“For the better advancement of their purposes, both, commonly (you say, page 11. section 4.) begin their _adventures_ with _field preaching_. In which particular, though the practice of the Methodists be notorious, it may not be amiss to produce some of their own words, were it only for the sake of the comparison.” But, good Sir, ought any one, merely for the sake of making a comparison, (though ever so just) to exceed the bounds of truth, which you have here confessedly done? For what words have you produced, or indeed can you produce, to prove that the Methodists began their adventures with field-preaching? If we may believe your own words, is not the quite contrary notorious? For, section 5. page 15. you tell us, “That after the Methodists had traduced the clergy, as long as they were permitted to do it, in their own churches and pulpits, they set about this pious work of defamation more heartily in the fields.”
Here then your parallel fails at first setting out, you yourself being judge. And here I would dismiss this article, being founded on a mistake, was it not proper to take notice of a cursory remark or two, which you have thought proper to make upon it. You ask, page 14. “How comes Mr. _Whitefield_ to say, there was never any such thing as field-preaching before? Was it from the mere vanity of being thought the founder of it? Or was he ignorant of the practice several years ago, and even in our own nation?” I thank you, Sir, for informing me better, and am glad to find that field-preaching was practised in our nation several years ago. Why then such a noise about it now?
From what degrees of vanity my expressing myself in that manner might proceed, I cannot now remember: but if, as you insinuate, page 33. “It is easy to foresee there is to be some future _calendar_ or _legend of the saints_,” (I presume you mean _Methodist saints_) I care not if the following article ♦be inserted concerning me. “Such a day the Reverend _George Whitefield_, having had an university education, and been regularly ordained deacon and priest of the Church of _England_, and invited to preach in most churches of the cities of _Gloucester_, _Bristol_, _Westminster_, and _London_, in the last of which places he collected near a thousand pounds for the charity children, being causelesly denied the further use of the churches, because he preached up the necessity of the new birth, and justification in the sight of GOD by faith alone in the imputed righteousness of JESUS CHRIST, _began to preach the same doctrines in the fields_.”
♦ removed duplicate word “be”
This is the real truth: and whether I was the _founder_ or _reviver_ of such field-preaching in this nation, need I be ashamed, merely because St. _Peter_ of _Verona_, St. _Nicholas_ of _Nolasco_, St. _Anthony_ of _Padua_, and St. _Ignatius_ were field-preachers before me? Can you recollect no earlier, or more unexceptionable field-preachers than these? What do you think of JESUS CHRIST and his Apostles? Were they not field-preachers? Was not the best sermon that was ever delivered, delivered from a _Mount_? Was not another very excellent one preached from a place called _Mars-Hill_? And did not _Peter_ and _John_ preach above seventeen hundred years ago in _Solomon’s Porch_, and elsewhere, though the clergy of that generation commanded them to speak no more in the name of JESUS? These were the persons that I had in view, when I begun my _adventures_ of field-preaching. Animated by their example, when causelesly thrust out, I took the field; and if this be my shame, I glory in it: for, (to make use of the words of the late great Colonel _Gardiner_, when he once looked upon the spot where this adventure was carried on; and O that I may speak it with a becoming humility,) “I am persuaded it will be said at the great day of this and that man, that they were brought to GOD there.”