Wesley's Funeral Sermon

In 1770, George Whitefield died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the question arose: who would preach his funeral sermon in London? The answer surprised nearly everyone. John Wesley — the man who had publicly clashed with Whitefield over predestination, the man whose theological differences had split the revival movement into rival camps — stepped into the pulpit.

For years, their followers had drawn sharp lines. You were either a Whitefield man or a Wesley man. Calvinists gathered on one side, Arminians on the other. Pamphlets flew. Congregations chose allegiances. The two greatest preachers in England became banners under which factions rallied.

But Wesley, standing before that grieving congregation, refused to wave any flag but one. "I am not afraid that any should charge me with speaking too much in his praise," he said, then pointed every mourner back to the Christ whom Whitefield had proclaimed. He did not minimize their disagreements. He simply insisted those disagreements were dwarfed by the cross they shared.

Paul asked the Corinthians a devastating question: "Is Christ divided?" The believers at Corinth had fractured around personalities — Paul, Apollos, Cephas — just as eighteenth-century evangelicals fractured around Wesley and Whitefield. But the gospel is not a banner for tribal loyalty. It is the power of God unto salvation. Wesley understood what Paul demanded: that the name above every faction is the name of the One who was crucified for us all.