Gospel Prism

I read this story in Dallimore’s Whitefield and I thought it was pretty funny. Lord Bolingbroke was a very learned man who came to listen to Whitefield preach. At the time GW was preaching to the Lords and Ladies of England, praying that the Lord would open their hearts as their wealth and stature often led them to possess great hubris and pomposity. Bolingbroke was one of those nobles that was affected by the preaching. Here’s a story about Lord Bolingbroke:

Lord Bolingbroke, the celebrated infidel, was one day reading Calvin’s Institutes, when a clergyman of his acquaintance came on a visit to him. Bolingbroke said to him:

‘You have caught me reading John Calvin; he was indeed a man of great parts, profound sense and vast learning. He handles the doctrines of grace in a very masterly manner.’

‘Doctrines of grace!’ replied the clergyman; ‘the doctrines of grace have set all mankind together by the ears.’

‘I am surprised to hear you say so,’ was the reply, ‘you who profess to believe and to preach Christianity. Those doctrines are certainly the doctrines of the Bible, and if I believe the Bible, I must believe them; and let me tell you seriously, that the greatest miracle in the world is the survival of Christianity, and its continued preservation as a religion, when the preaching of it is committed to the care of such unchristian wretches as you.’

(A. Dallimore, George Whitefield Vol. 2, 268)