George Whitefield

George Whitefield (16 December 1714 – 30 September 1770), also known as George Whitfield, was an Anglican itinerant Protestant minister who helped spread the Great Awakening in the Kingdom of Great Britain and, especially, in the British North American colonies. A leading evangelist and preacher of the era, he was one of the founders of Methodism in America. He became perhaps the best-known preacher in Britain and America in the 18th century, and because he traveled through all of the American colonies and drew great crowds and media coverage, he was one of the most widely recognized public figures in colonial America.

Quotes

 * Come poor, lost, undone sinner, come just as you are to Christ.
 * Reported in Ernest Bormann, Force of Fantasy: Restoring the American Dream (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), p. 73. ISBN 978-0-80932-369-2.


 * Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the field, seal Thy truth, and come home to die.
 * Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 518.


 * I have just put my soul as a blank into the hand of Jesus, my Redeemer, and desired Him to write on it what He pleases; I know it will be His image.
 * Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 543.

Disputed

 * Why should the Devil have all the best tunes?
 * Attributed to Whitefield, in The Monthly Review, or, Literary Journal, Vol. 49 (June 1773 - January 1774), p. 430; this has also been reported as a remark made by Rowland Hill, when he arranged an Easter hymn to the tune of "Pretty, Pretty Polly Hopkins, in The Rambler, Vol. 9 (1858), p. 191; it has also attributed to Charles Wesley, and sometimes his brother John, as well as William Booth, who popularized it as an addage in promoting his The Salvation Army.