Far from undermining his sense of assurance, the doctrine of unconditional election brought Whitefield tremendous spiritual consolation. In his experience, the two doctrines were inextricably linked. He wrote to one correspondent, “Oh the excellency of the doctrine of election, and of the final perseverance of the saints, to those who are sealed by the Spirit of promise.” Acutely aware of the frailty and fickleness of his faith, Whitefield discovered immeasurable solace in God’s commitment to finish the good work he has begun in his elect.

Conviction of Sin

Theological anthropology and soteriology were tightly interwoven in Whitefield’s proclamation of the gospel. Echoing Wesley’s pithy encapsulation of this theological relationship (“Know your disease! Know your cure!”1), Whitefield was adamant that the doctrine of original sin was “the very foundation of the Christian religion.”2 Motivating stark assertions like this was a belief that the “glad tidings of the gospel” are good news only to those who have first embraced the bad news of their utterly desperate plight and dire need of God’s gracious salvific intervention. In one sermon, he offered his audience a peek behind the curtain of his theological priorities, contending that responsible preaching of the gospel entails avoiding the offer of “healing before we see sinners wounded.” He continued, “Secure sinners must hear the thunderings of Mount Sinai, before we bring them to mount Zion.”3 Elsewhere, in his sermon “The Gospel, a Dying Saint’s Triumph,” Whitefield declared, “You cannot preach the gospel without preaching the law; for you shall find by and by, we are to preach something that the people must be saved by: it is impossible to tell them how they are to be saved, unless we tell them what they are to be saved from.”4

Whitefield held that no aspect of human nature remains unpolluted by the effects of the fallen nature every individual inherits from our first parents. That is, while Whitefield’s theology of original sin emphasized the imputation of the second Adam’s righteousness by faith as the antidote to the imputation of the first Adam’s sin to his posterity, it also stressed that Adam’s fall resulted in the depravity of his sinful nature being imparted to the entire human race. For instance, he declared, “We all stand in need of being justified, on account of the sin of our natures: for we are all chargeable with original sin, or the first sin of our parents.” Responding to the accusation that his theology renders God unjust, as well as the active cause of sin, he appealed to Paul’s argument in Romans 5, “where we are told that ‘in Adam all died’; that is, Adam’s sin was imputed to all . . . [and] this point seems to be excellently summed up in the article of our church, where she declares, ‘Original sin . . . is the fault and corruption of every man.’ ”5

On another occasion, Whitefield referred to the account of the fall in Genesis 3 as the origin of universal and inherent human depravity: “Our first parents contracted it [a prevailing enmity against God] when they fell from God by eating the forbidden fruit, and the bitter and malignant contagion of it hath descended to, and quite overspread, their whole posterity.”6 In addition to Scripture and tradition, Whitefield also appealed to empirical experience in support of the doctrine of original sin. For instance, he contended: “If we look inwardly, we will see enough of lusts, and man’s temper contrary to the temper of God. There is pride, malice, and revenge, in all our hearts; and this temper cannot come from God; it comes from our first parent, Adam, who, after he fell from God, fell out of God into the devil.”7

So important was a right understanding—and experiential conviction—of sin to Whitefield that he was prepared to assert, “If you have never felt the weight of original sin, do not call yourselves Christians.”8 For instance, in his sermon “The Lord Our Righteousness,” he was not content simply to rehearse the “mournful account” of Adam and Eve’s covenantbreaking transgression, one that rendered them—and by implication, their descendants—“in need of a better righteousness than their own.” Nor was it sufficient merely to assert the theological mechanics of imputation and Jesus’s active and passive obedience, whereby “Christ not only died, but lived; not only suffered, but obeyed for; or instead of, poor sinners.” Indeed, he warned, “Entertaining this doctrine in your heads, without receiving the Lord Jesus Christ savingly by a lively faith into your hearts, will but increase your damnation.”9

Instead, as he drew his sermon toward its rhetorical climax, Whitefield felt compelled to impress upon his listeners that unless they availed themselves of what he had earlier described as “divine philanthropy,” the existential reality of a looming eternity experiencing the horrors of a just divine judgment awaited them. Signaling his homiletical turn toward eliciting a personal conviction of sin among his listeners, he announced, “But it is time for me to come a little closer to your consciences.” In what would become a familiar feature of Whitefield’s sermons, he exhorted: “O Christless sinners, I am distressed for you . . . for whither would you flee, if death should find you naked? . . . O think of death! O think of judgment! Yet a little while, and time shall be no more; and then what will become of you, if the Lord be not your righteousness?” Vividly imagining the day of judgment when “Christ himself shall pronounce the irrevocable [damnatory] sentence” on those yet to experience the new birth, Whitefield empathized with his audience, imploring them to “close with Christ”: “You need not fear the greatness or number of your sins. For are you sinners? So am I. . . . And yet the Lord (for ever adored be his rich, free and sovereign grace) the Lord is my righteousness.”10

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Notes:

1. John Wesley, “Original Sin,” in The Works of John Wesley: Bicentennial Edition, vols. 1–4, Sermons, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984–1987), 2:185.
2. Whitefield, “Of Justification by Christ,” in George Whitefield, The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield M. A., Edited by John Gillies. 7 vols. London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1771–1772., 6:218.
3. Whitefield, “The Seed of the Woman, and the Seed of the Serpent,” in Works, 5:13.
4. Whitefield, “The Gospel a Dying Saint’s Triumph,” in George Whitefield, Eighteen Sermons Preached by the Late Rev. George Whitefield, A.M. . . . Taken Verbatim in ShortHand, and Faithfully Transcribed by Joseph Gurney: Revised by Andrew Gifford, D.D. London: Joseph Gurney, 1771., 86.
5. Whitefield, “Of Justification by Christ,” 217–18, quoting art. 9 of the Thirty-Nine Articles.
6. Whitefield, “Walking with God,” in Works, 5:23.
7. George Whitefield, “The Method of Grace,” in Select Sermons of George Whitefield, with an Account of His Life by J. C. Ryle (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 80.
8. Whitefield, “The Method of Grace,” 81.
9. Whitefield, “The Lord Our Righteousness,” in Works, 5:219–20, 229.
10. Whitefield, “The Lord Our Righteousness,” 219, 228, 231–32.