George Whitefield
A preacher who addressed large crowds in the open air in England and the American colonies. He drew John Wesley into field preaching at Bristol in 1739, toured New England in 1740, and in 1741 told Wesley that they preached two different gospels.
John Wesley records that Whitefield was preaching in the fields at Bristol in the spring of 1739 and pressed him to come (Wesley, Journal, 15 March – 2 April 1739). Whitefield’s own journal follows him through New England in the autumn of 1740, where he reckoned his last congregation on Boston Common at nearly thirty thousand (Whitefield, Journal seventh journal, p. 43). Charles Chauncy of Boston wrote that itinerant preaching in those parts began with him, and questioned his warrant for it (Chauncy, Seasonable Thoughts Part I, p. 36).
In March 1741, Wesley writes, Whitefield told him that the two of them preached two different gospels and that he would preach against him publicly (Wesley, Journal, 28 March 1741). See the Great Awakening and John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism.
In the timeline
- 1734 to 1743, firm dateThe Great Awakening
A revival in Jonathan Edwards’s congregation at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1734 and 1735 becomes known through his printed account. In 1740 George Whitefield preaches to great crowds in New England, and Charles Chauncy of Boston answers that much of the stir is disorder.