The Freeness Of God's Love

"Nothing could possibly support my soul under the many agonies which oppressed me when on board, except a consideration of the freeness, eternity, and unchangeableness of God's love to me.
I need not fear the sight of sin when I have a perfect, everlasting righteousness wrought out for me by Jesus Christ....
May he enlighten me more and more to know and feel the mystery of his electing, soul-transforming love. There is nothing like it, to support us under present and all the various future trials. But the Lord has apprehended us and will not let us go. Men and devils may do their worst; our Jesus will allow nothing to pluck us out of His Almighty hands."

George Whitefield -
was an English Anglican preacher who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies

George Whitefield on Election

We should not have so much disputing against the doctrine of election, or hear it condemned (even by good men) as a doctrine of devils. For my own part, I cannot see how true humbleness of mind can be attained without a knowledge of it.

And though I will not say, that everyone who denies election is a bad man, yet I will say . . . it is a very bad sign. Such a one, whoever he be, I think cannot truly know himself. For if we deny election we must, partly at least, glory in ourselves. But our redemption is so ordered that no flesh should glory in the Divine presence. And hence it is, that the pride of man opposes this doctrine because according to this doctrine and no other, 'he that glories, must glory only in the Lord.'

But what shall I say? Election is a mystery that shines with such resplendent brightness that, to make use of the words of one who has drunk deeply of his electing love, it dazzles the weak eyes even of some of God's dear children.

--George Whitefield, 'Christ the Believer's Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption,' in The Sermons of George Whitefield (Crossway, 2012), 2:214-25


Dane Ortlund

George Whitefield on The Love of Jesus

It is condescending love, it is amazing, it is forgiving love, it is dying love, it is exalted and interceding love and it is glorified love.

I am talking of the love of Jesus Christ, who loved me before I loved him. He saw us polluted in blood, full of sores, a slave to sin, to death and hell, running to destruction, then he passed by me and said unto my soul, 'Live,' he snatched me as a brand plucked from the burning.

It was love that saved me, it was all of the free grace of God and that only.

--George Whitefield, 'Christ the Support of the Tempted,' a sermon preached in 1740 in England, from Lee Gatiss, ed., The Sermons of George Whitefield (2 vols; Crossway, 2012), 1:341

Dane Ortlund

We Have a Free Will to Go to Hell, but None to Go to Heaven

Whitefield:

The doctrines of our election, and free justification in Christ Jesus are daily more and more pressed upon my heart. They fill my soul with a holy fire and afford me great confidence in God my Saviour.

I hope we shall catch fire from each other, and that there will be a holy emulation amongst us, who shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the doctrines of the Reformation can do this. All others leave free will in man and make him, in part at least, a Saviour to himself. . . .

I know Christ is all in all. Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God worketh in him to will and to do of His good pleasure.

Oh the excellency of the doctrine of election and of the saints' final perseverance!

I am persuaded, till a man comes to believe and feel these important truths, he cannot come out of himself, but when convinced of these, and assured of their application to his own heart, he then walks by faith indeed! Love, not fear, constrains him to obedience.

--quoted in Arnold Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the 18th Century Revival (2 vols; Banner of Truth, 1970, 1980), 1:407

Dane Ortlund