Whitefield seems quite often in these sermons to reiterate the point that humanity is wretched, sinful, and utterly unable to do any good apart from God. This reminds me of earlier church fathers who were quite concerned with Pelagius and Pelagianism, and thus emphasized the idea that humanity was wholly dependent on God for salvation as well as any sort of morality or good works. Whitefield speaks frequently about the need for a personal salvation moment, and for a sort of world-changing understanding of one's own depravity and utter dependence on God. With this sort of rhetoric (as well as the Moravians) it's no wonder that John Wesley obsessed over his own salvation and whether or not he had actually "felt" it.
Similarly, I was also struck by how Whitefield seems to assume that the majority of his audience have not reached this level of understanding their salvation, and so are not Christians. I wonder if this was just a rhetorical device employed in order to heighten the stakes and make his audience carefully examine their own salvation experience (or lack thereof) or if he truly believed that most of them were unsaved, despite his acknowledgment that most of them were regular church attendees who read the Bible, etc. Along this line, I suppose his introduction to "The Method of Grace" makes more sense, implying that all of their pastors were false prophets who had not properly emphasized the salvation process that Whitefield thought was necessary.
No comments:
Post a Comment