[ CHAPTER 3 ] - ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY ) - { PT. 6 }


 { PT.  6 } - The news about Whitefield's open-air preaching soon spread. The number of hearers rapidly increased until the congregation amounted to many thousands. His own account of the behavior of these neglected miners, who had never been in a church in their lives, is deeply touching. He wrote to a friend: Having no righteousness of their own to renounce, they were glad to hear of a Jesus who was a friend to publicans, and who came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. The first discovery of their being affected was the sight of the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks as they came out of their coal pits. Hundreds of them were soon brought under deep conviction, which, as the event proved, happily ended in a sound and thorough conversion. The change was visible to all, though many people chose to impute it to anything other than the finger of God. As the scene was quite new, it often occasioned many inward conflicts. Sometimes, when twenty thousand people were before me, I did not have in my own thought a word to say either to God or them. But I was never totally deserted, and frequently ( for to deny it would be lying against God ) was so assisted that I knew by happy experience what our Lord meant by saying, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water ( JOHN  7:38 ). The open skies above me, the prospect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands some in coaches some on horseback, and some in the trees, and at times all affected and in tears, was almost too much for me, and quite overcame me. Two months later on April 27, 1739, Whitefield began the practice of open-air preaching in London. The circumstances under which this happened were unusual. He had gone to Islington to preach for the vicar, his friend Mr. Stonehouse. In the midst of the prayer, the church officials approached him and demanded his license for preaching in the diocese of London. Whitefield, of course, did not have this license any more than any clergyman not regularly officiating in the diocese has at this day. The result of the matter was that since he was forbidden by the churchwardens to preach in the pulpit, he went outside after the communion service and preached in the churchyard. And, he said, God was pleased to assist me in preaching, and so wonderfully to affect the hearers, that I believe we could have gone singing hymns to prison. Let not the adversaries say that I have thrust myself out of their synagogues. No--they have thrust me out! From that day forward, he became a consistent field preacher whenever the weather and the season of the year made it possible. Two days later, on Sunday, April 29, he records: I preached in Moorfields to an exceeding great multitude. Being weakened, I refreshed myself in the afternoon by a little sleep, and at five I went and preached at Kennington Common, about two miles from London, when no less than thirty thousand people were presumed to be present. From then on, wherever there were large open spaces around London, wherever there were large groups of idle, godless, sabbath-breaking people gathered together--in Hackney Fields, Mary-le-bonne Fields, May Fair, Smithfield, Black-heath, Moorfields, and Kennington Common--there went Whitefield to lift up his voice for Christ. 

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