By Rev. ARCHD. BEATON, Gairloch.
WE can only supply a scrap of this good man’s life. An account of which was published in the year 1671 from which it appears that he was born in 1601 in Yorkshire. His father was a minister there. Having finished his preliminary education, he entered the University at the age of seventeen. Here he spent six years, and graduated M.A. It was about the fourth year of his University career that: “It pleased God to work a renewing change upon his heart, by the Ministry of the Word, whereby he was fitted for the employment for which God designed him, and to which he himself was greatly inclined.” In the providence of the Most High he was reduced to great poverty during the course of his studies at Cambridge, as his father who supplied his needs had died: “and he was so straitened as not to have above threepence a day; and yet so did he manage that small pittance, as to spare part of it for hiring books.” After his conversion, he took great interest in the Oriental languages, especially Hebrew, Syriac and Chaldee and was well versed in the writings of the Rabbies.
He was licensed to preach by the Bishop in 1627. He had several offers of a settled charge, but he declined till in 1633 when he was settled in Aughton in the vicinity of York. During his probationary period his manner was to go about preaching wherever his services were required, and to distribute “good practical books among the poor.” In his settled charge he was only left about a year when ejected “for not using the ceremonies, and for taking down a crucifix.” He was now in possession of the portion of many hundreds of his brethren in the ministry in England who “took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance.” (Heb. x. 34).
For all this, Henry Jessey’s ministry was not rendered useless in God’s vineyard. A sympathetic friend, in the person of Sir M. Boynton, of Barneston, in Yorkshire, took him under his protection and entertained him in his house, and he was constantly exercising his ministry. In a few years, however, he removed with his friend, Sir Matthew, to London, and hence to Uxbridge where he was offered the charge over a non-conforming congregation. After “much consideration and prayer,” though he had designed going to New England, the refuge of many of Christ’s witnesses, he accepted the “call” of the people and was permitted to minister to them till his death.
Jessey was a student all his days, and he hated idle talk and fruitless visits—he took all possible means to avoid these. One was this: he put over his study door, where he usually received visitors, this writing:—
“Whatever friend comes hither,
Dispatch in brief, or go,
Or help me busied too.”
His faithfulness did not pass unnoticed by his enemies. They, as they did his Master, “hated” him “without a cause.” He suffered imprisonment three times for short periods. Once he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. His last period of imprisonment was six months before his death in 1663. His biographer said that death did not take him unawares. He evidently knew the approach of that “last enemy,” and “spent his last days and nights in searching his heart, humbling his soul, extolling free grace, and exhorting all about him to keep close to God, to persevere in the faith, and prepare for trials.” The evening before his end came, a friend said to him: “They among whom you have laboured can witness that you have been a faithful servant of Christ.” But he replied: “Say no more of that; exalt God, exalt God.” His whole death-bed exercise was abasing himself and admiring the love of God in Christ Jesus. “That he should choose the vilest, the unworthiest, and the basest,” he repeated several times and then: “Oh, the unspeakable love of God, that he should reach me, when I could not reach Him!” “He counted me worthy,” was the last they heard from him.
The following inscription is to be found on his tombstone and is thus translated from the Latin:—
“From storms of danger, and from seas of grief
Safe landed, Jessey finds a blest relief.
The grave’s soft bed his sacred dust contains,
And with its God the soul in bliss remains.
Faith was his barque, incessant Prayers his oars,
And Hope his gale; that from these mortal shores
Thro’ death’s rough waves to heav’n his spirit bore,
T’enjoy his triumph, and to sigh no more.”