By REV. J. P. MACQUEEN.
CHRISTIANS newly brought into the kingdom of grace by the supernatural creative power of the Holy Spirit, whether young in years or not, are generally, if not universally, apt to think that if they are spared to be ten, twenty, or thirty years or so in a state of grace they shall then be deriving much comfort from their inward consciousness of personal heart-holiness and growing conformity to the image of Christ. Despite their doctrinal head-knowledge to the contrary, and their often having heard old and experienced Christians complaining of their spiritual leanness, emptiness, barrenness, and poverty, this optimistic anticipation continues till by painful and bitter, if blessed, experience they are made to cry out with the Apostle Paul: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. vii. 24). Even then they are prone to conclude that their case is unique and to forget that they are “men of like passions” with other believers. These exercised Christians need all the Scriptural comfort and consolation that can be conveyed to them, instrumentally, by their fellow-believers, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit. One of the means of promoting this laudable object is by letting them see, from the diaries and autobiographical notes of men and women who were generally recognised, in their day and generation, as eminent for piety and practical godliness, how these believers were exercised in their Christian life. This is the reason why I have taken the trouble to quote an extract from the biographical exercises and experiences of the godly and well-known Rev. Joseph Hart.
Before doing so, however, I shall have to make a few remarks about his life and preaching, as well as giving a few critical notes about evangelical hymns, notwithstanding the prominence given to this subject in recent issues of our magazine.
Rev. Joseph Hart was born in the City of London about the year 1712, of godly parents, who made him the subject of many prayers. As he himself says: “As I had the happiness of being born of believing parents, I imbibed the sound doctrines of the Gospel from my infancy; nor was I without touches of heart, checks of conscience, and meltings of affections by the secret strivings of God’s Spirit with me while very young, but the impressions were not deep, nor the influences lasting, being frequently defaced and quenched by the vanities and vices of childhood and youth.” He had thus the greatest and most precious privilege one can have in this world, next to being in the kingdom of grace oneself, that of God-fearing parents. As Rev. C. H. Spurgeon put it: “One has to do violence to the deepest instincts of human nature before he can go to Hell over a godly mother’s prayers.” After his conversion he had backslidden for so many years, and so blatantly, that many concluded it was a case of apostacy, but sanctified afflictions recovered him.
He received a classical education and became a teacher of the learned languages. Before his conversion and his call to the ministry, he derived great pleasure from translating into English, and publishing, the works of the classical Greek and Roman authors. He was, at least partly, contemporary with Augustus M. Toplady and Rev. George Whitefield, both of whom thought highly of him as an uncompromising preacher of the great, eternal, and immutable Scriptural doctrines of free and sovereign grace. Mr. Toplady records this of him: “The late excellent Rev. Joseph Hart made it his inviolable rule not to let an Arian, an Arminian, or any unsound preacher occupy his pulpit so much as once. His usual saying on these occasions was, ‘I will keep my pulpit as chaste as my bed.'” He zealously contended for the doctrines of free and sovereign grace against Rev. John Wesley and his coadjutors, who were then labouring hard to propagate, and with too much success, the Arminian heresy, and to re-establish the old heresy of Pelagius. Nor were his labours in vain, for several were convinced of their delusion, left the Arminians, and continued his constant friends to the end.
He was a Pedobaptist, that is, a Baptist who believes in infant baptism as distinguished from those Baptists who believe in adult believer’s baptism only. He died on 2nd May, 1768, aged 56 years. His remains lie interred in Bunhill Fields Burying Ground, where a tombstone to his memory may be seen. It is now as a famous evangelical hymn-writer that he is known, whereas in his own day he was more renowned for his uncompromising fidelity to his principles; and his preaching, by his possession of outstanding talents, caused considerable numbers to attend his congregation, larger, indeed, frequently than the place could well contain.
Regarding his well known hymns, let us take advantage of this opportunity to emphasise once more that our objection is not to evangelical hymns as such, but to the use or, rather, abuse of them in employing them in conjunction with, alternative to, or as a substitution for the inspired psalms of the Holy Spirit in the stated worship of God’s House. The psalms are inspired by the Holy Ghost—”holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”—thus absolutely assuring their infallibility and perfect inerrancy (freedom from error), whereas the most Scripturally accurate of the evangelical hymns partake, naturally and inevitably, of the proneness to error of their uninspired composers. Thus, uninspired hymns have no Divine authority for their employment in the worship of God, whereas the inspired psalms have the authority of Heaven for their use. It will probably, however, require the plenteous outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the Millennium to convince hymn-users in the worship of God that they have been guilty of a grievous wrong in substituting the very fallible hymns of uninspired men for the sentiments and language of the Holy Ghost. Hymn-users can never agree among themselves as to whose collections of hymns are to be universally and permanently adopted for singing in their Churches because of the varying tastes in sentiments, rhyming, etc., whereas the psalms do not cater to changing human whims, tastes, and caprice, but are fixed and “in Heaven settled fast,” eternally.
We shall now quote, as promised at the outset, from the experimental autobiography of the Rev. Joseph Hart as follows:—”For my own part, I confess myself a sinner still; and, though I am not much tempted to outward gross acts of iniquity, yet inward corruptions and spiritual wickedness continually harass and perplex my soul, and often make me cry out, ‘O wretched man that I am; who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ From me they are not yet removed, though I once hoped, with many others, that I should soon get rid of them. All I can do is to look to Jesus through them all, cling fast by faith to His wounded side, long to be clothed with His righteousness, pray Him to plead my cause against these spiritual enemies that rise up against me, and, though I feel myself leprous from head to foot, believe that I am clean through the Word which He has spoken unto me. In short, I rejoice not because the spirits are always subject to me (for, alas! I find they are often too strong for me to control) but because my name is written in Heaven. I am daily more and more convinced that the promises of God to His people are absolute, and desire to build my hope on the free electing love of God in Christ Jesus to my soul before the world began, which I can experimentally and feelingly say He hath delivered from the lowest Hell. He hath plucked me as a brand out of the fire. Though my ways were dreadfully dangerous to the last degree, His eye was all along upon me for good. He has excited me to love much by forgiving me much. He has shewed me, and still daily shows me, the abominable deceit, lust, enmity, and pride of my heart, and the inconceivable depths of His mercy, how far I was fallen, and how much it cost Him of sweat and blood to bring me up. He has proved Himself stronger than I, and His goodness superior to all my unworthiness. He gives me to know, and to feel, too, that without Him I can do nothing. He tells me (and He enables me to believe it) that I am all fair, and there is no spot in me. Though by nature an enemy, He calls me His friend; though a traitor, His child; though a beggar prodigal, He clothes me with the best robe, and has put a ring of endless love and mercy on my hand. And, though I am often sorely distressed by spiritual internal foes, afflicted, tormented, and bowed down almost to death, with the sense of my own barrenness, ingratitude, and proneness to evil, He secretly shows me His bleeding wounds and softly but powerfully whispers to my soul, ‘I am thy great salvation.’ His free distinguishing grace is the bottom on which is fixed the rest of my poor weary tempted soul. On this I ground my hope, oftentimes when unsupported by any other evidence, save only by the Spirit of adoption received from Him. He has chosen me out from everlasting, in whom to make known the inexhaustible riches of His free grace and long-suffering forbearance. Though I am a stranger to others, and a wonder to myself, yet I know Him or, rather, am known of Him. When my dry, empty, barren soul is parched with thirst, He kindly bids me come to Him and drink my fill at the fountainhead. In a word, He graciously empowers me to say, with consciously experimental evidence, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ Amen and Amen.”