George Whitefield on Baptism

No position located on this map

Searched in the sources read for this figure and not found. A limit of the reading rather than a claim about the figure — a source not yet read could settle it.

THE POSITION

Not settled by what was read. Two things were located. He takes infant baptism for granted: he addresses hearers whose parents "presented them to the Lord Jesus Christ in their infancy" and does not object to the practice, only to resting hope on it. And he denies that the baptized are, as a class, regenerate: "comparatively but few of those that are 'born of water,' are 'born of the Spirit' likewise." What separates the stances on this locus — whether infant baptism is a covenant sign or effective for regeneration in those who receive it rightly — is not addressed in anything read, and Wesley shows that the second sentence is compatible with either. Infant inclusion is shown; the kind is not.

WHAT OTHERS HOLD HERE

ABOUT THIS FIGURE

Anglican priest and field preacher of the Evangelical Revival and the First Great Awakening, who crossed the Atlantic seven times and died on his last American tour. Wesley's Oxford companion and, from his 1740 letter answering Free Grace, his public opponent on election — the Calvinist half of the Methodist split, set here beside Wesley and Edwards. This entry rests on that letter and eleven of the sermons printed in the standard selected editions.