Whitefield may have adopted modern marketing and communication methods, then, but his message was traditional and Calvinist, standing against the “humanitarian” challengers of the day. Instead of softening his view on the depravity of man in response to critics, he emphasized original sin even more. Whitefield spoke regularly of how in their lost state, people became “sunk into the nature of the beast and the devil.”

Whitefield’s Calvinism precipitated recurring theological feuds in his career with evangelical associates who believed in free will and the possibility of sinless perfection. By June 1739, as Whitefield was preparing for his return to America, his relationship with John Wesley – his onetime “spiritual father” from Oxford – began to disintegrate. The Arminian Wesley had decided to declaim against predestination and Calvinism, and to teach that Christians could achieve a state of sinless perfection in this life. Wesley began preaching on “Free Grace” in Bristol by the end of April, and soon correspondents apprised Whitefield of Wesley’s theological turn. Whitefield wrote to an English pastor that he “by no means” approved of Wesley’s teachings on perfection. Later he explained to a Scottish minister that he was “no friend to sinless perfection,” for he believed that “relics” of the sinful nature always remained in Christians’ hearts. In the succeeding months, Whitefield still warmly encouraged his old mentor to preach alongside him. But their breakup was imminent.^[i]

Behind the scenes, Whitefield wrote to Charles Wesley and pleaded with him to try and avoid a public split. “If your brother will be but silent about the doctrine of election and final perseverance, there will never be a division between us. The very thought of it shocks my soul.” But John had made a firm decision. He told James Hutton that, via the casting of lots (a common practice of Wesley’s), God had not only confirmed his teaching against Calvinism, but had told him to publish his views.^[ii]

Whitefield and Wesley’s divide over predestination reflected a larger, long-term split among Anglicans on this issue. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, Calvinism had few strong Anglican advocates, even though the church’s Thirty-Nine Articles explicitly affirmed predestination and taught against free will. The Wesleys’ mother Susanna had brought them up with hostility to Calvinism, telling John in 1725 that rigid predestination “charges the most holy God with being the author of sin.” Whitefield, conversely, became convinced that a recovery of robust Calvinist teaching was essential to renewal of pure gospel preaching. The theological controversy also became an outlet for John Wesley and Whitefield to vent their personal frustrations with one another. Whitefield would never question Wesley’s salvation (as he did with latitudinarians), probably because of their personal relationship, and because he knew that John had a clear testimony of conversion. Still, their theological rift would become vicious.^[iii]

On June 25, 1739, Whitefield addressed Wesley directly, telling him that he had heard of Wesley’s intention to “print a sermon against predestination. It shocks me to think of it. What will be the consequence but controversy?” Whitefield implored him to maintain silence, and reminded him that there were already public rumors about animosity between them. A week later, Whitefield asked him again not to distribute the sermon, but glumly noted that Wesley had cast the lot. “Oh! my heart in the midst of my body is like melted wax!” Whitefield exclaimed.^[iv]

[i] Whitefield to John Miller, June 8, 1739, in Boyd Stanley Schlenther and Eryn Mant White, eds. Calendar of the Trevecka Letters (Aberystwyth, Wales, 2003), 24; Whitefield to Rev. James Ogilvie at Aberdeen, Aug. 3, 1739, in Graham Thomas, ed., “George Whitefield and Friends,” The National Library of Wales Journal 26 (1990):” 433; Timothy L. Smith, “George Whitefield and Wesleyan Perfection,” Wesleyan Theological Journal, 19, no. 1 (Spring 1984):  67-70, athttp://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/wesleyjournal/1984-wtj-19-…, accessed 12/21/12.

[ii] John Wesley to James Hutton, May 8, 1739, Whitefield to Charles Wesley, June 22, 1739, in Frank Baker, ed., The Works of John Wesley: Letters I, 1721-1739(Oxford, Eng., 1980), 25: 644, 661 n.3.

[iii] Peter J. Theusen, Predestination: The American Career of a Contentious Doctrine(New York, 2009), 73, 76.

[iv] Whitefield to John Wesley, June 25, 1739, July 2, 1739, in Baker, ed., Works of John Wesley, 25: 662, 667.

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