1740 GEORGE WHITEFIELD. Very Rare Great Awakening Engraving Comparing Revival to the Reformation

During the height of Whitefield’s fame in England, the formalists and secularists took to the time-honoured [or dishonoured] tradition of satire. Pamphlets, engravings, and literary works lampooned and harpooned the great evangelist. Many rose to his defense, but of all the efforts to legitimize the Great Awakening in general and the ministry of George Whitefield in particular, this is perhaps the most curious. It attempts to show by a series of character, personal, and even coincidental alignments that Whitefield was indeed in the line of the great reformer, John Wickliff. Tyerman recounts that, “in the midst of all this abuse [i.e. anti-Whitefieldian material], however, an encomium was published... an extremely rare curiosity... none more curious than this.” The Parallel Reformers; or, The Renowned Wickliff and the Reverend Mr. Whitefield Compared; shewing by many parallel instances ye great resemblance between those Pious Divines in Respect of Christian Zeal and Fortitude. Improved