he's going to go on and speak about. his funeral, I guess. And that brings us to the close. And that's where we'll have to end. I'm over in time. But Lord willing, we'll come to his beliefs and his convictions and the blessings. And also I'm going to talk about some of the people that have sought, again, even to this day, are criticizing Whitfield and saying that he was little more than an actor, a charlatan. Even some within our own denomination stand up against Whitfield to my dismay and shock, no doubt. So we'll get into that next week. Any questions? Any quick questions? Maybe we can field in a minute or two. Any thoughts as we wrap up? That's a statue of Whitfield. Oh, yeah, he preached in the Church of England, man, preached in rows. He also used a judge's cap sometimes. This is some of the dramatic elements of his preaching. At the end of his sermon, he says, I'm going to have to put on the judge's cap at this point, which is a well-known piece of clothing that speaks about the judge taking upon him the role of issuing the sentence upon the criminal. He said, I'm going to have to find you guilty. You who have not come to Christ will have to stand before the judge of the world and things like that. We'll get into that a little bit more next time.