"This discourse, and the present frame of my mind, lead me rather to speak to those, who by feeling Satan's fiery darts, know assuredly that there is a devil"
About this Quote
Whitefield doesn’t argue the devil into existence; he recruits you into recognizing him. By addressing only those who have “felt Satan’s fiery darts,” he sidesteps debate and turns experience into proof. The move is as tactical as it is pastoral: if you recognize the sensation he names - intrusive thoughts, sudden despair, obsessive guilt, spiritual numbness - you’re already inside his frame. If you don’t, you’re either unawakened or refusing to admit it. Either way, the audience is sorted, and the sermon gains authority without having to win a philosophical fight.
The phrase “present frame of my mind” is doing quiet work, too. Whitefield casts himself not as a lecturer but as a man presently under pressure, speaking from immediacy rather than abstraction. That self-disclosure reads like humility, but it also intensifies the urgency: the stakes are current, not theoretical. He is modeling the very state he wants listeners to inhabit - alert, besieged, and therefore dependent.
Context matters. In the heat of the Great Awakening, Whitefield’s genius was emotional directness: outdoor crowds, dramatic delivery, a message aimed at the heart before the intellect could raise objections. “Fiery darts” (from Ephesians 6) gives the claim biblical scaffolding, while the sensory metaphor makes spiritual warfare feel bodily and intimate. The subtext is blunt: if you’re hurting in a way you can’t quite name, I can name it for you, and I can tell you who’s responsible. That naming doesn’t just explain suffering; it channels it into conversion.
The phrase “present frame of my mind” is doing quiet work, too. Whitefield casts himself not as a lecturer but as a man presently under pressure, speaking from immediacy rather than abstraction. That self-disclosure reads like humility, but it also intensifies the urgency: the stakes are current, not theoretical. He is modeling the very state he wants listeners to inhabit - alert, besieged, and therefore dependent.
Context matters. In the heat of the Great Awakening, Whitefield’s genius was emotional directness: outdoor crowds, dramatic delivery, a message aimed at the heart before the intellect could raise objections. “Fiery darts” (from Ephesians 6) gives the claim biblical scaffolding, while the sensory metaphor makes spiritual warfare feel bodily and intimate. The subtext is blunt: if you’re hurting in a way you can’t quite name, I can name it for you, and I can tell you who’s responsible. That naming doesn’t just explain suffering; it channels it into conversion.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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