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7 Practices for Spiritual Progress According to George Whitefield
Spiritual Practice as Means
George Whitefield examined seven practices to encourage spiritual progress: reading Scripture, secret prayer, frequent meditation on Scripture, observing God’s providential dealings, watching the motions of the Holy Spirit, making full use of God’s ordinances, and keeping company with other Christians who were walking with God. This was not intended to be an exhaustive list. The first five were more personal, though they could be performed in public settings, while the last two were communal. Whitefield’s teaching of these spiritual practices were expanded through his other sermons and letters on each topic. Additionally, he argued that spiritual disciplines “are means; but then they are only means; they are part, but not the whole of religion.” He stressed that if the means were automatic, then the Pharisees would have been the most religious of all people.1 Nevertheless, when the “powerful operations of the Holy Spirit” enliven the means of grace, the results are the “fruits of the spirit.”2
1. Reading Scripture
Whitefield reinforced his first discipline, reading Scripture, through several biblical passages that stressed both the nature of God’s word and the necessity and benefit of regular interaction with it. If someone neglects Scripture and allows anything else to supplant it as the supreme guide in life, such a person is deluded and in danger of making a “shipwreck of [his or her] faith.” To cultivate this habit prepares believers to daily grow in awareness until they meet Jesus face-to-face. Those who saturate their souls with the living word of God will experience the delight of being renewed in their lives.3
Whitefield’s most detailed treatment of reading the Bible for spiritual maturity was “The Duty of Searching Scriptures.” Since ignorance of God’s word is the cause of all error, he taught seven principles of how to study Scripture. The first principle, foundational to the others, was the recognition that the Bible was written to reveal the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. Whitefield affirmed a typological reading, maintaining that Christ can be found in the Old Testament, and therefore he instructed his listeners to always search for Christ to guide them in understanding difficult passages. Second, he taught readers to approach the word with a “humble child-like disposition,” because God hides his truth from the proud.4
Whitefield on the Christian Life
Tom Schwanda, Ian Maddock
George Whitefield dedicated his life to teaching the Scriptures and calling people to know and love God. This biography explores the life of Whitefield as a prominent figure in the early evangelical revival in an honest, historical, and balanced way.
Whitefield’s next two principles are related to the internalization of Scripture. Third, one must be intentional to grasp the mysteries of the kingdom of God, for those who ignore this counsel will never understand God’s message. The reader’s motivation is crucial, for if a person reads the Bible only for entertainment or to criticize it, then it will fall on deaf ears.
Fourth, Whitefield taught that to “make an application of every thing you read to your own hearts” will increase your effectiveness in studying Scripture. While the Bible is an ancient book, what was written in the past is just as relevant for contemporary readers as for those who first heard it. To guide the application to our hearts, we must “diligently seek the assistance of the Holy Spirit.” This naturally overflows into the fifth principle, of depending upon the Holy Spirit. Whitefield illustrated this through Nicodemus: though he was a “teacher of Israel” who should have understood “the doctrine of regeneration,” he was ignorant, since he lacked the illumination of the Spirit. The natural man cannot grasp the “hidden sense and meaning” of the Bible, for his eyes cannot read it as it was intended. Therefore, according to Whitefield, “if we are strangers to the Spirit we will be strangers to [God’s] word.”5
Sixth, Whitefield counseled his readers to pray frequently throughout the reading—pausing to “pray over every word and verse, if possible”; and after reading, “earnestly beseech God,” so that what has been read “may be inwardly engrafted in your hearts, and bring forth in you the fruits of a good life.” His seventh and final principle was that one must read Scripture continually with an intensity that resembles someone searching for buried treasure. He concluded that one can never discover the richness of Scripture “by a careless, superficial, cursory way of reading them, but by an industrious, close, and humble application” of them.6 Whitefield’s approach was consistent with the emergence of eighteenth-century evangelicalism, which prioritized the foundational nature of the Bible.7
2. Secret Prayer
Whitefield combined his second discipline, secret prayer, with what we often call “arrow prayers” today, and he compared prayers of this kind to sending “short letters . . . to heaven upon the wings of faith.” Given the spontaneous nature of such prayer, it was intended to guide believers as they went about their daily business. It reflected God’s omnipresence with those who sought him and fulfilled the Pauline admonition to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). Personal prayer is instrumental in drawing near to God because it is the “fan of the divine life, whereby the spark of holy fire kindled in the soul by God, is not only kept in, but raised into flame.” Among other benefits, this ad hoc prayer serves as a protection against temptation, and those who neglect it are more likely to experience spiritual diseases. Regardless of the form of prayer, it creates a way for uniting the believer with God. Whitefield maintained that it raises a person to God and brings God down to those who pray, and he personally claimed that he had experienced “sweet communion” with God through prayer.8
3. Meditation on Scripture
Whitefield separated holy and frequent meditation, his third spiritual discipline, from reading Scripture. He compared meditation to the body’s digestion of food, employing the biblical examples of David and Isaac (Gen. 24:63) to illustrate gathering and internalizing spiritual nutrients from Scripture to nourish the soul. More eloquently, he contended that meditation “is a kind of silent prayer, whereby the soul is frequently, as it were, carried out of itself to God, and in a degree made like unto those blessed spirits, who by a kind of immediate intuition always behold the face of our heavenly Father.” In light of this benefit of divine communion and beatific vision, Whitefield urged his listeners to frequently engage in meditation, since it can both kindle “the fire of divine love” and “maintain a close and uniform walk with the most-high God.”
While meditation can be used in several ways, he stressed that the focus should be “on the works and word of God.”9 Later his guidance was enlarged “to meditate upon the perfection of the divine attributes, to contemplate the love of God in Christ, [and] the glories of heaven,” which can create “souls advanced in piety.”10 In a sermon on self-denial, to encourage submission to God he admonished his hearers to meditate frequently “on the life of our blessed Lord and Master Jesus Christ” from the cradle to the cross, being attentive to Christ’s consistent pattern of total submission to God the Father. Whitefield’s final motivation challenged his listeners to “often meditate on the joys of heaven.” Stephen followed this principle (Acts 7:55–56), realizing that the joys of heaven far surpass any rewards one can gain by submitting to the allure of the world.11
If someone neglects Scripture and allows anything else to supplant it as the supreme guide in life, such a person is deluded and in danger of making a “shipwreck of [his or her] faith.”
4. Being Attentive to God’s Providence
Whitefield’s fourth spiritual discipline, attentiveness to God’s providence, extended to God’s numbering the hairs of a person’s head and God’s awareness of even the sparrow that falls to the ground (Matt. 10:29–31).12 Providence teaches that God is ever present and governs all of creation—nothing is by chance, given God’s daily awareness and involvement. In a letter written from Dublin in 1751, Whitefield attested to his own experience of being guided by it: “I find that providence has wonderfully prepared my way, and over-ruled every thing for my greater acceptance. O that I could be more humble and thankful!”13 Driven to accomplish God’s calling, he recognized that he needed to notice and discern how daily life might afford new opportunities for him to preach. This lesson was translated into guidance for his listeners: “Hear what the Lord has to say concerning [your life] in the voice of his providence.” While it is one thing to receive the benefits of God, it is another thing to accept that “every cross has a call in it, and every particular dispensation of divine providence, has some particular end to answer in those to whom it is sent.”14
5. Sensing the Motions of the Holy Spirit
While observing God’s providence is an external operation, Whitefield also taught the importance of recognizing the Spirit’s guidance within a person’s heart. This fifth spiritual discipline had been foundational to him since the beginning of his ministry. Just as a child is led by a parent, Jesus’s disciples needed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Whitefield’s utter dependence on the Spirit’s guidance frequently brought charges of enthusiasm. Conscious of his critics, he declared, “Though it is the quintessence of enthusiasm, to pretend to be guided by the Spirit without the written word; yet it is every Christian’s bounden duty to be guided by the Spirit in conjunction with the written word of God.” This interactive, twofold reliance on the word and Spirit was a central principle to Luther, Calvin, and other Protestant Reformers. Whitefield urged his listeners to intensely seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance, which would be confirmed by their experiencing “enlightening, quickening, and inflaming” power “by the word of God” felt in their souls.15
While there is no specific reference to John 16:13 (“When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth”), it is clear that Whitefield recognized that one of the central roles of the Spirit is to lead believers into God’s truth. Taken together, noticing the movement of God’s providence and the motions of the Holy Spirit assures Jesus’s followers of God’s presence and guidance in life. The greater that awareness, the closer one is able to walk with God and enjoy his fellowship.
6. Celebrating God’s Ordinances
Whitefield’s sixth discipline included various spiritual practices but typically focused on baptism and especially the Lord’s Supper. He asserted that God’s ordinances are “conduit-pipes, whereby the infinitely condescending Jehovah conveys his grace to [his people’s] souls.” This is the highest privilege extended by God and creates “delight to visit the place where God’s honour dwelleth.”16 Such language articulates Whitefield’s theology that the Lord’s Supper communicates grace to its participants by reminding them of Christ’s presence. This is clear in an early letter to a friend, in which he instructed him: “When you receive the sacrament, earnestly endeavour to be inwardly bettered by it the following week.”17
For Whitefield, the ordinances were an expression of God’s tokens of love sent through his Holy Spirit; people could experience deep intimacy with Jesus through the Lord’s Table because they were “espoused unto Christ.” This bridal language, associated with union with Christ, attests to the covenantal joy of feasting with Jesus. In Communion, Christ’s deepest love is dramatically displayed through the broken bread and poured out wine, and invites the recipients to surrender their love in response to Christ.18 In a sermon preached from Isaiah 54:5, “For thy Maker is thine husband,” Whitefield exhorted his listeners that the Church of England eucharistic liturgy required the minister to “acquaint all those who receive the sacrament worthily, that they are one with Christ, and Christ with them; that they dwell in Christ, and Christ in them.” This indwelling of Christ was reinforced in the participation of the Lord’s Supper, which was a profound mystery that he called an “ineffable union.”19 Because of Christ’s presence in the sacrament, it possesses the dynamic ability to transform people through the Spirit’s power.
7. Seeking Fellowship with Other Christians
The seventh and final means of grace that Whitefield emphasized was how “Christian societies, and fellowship meetings” have guided believers over the centuries in faithful discipleship. He discerned from church history that vibrant Christianity is dependent upon strong gatherings for mutual fellowship. Therefore, it was essential that believers “would walk with God, and keep up the life of religion, to meet together as they have opportunity, to provoke one another to love and good works.’20
The importance of this was demonstrated by his earliest sermon, “The Nature and Necessity of Society in General, and Religious Society in Particular” (Eccl. 4:9–12), which argued that Adam needed a helper in the garden before the fall, since friendship was an essential dimension of life. Whitefield proclaimed three benefits of religious societies: when a person falls into temptation, there is someone to pick him or her up; another person can impart heat or enliven someone in need; and believers can preserve others from external enemies. He also set forth three duties for members: mutual reproof, mutual exhortation, and mutual protection from opposition.21 In addition to this strong reliance on mutual support and responsibility, he declared that the purpose of the societies is to stir up love and holiness and “convince each other of the evil of sin.”22
Notes:
- George Whitefield, “On Regeneration,” in The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield. M. A. Edited by John Gillies. 7 vols. (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1771–1772), 6:266.
- Whitefield, “Benefits of an Early Piety,” in Works, 5:161.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 27–28.
- Whitefield, “The Great Duty of Family-Religion,” in Works, 5:56.
- Whitefield, “The Duty of Searching the Scriptures,” 83–86.
- Whitefield, “The Duty of Searching the Scriptures,” 83–87.
- Tom Schwanda, The Emergence of Evangelical Spirituality: The Age of Edwards, Newton, and Whitefield (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2016), 2–3, 112–52.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 28–29. This imagery of fire was also significant in Whitefield’s spirituality. D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 10.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 29.
- Whitefield, “Law Gospelized,” in Works, 4:411, 431.
- Whitefield, “The Extent and Reasonableness of Self-Denial,” in Works, 5:437–38.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 29.
- Whitefield to Lady H—, May 30, 1751, in Works, 2:409. See also Whitefield to Mr. S—, August 18, 1749, in Works, 2:273.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 29–30.
- Whitefield, “The Duty of Searching the Scriptures,” 86.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 31.
- Whitefield to Mr. H—, April 2, 1736, in Letters, 14. See also Whitefield, “On Regeneration,” 266.
- Whitefield, “Christ the Best Husband,” 74.
- Whitefield, “Christ the Believer’s Husband,” 178. For a broader background of Whitefield’s use of this sermon’s bridal imagery, see Thomas S. Kidd, George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 163–66.
- Whitefield, “Walking with God,” 31.
- Whitefield, “Nature and Necessity of Society,” in Works, 5:108, 111–19.
- Whitefield, “Christ the Only Rest for the Weary and Heavy Laden,” in Works, 5:314–15.
This article is adapted from Whitefield on the Christian Life: New Birth to Enjoy God by Tom Schwanda and Ian Maddock.
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