The circumstances and particulars of this great evangelist’s end are so deeply interesting that I shall make no excuse for dwelling on them. It was an end in striking harmony with the tenor of his life. As he had lived for more than thirty years, so he died, preaching to the very last. He literally almost died in harness. “Sudden death” he had often said, “is sudden glory. Whether right or not, I cannot help wishing that I may go off in the same manner. To me, it would be worse than death to live to be nursed, and to see friends weeping about me.” He had the desire of his heart granted. He was cut down in a single night by a spasmodic fit of asthma, almost before his friends knew that he was ill.
On the morning of Saturday, the 29th of September, the day before he died, Whitefield set out on horseback from Portsmouth in New Hampshire, in order to fulfil an engagement to preach at Newbury Port on Sabbath. On the way, unfortunately he was earnestly importuned to preach at a place called Exeter, and though feeling very ill, he had not the heart to refuse. A friend remarked before he preached that he looked more uneasy than usual, and said to him, “Sir, you are more fit to go to bed than to preach.” To this Whitefield replied, “True, sir,” and then turning aside, he clasped his hands together, and looking up said, “Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of Thy work. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the fields, seal Thy truth and come home and die.” He went and preached to a very great multitude in the fields from the text II. Cor. xiii. 5, for the space of nearly two hours. It was his last sermon, and a fitting conclusion to his whole career.
An eye-witness has given the following striking account of the closing scene of Whitefield’s life: “He rose from his seat, and stood erect. His appearance alone was a powerful sermon. The thinness of his visage, the paleness of his countenance, the evident struggling of the heavenly spark in a decayed body for utterance, were all deeply interesting; the spirit was willing, but the flesh was dying. In this situation he remained several minutes, unable to speak. He then said, ‘I will wait for the gracious assistance of God, for He will, I am certain, assist me once more to speak in His name.’ He then delivered perhaps one of his best sermons. The latter part contained the following passage: ‘I go; I go to a rest prepared: my sun has given light to many, but now it is about to set—no, to rise to the zenith of immortal glory. I have outlived many on earth, but they cannot outlive me in heaven. Many shall outlive me on earth and live when this body is no more, but then—oh, thought divine!—I shall be in a world where time, age, sickness, and sorrow are unknown. My body fails, but my spirit expands. How willingly would I live for ever to preach Christ. But I die to be with Him. How brief—comparatively brief—has been my life compared to the vast labours which I see before me yet to be accomplished. But if I leave now, while so few care about heavenly things, the God of peace will surely visit you.'”
After the sermon was over, Whitefield dined with a friend, and then rode on to Newbury Port, though greatly fatigued. On arriving there he supped early, and retired to bed. Tradition says, that as he went upstairs, with a lighted candle in his hand, he could not resist the inclination to turn round at the head of the stair, and speak to the friends who were assembled to meet him. As he spoke the fire kindled within him, and before he could conclude, the candle which he held in his hand had actually burned down to the socket. He retired to his bedroom, to come out no more alive. A violent fit of spasmodic asthma seized him soon after he got into bed, and before six o’clock the next morning the great preacher was dead. If ever a man was ready for his change, Whitefield was that man. When his time came he had nothing to do but to die. Where he died there he was buried, in a vault beneath the pulpit of the church where he had engaged to preach. His sepulchre is shown to this very day; and nothing makes the little town where he died so famous as the fact that it contains the bones of George Whitefield.—J. C. Ryle.