George Whitefield's Journals

Whitefield's Journals were published in the early years of his ministry for the encouragement of his friends. While Whitefield was in America, Thomas Cooper published part of the first journal without permission. This led to James Hutton publishing an "official" edition, with Whitefield's approval. The preface to Hutton's edition condemns Cooper's edition. From what I have seen there is little difference between the two, although Cooper's edition only includes the second part of the first Journal, the voyage from Gibralter to Savannah. There are one or two additional paragraphs and Cooper used dashes where Hutton used commas and vice versa.

An unproof-read version of the original first edition can be downloaded by clicking on the link at the bottom. This version includes the unpublished journal published in 1938 and the Bermuda journal published in John Gillies's Memoir. Red text indicates that it was omitted from William Wales's 1905 edition (which was reprinted by the Banner of Truth in 1960). Line breaks are as in the original editions.

Comparison of later editions show little or no differences from the first editions. I hope to compare the Hutton editions with the editions published by Benjamin Franklin in America. I suspect that they do not differ (alhtough checking part II of the first journal with a microfilm copy of the Franklin edition, Franklin followed Cooper's edition, not Hutton's).

Once all this has been checked and proof-read it is hoped that a new more complete and accurate edition of Whitefield's Journals will be published sometime in in the future with footnoting, cross-referencing to the Letters and an Index.

Whitefield's Complete Journals in PDF format (edited to show the differences between the original edition, the Thomas Cooper edition, the 1756 edition and the William Wale edition)

This has not yet been proof-read.

Whitefield's 1756 edition of his Journals in PDF format. Whitefield edited out much of the text that critcs had objected to, and thus saved about 200 pages.

Whitefield's Complete Journals in PDF format

This has not yet been proof-read.

Whitefield's Third Journal, James Hutton Edition (London, 1739) in PDF format

This has been proof-read.

The current edition of the Journals of George Whitefield was published by the Banner of Truth in 1960.

The bulk of the volume is based upon the edition produced by William Wale and published in 1905. The Banner edition adds an introduction by Iain Murray, an unpublished journal that was first published in The Christian History by Ernest Eells in 1938, and Whitefield's response to Wesley concerning the latter's sermon on free grace, with an introduction by Iain Murray.

We have been comparing the Wale edition with the originally published journals and find that there are many places where Wale amended or omitted what was originally published. Whether this was because he was distracted or tired as he was working, or whether he was working to a deliberate policy, or just incompetant it is not possible yet to say. Once we have finished correcting the Wale edition against the original we hope, and showing Whitefield's own amendments in his 1756 edition we hope that this will be published so that Whitefield's full text, including his over-enthusiastic, youthful language of the original edition can be seen, and a better understanding of why some people felt he was too much of an enthusiast.

Whitefield stopped publishing his Journal after the seventh in 1741. This may have been because of the publication of revival newspapers, The Christian's Amusement, The Weekly History, A Further Account and The Christian History. Draft versions of these can be found on the PDF Books page (link at the top, second row).