George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

i8 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
within me, thai I never ceased wrestling with God till He blessed me with
a victory over them. Self-love, self-will, pride, and envy buffeted me in
their turns, that I was resolved either to die or conquer. I wanted to see
sin as it was, but feared, at the same time, lest the sight of it should terrify
me to death.
' Having nobody to show me a better way, I thought to get peace and
purity by outward austerities. Accordingly, by degrees, I began to leave
off eating fruits and such like, and gave the money I usually spent in that
way to the poor. Afterwards I always chose the worst sort of food, though
my place furnished me with variety. I fasted twice a week. My apparel
was mean. I thought it unbecoming a penitent to have his hair powdered.
I wore woollen gloves, a patched gown, and dirty shoes, and therefore
looked upon myself as very humble.'
He was exhausting what he calls ' the legal system,'
salvation by works. He felt pride creeping in, in spite of him,
behind every thought, word, and action ; and he was too
sincere not to admit that all his labours must prove fruitless
while that remained unbroken. Here Quietism offered him
its aid. Whitefield a Quietist !
As
easily change a comet
into a fixed star. The power was not in him to dream sweet
dreams of heaven, nor to swoon away in the ecstasy of a
mediaeval saint, his ' soul and spirit divided asunder as by the
sword of the Spirit of God.' The definitions, depths, and
stages of Quietism were not what attracted him to his new
system ; these were an esoteric doctrine to him. All that he
wanted was some ready and satisfactory method of relieving
his conscience of an intolerable burden, and of attaining to a
truly religious life ; and reading one day in Castaniza's
'Spiritual Combat,' ' that he that is employed in mortifying his
will is as well employed as though he were converting Indians,'
he set himself rudely to the task of mortifying his will. He
began as an Englishman, with a rough, unsparing hand and
an honest heart. He sighed for no canonisation, he coveted
no marvellous revelations. To mortify his will was all that he
had to do, and how else could it be done but by mortification ?