George Whitefield on Election & predestination
Unconditional — grounded in God's free choice
I frankly acknowledge that I believe the Doctrine of Reprobation in this view: That God intends to give saving grace through Jesus Christ only to a certain number; and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left by God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages.
THE POSITION
Election rests on God's sovereign right "to dispense his favours to what objects he sees fit, merely at his pleasure," argued from Romans 9:15 and Romans 11:7, and he accepts reprobation too, defined narrowly: the non-elect are left in the sin they are already in and receive its just wages. The letter answers Wesley's Free Grace directly, sermon for sermon, and turns Wesley's own charge back — that election destroys holiness — with 2 Thessalonians 2:13, where the elect are chosen "through sanctification of the Spirit." None of it stops him preaching to everyone: "since we do not know who are elect and who are reprobate, we are to preach promiscuously to all."
15 For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
18 OTHERS HOLD THIS
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.
Cite this page
"George Whitefield on Election & predestination", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/whitefield/election (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/whitefield/election).