Friends Who Differed

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. EPHESIANS 4:3

The two most famous preachers of the eighteenth-century revival in England were friends. George Whitefield and John Wesley had prayed together in the Holy Club at Oxford. It was Whitefield who first went into the fields and then drew the reluctant Wesley after him; it was Wesley who took up the work in Bristol while Whitefield sailed for America. And within two years of that first open-air sermon at Kingswood they were publicly divided over one of the deepest questions in theology. How they handled that division is one of the most instructive things in Whitefield’s life, and one of the most honourable.

The quarrel

The question was predestination. Whitefield, from his early reading and his own experience of grace, had come to hold the Reformed doctrine that God chooses His people freely and that those whom He calls will persevere to the end. Wesley rejected it, believing that it made God the author of the damnation of the lost and undercut both holiness and evangelism. In 1739 Wesley preached a sermon called Free Grace attacking the doctrine, and in 1740 he published it, against Whitefield’s earnest request that he should not. Whitefield, then in America, answered with a long public letter at the end of 1740.

The letter was sharp, and so were the months that followed. Followers on both sides took up the quarrel, and some of them were far less charitable than their leaders. The societies divided. For a time the two men were estranged, and Whitefield felt it deeply.

But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. GALATIANS 5:15

The reconciliation

What is remarkable is not that they quarrelled but that they did not let the quarrel become enmity. Within a few years they were reconciled in heart. They never came to agree on election, and neither pretended otherwise. But they preached in each other’s chapels, corresponded affectionately and spoke of one another with respect. Whitefield refused to build a rival movement. When he might have gathered a large Calvinistic party of his own, he declined to lead it, and he is remembered as saying that he was content for his own name to perish so long as Christ was glorified.

By the end of his life the friendship was settled. Whitefield asked that Wesley should preach his funeral sermon, and in his will he left mourning rings to both John and Charles Wesley as a token of the union of heart that remained between them, notwithstanding their difference on some points of doctrine. When the news of Whitefield’s death reached London in 1770, Wesley did preach for him, before a vast congregation, and spoke warmly of his friend’s love, his generosity and his gospel.

The image of the Master

This was not merely a personal kindness. It grew out of what Whitefield taught about the church. In his sermon The Folly and Danger of Being Not Righteous Enough he puts it plainly: the Spirit of God is the centre of unity, and “wherever I see the image of my Master, I never inquire of them their opinions; I ask them not what they are, so they love Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth,” but embrace them as brother and sister. Those who leave the room when a Christian of another opinion enters, he adds, show the spirit of the devil.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. JOHN 13:35

In Marks of Having Received the Holy Ghost he describes one sign of the Spirit’s work as the gradual breaking down of “the partition wall of bigotry and party zeal,” so that the nearer a person comes to heaven, the wider his heart grows. And in his farewell sermon of 1769, The Good Shepherd, he reminds his London congregation that Scripture does not divide people into Baptists and Independents, Methodists and Presbyterians: “Jesus Christ divides the whole world into but two classes, sheep and goats.” In the same sermon he says, “Witness against me, if I ever set up a party for myself,” and at its close, “I do not care what shepherds keep you, so as you are kept near the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls.”

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:12

Truth and love together

It would be a mistake to think Whitefield did not care about the doctrine. He cared very much. He believed election was taught in Scripture and was a great comfort to believers, and he said so publicly, even to his dearest friend. He did not think unity required silence about truth.

But he learned to distinguish between the doctrines that make a person a Christian and those on which Christians may differ. Wesley and he both preached the new birth, justification by faith and the necessity of holiness. They disagreed on how grace works in the choosing of the saved. Whitefield came to see that this, grave as it was, did not put Wesley outside the circle of Christ’s sheep.

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. ROMANS 14:1

Where care is needed

Whitefield’s catholic spirit was real but not unlimited. He could be scornful of Arminians in print, as his sermon The Lord Our Righteousness shows, linking them with papists and infidels in a way that did not match his warmth toward Wesley in person. He was also harsher toward Roman Catholics than a reader today would be comfortable with, as were nearly all Protestants of his day. And his public letter of 1740, though sincere, included personal remarks about Wesley that he later regretted. His practice of charity grew with the years; it did not arrive fully formed.

There is also a warning here for those who admire his breadth. Unity in the gospel is not the same as indifference to it. Whitefield embraced those who loved Christ in sincerity; he did not embrace every opinion that called itself Christian. The breadth he modelled has a centre, and the centre is Christ.

The last word

The finest proof of what Whitefield believed about friendship across disagreement is the picture of Wesley, the man who had preached against his doctrine, standing in Whitefield’s own chapel to preach his funeral sermon. They had argued for thirty years. They were buried as brothers. Whichever of them was right about election, both were right about this.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! PSALM 133:1

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Think of a Christian with whom you differ on a serious point of doctrine. Can you see in them the image of the Master? Thank God for it.

2. Distinguish in your own mind between the truths that make a person a Christian and those on which Christians may differ. Write them down.

3. If there is a broken friendship in your life over a disagreement, take one step toward reconciliation this month, without pretending the disagreement does not exist.

4. Examine how you speak about Christians of other traditions when they are not present. Would you say it to their face?

5. Read The Good Shepherd in the Ochorus library, and notice how Whitefield speaks of other ministers in his farewell.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You prayed that Your people might be one. Forgive me for the pride and party spirit that divide Your body.

Give me courage to hold Your truth firmly, and grace to love those who see it differently.

Break down the partition wall of bigotry in my heart. Let me embrace Your image wherever I see it.

Keep me, and all Your sheep, near to You, the great Shepherd, until we are gathered into one fold. Amen.