(Extracts from an account by Rev. Matthew Henry.)
HE was born in Weston, in Cheshire. His father once intended him for the ministry, he having a very good capacity for learning; but neither his father’s abilities nor his own inclination would permit it. However, he made good progress in school learning. When he was about 15 years of age, being a younger brother, he was put apprentice to a shoemaker in Nantwich, whom he served faithfully; and it was a comfort to him, in the reflection long after, that he did so. When he was out of his time he went about to divers cities and towns to improve himself in his trade. At last he came to London, where he stayed about a year; and it was a satisfaction to him in his old age to be able to say that in all that time he did not remember that he had neglected the religious observance of one Sabbath; and that he did not keep ill company, or haunt ill houses, but delighted in the exercise of wrestling and leaping, etc. He was at London at the time of the return of King Charles II. And the spring following came to Nantwich, and married Mary, the daughter of Richard Price, and set up his trade, which he followed 17 years.
But his genius led him more to that ancient and honourable employment of husbandry which, he says, was his chief worldly delight; and therefore when he was about 40 years of age he took a farm near Nantwich, on which his father and mother lived and died. It was looked upon by some of his friends as a hard bargain. But by the blessing of God upon his great ingenuity and industry in improving the lands, he lived very comfortably upon it for 30 years, rejoicing with Issachar in his tents. In the first year of his removal into the country he lost very considerably by suretyship. He said his father on his death-bed gave him much good counsel to keep the Sabbath, to be obedient to his mother and master.
His father and mother were religious, and brought him up in the fear of God. He relates in some of his papers that when he was about ten or eleven years of age there was a solemn fast kept in Nantwich Church, upon occasion of a great drought, where his father and the family attended. Divers ministers prayed and preached, but he was particularly affected with a sermon of Mr. Burghal’s of Acton (who was afterwards silenced by the Act of Uniformity): his opening, the evil of sin and man’s misery because of it, brought many tears from his eyes. He had a book written by Mr. Burghal called, “The perfect way to die in peace,” which, when he was old, he delighted much in. After this he betook himself to secret prayer and reading good books, and took pleasure in hearing the Word to which he all along continued a good affection.
After he married and set up his trade he was taken into the militia, and continued an officer in it to his death. At the last muster he observed there was only himself and one more left alive of about nine score who were in it when he entered. He was of a lively, active temper, very bold, and would turn his back on no man, but not abusive or quarrelsome; he loved the soldiers, and they loved him, which recommended him to the esteem of his superior officers, who loved him.
But this proved a snare to him, for though he fell not into that depth of profaneness that many do, yet he left off to watch and be sober, and for years lived a careless life. His reflections upon this long after are: “Happy, thrice happy, are they who not only remember their Creator in their youth but continue to do so from their youth up, which I humbly confess to my sorrow and shame that my conversation has been loose and extravagant. I often ventured wickedly upon sin, against knowledge and conscience, and quenched the Spirit and neglected the day of visitation. But this I can truly say, it was always with regret and reluctance. I have been a great sinner, but through grace, a penitent sinner; both my own sins and the sins of others were a trouble to me.”
The chief thing that induced him to leave off his trade and retire into the country was because he was weary of this evil course of life. He set down what were the prayers which, with many tears, he offered up to God on this sad occasion. “Good Lord in mercy, give me strength and power to overcome all the enemies of my salvation, and hereafter to resist all such wicked and evil temptations, both from men and devils. Lord, thou art merciful to all true penitents, but a consuming fire towards obstinate sinners; in tender mercy, look down upon me, Thy poor, unworthy, sinful creature, even one of the worst of Thy creation, because I have known Thy will and have not done it. Now, O Lord, if Thou shouldst be severe and strict with me, I were undone to all eternity. Strike this rock, O Lord, that the waters may gush out, even floods of tears. O purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me in the blood of Christ and I shall be whiter than snow.”
When he attained to the age of 57, at which age both his father and mother died, that consideration, with some others, awakened him to a serious concern about his great change, and his everlasting state, and, consequently, to a closer application to the business of religion, then he began to be more diligent and serious than before, in prayer, in reading, and other devout exercises. It was then, about the year 1694, that he set himself to write down his reflections and observations upon himself, his meditations and pious breathings towards God, memorandums of the sermons he heard, and very large collections out of the Scripture, and other good books he read. This practice he continued from that time to his death, which was about 15 years, which show him to be a man whose heart was very much upon another world, and who made it his great care to prepare for that world. The reason he gives for employing himself thus are because he had made it his chief end to honour the great God of heaven and earth, and his chief business to endeavour the salvation of his own precious and immortal soul.
He would often meditate on death, that he might prepare for his great change. The motto he wrote on his books was: “Piety is the way to prosperity, both now and hereafter.” And thus he writes: “Should I fill my head with good thoughts and this book with good sayings and sentences, yet unless my heart be filled with sincerity and holy zeal, it is all as nothing.” As he was walking in the fields and looking on his improvements, he said to a friend who was with him, “All prospers if the soul prosper. The most precious and valuable thing that I am concerned for in this world is my immortal, never-dying soul. O! it is rest for my precious and immortal soul which I desire and aim at above all things whatsoever.” He said, “All my concerns here below will shortly end in death and, therefore, it is my soul that I set so high a value upon, as the most precious jewel in the world, bought with the precious blood of the Son of God.”
In December, 1690, he records expressions of his repentance: “It is my heart’s desire to repent of all my sins. And I humbly and earnestly beg of God that He would herein assist me by His Holy Spirit. It is with sorrow and shame that I call to mind my sins, the sins of my whole life, humbly confessing them to the Almighty God. Lord, I repeat, help my repentance and make it sincere. Accept my repentance through my blessed Saviour, in whose merits is my only hope of salvation.” And he records his fears thus: “And when I consider my present state, how subject I am to failings and infirmities, and how apt I am to come short of my good designs and resolutions, I am almost ready to despair and am full of doubts and fears; but when I call to mind the goodness and mercy and the sufferings of my blessed Redeemer for me, I conceive some hopes.”
On Friday, June 10th, 1709, he rode to Cheerbrook with his son, where he had lived about 30 years, walked with his son in the garden and orchards, there he was taken with a distemper he had been afflicted with some time before, but he rode nearly two miles after, designed to have given his old minister at Witanbury a visit, but his pain increasing, he hastened home. In the morning, when his son came to him, he said, “I am very bad, but I am willing to die, having lived above the age of man.” He expressed his hopes of salvation through Christ. He said his house was in order, and he hoped his soul also. At noon, being the Lord’s Day, he desired to be prayed for publicly, and said to his son, “I would not, for all the world, that I had my work of preparation for death to do now.” He put out his hand to a friend that came to see him, but quickly after, while the minister was with him, about six of the clock, he breathed his last, June 12th, 1709. He was aged 72 when he died. In his lifetime he had served four sovereigns, three Kings and one Queen, as an officer in the militia. But he said on one occasion, “I have too much neglected the main business, my duty to God: Lord, I repent, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”