From the Funeral Sermons on the Death of the Rev. Matthew Henry
Aut of you must die, “it is appointed.” You shall die when, and where, and how the Lord pleaseth, whether you consent or not. But would you find death unstung, and friendly? Would you have Christ receive your departing souls, to fit them for, and admit them into, the heavenly mansions? Would you find it a release from all that is grievous, and to be a “joyful entrance into the everlasting kingdom of your Saviour?” Then live unto the Lord. These are inseparably joined by the gospel constitution. Oh ask then, to whom do you live, is it to God or the dovil? After what do you walk, is it after the flesh or the Spirit? This is your seed-time; “If you sow to the Spirit, you shall reap life everlasting: if you sow to the flesh, you shall of the flesh reap corruption.” It is high time the youngest of you should begin to live to the Lord, for you may die in youth. It is truest wisdom in any of you who have begun, to hold on to the end: for a life spent to the Lord, will at death end in happiness to yourselves, and great comfort to your godly friends.
This may afford some allay to our grief, when we reflect on the very afflictive occasion of our present meeting, viz. the death of the reverend, laborious, and useful Mr. Matthew Henry. I could not have chosen a fitter text, for it was eminently exemplified in him. Few ministers so acknowledged Christ’s propriety in them, much fewer arrived to an equal degree of activity in the Lord’s service.
He was the son of two eminent saints, who were the glory of Christ in their day; and their character has eminently survived in his life and temper, as in the account of their lives which he published. As they took more than ordinary pains in his-education, when young, so they received the highest pleasure in his probity and usefulness in their aged years. Nor did God give a testimony to their pious care in making it successful to him alone; but gave them the comfort of seeing all their grown children walking in their integrity.
God, to whom “all his works are known from the beginning,” oft lays a foundation for the service he designs, by fitting persons from the womb, as to constitution and genius, in great variety; as we see in St. Paul, Luther, Melancthon, &c.; in like manner, having determined to do great things by our deceased brother, gave him a very strong body, without which his labours had wasted him in his youth; he also framed the organs of speech to the advantage of his public performances; his fancy was lively, his memory retentive, and his judgment solid.
Such a natural capacity rendered him capable of uncommon improvements, and being cultivated at home, and at the Reverend Mr. Doolittle’s, he soon signalized himself in all the useful parts of learning proper to his designed employment, which was the ministry. Having finished those preparatory studies, and apprehending that the knowledge of the laws might contribute to more distinct conceptions of some subjects and terms in theology, he applied himself for some time to that study, and made good use of that knowledge in several of his composures.
After he had attained what he proposed to himself in the Inns of Court, he set himself toward entering upon the ministerial work, though in a time of persecution! He preferred this to all other employs, because, as himself often suggested, the work was more pleasant, the subject which still employed the mind, more helpful to promote a heavenly life, and the power of religion in his own heart; it gave the best opportunity of serving Christ in his greatest designs on earth, and of benefiting mankind in what most concerned them, viz. the salvation of their souls.
In order to his undertaking this work he impartially studied the controversy between the Established Church and the Dissenters, and upon the maturest thoughts he chose to be a Presbyterian minister, being fully persuaded the cause of Christ in the matters debated was in their hands, and for this resolved to embark with them, notwithstanding the reproach and hardships to which he might be exposed; for it was not earth, but heaven, to which he directed his course. Yet, with his non-conformity, he highly esteemed all pious conformists, and kept up a Christian charity towards such as differed from him.
Upon the evidence of his eminent gifts and graces, with a strong propension to discharge the duties, and promote the blessed ends, of that sacred office, he was regularly invested in it by fasting and prayer, and the imposition of the hands of Presbyters.
He always accounted the work of the ministry the most honourable employment; and was to his death a singular nonour to it, by his unwearied diligence and exemplary conversation. From his undertaking the service of Christ in this function, the business of his life was, both to improve in meetness for it, and to “fulfil the ministry he had received of the Lord.” His “profiting appeared to all,” by being able on the sudden to perform so well upon any subject, and thereby he commended the close study of the Scriptures; for the whole Bible being fixed in his head, as well as heart, facilitated his work on all oceasions. Can the most invidious point to the man alive, of whom it. can be more justly said, he laboured much in the Lord? If you consider how oft he preached you must wonder how he could write so much. But if you reckon how many books he printed, could you imagine he preached so frequently? What time must be laid out in the five volumes on the Bible, besides many other valuable books and printed sermons!
Whilst he continued pastor in Chester, which was two-and-twenty years, he filled up that station with service on Lord’s days and week days: besides this, he laid out himself in the adjacent counties, as one who had upon him the care of all tle churches. How frequently did he preach seven or eight times a week! ‘
Since his transplanting to this place, he spent himself here and in the city, as if his strength were miraculously supplied to do much, upon a foresight that his time was short. And of this he seemed to have some presages when he assigned it as an apology toa godly person who cautioned him against over doing; and truly some such impulse was the best reason he had to give.
Great was his acceptance, though his lot was to be in an age wherein the office is so despised, that the same qualifications which commend all others can scarce preserve a minister from contempt. Bui Providence peculiarly smiled on our brother in this respect, though he neither courted applause, nor sought his worldly interest by flattery, or other unbecoming methods. What gave him esteem were his integrity, affableness, the triumph of grace over his passions, forwardness to speak well of all and ill of none, savoury discourses readily fitted to all occasions, useful and unwearied labours, and a readiness to serve all, with a pleasant acknowledgment of what endowments or success any others were blessed with. By these means the places were full where he was employed, persons of all denominations greatly affected, and his surprising death is the subject of universal mourning.
All must acknowledge the aptitude of his performances to common benefit. Thus he studied, and accommodated his labours to persons of all ages. Young ones he catechised in a way that exceedingly conduced to give light, and beget an affection for gospel truths. Early religion he warmly pressed, and meltingly invited youth to close with Christ Jesus. Such as were converted he laboured to im- prove to higher degrees of grace, and an exacter walking. For this end he published tracts, wherein most of the heads of practical religion are treated of with that judgment, as shows his acquaintance with the power of godliness and the hearts of men. His words were decent, though familiar, and his proverbial sentences were contrived to affect, and retain in the memory some important truth. If it be objected that he oft made use of Scripture phrases allusively, rather than in their proper sense, yet it must be granted some pious things were ever gravely expressed by those words; and I think that from his being so very conversant in Scripture words, they first presented themselves to his mind, when the matter he treated of would be aptly expressed thereby.
Whether he prayed or preached, it was with such a fervour as declared his heart was in it, and that lhe was employed therein from the vigorous actings of his faith and love.
As he earnestly implored the presence of God for success, so through his blessing he found it granted in a signal manner. Many, very many, were converted and edified by his ‘ministerial labours. These are now his crown.
This is the person whom God has taken away with a
stroke, and so suddenly as not to allow us time to pray for his life. You can hear him no more, nor see him any more, till the general assembly. He is cut off, at the age of fifty-two, when ripest for service.
Need I call you to lament this loss? a loss so great that I cannot aggravate it; so extensive that I scarce know where to begin or end. A tender wife has lost a faithful affectionate husband, filling up that relation to all good purposes. Hopeful children deprived of the kindest of fathers; one concerned to see “Christ formed in them,” and fitted to promote their welfare in every respect. You, his people, are bereaved of a faithful, profitable pastor, whose place is not easily filled up. We ministers have lost a bright example, an affectionate brother, a general assistant, as occasion offered; a man whose excessive pains must put the slothful to many blushes. The loss is public, we have one fewer to promote the kingdom of our Lord, and stand in the gap to avert impending judgm nts; yea, I fear we may lament the fall of such a pillar in the church, as “taken away from the evil to come.”
We are stupid if we weep not for ourselves. But, as for his part, his sudden death has no terror attending it, for his Lord found him employed as the wise and faithful servants whom he declareth blessed. He had preached twice on the Lord’s day, he preached also on Monday, and had appointed to do the same on Tuesday, but died that morning; God, by death, released him from his labours. Sub; mission to the divine will only could have reconciled his active soul long to survive his work; this trial God prevented, by not suffering him to live one day beyond his labours, But the rest in heaven after death was what he longed for, and it seems that by some presage he apprehended he was not far from this, for the last head in the last book he published is this, “Let us long for the perfection of those spiritual pleasures in the kingdom of glory.” And adds, “Our love to God in this world is a love in motion, in heaven it will be a love at rest; Oh when shall that sabbatism come,’’ &e.
His present happiness yields some allay to our sorrow; but yet it is a greater relief under all losses, that our Lord is the King eternal, his word endureth for ever; with him is the residue of the Spirit; he has wise ends in this sore dispensation, and can make it work for goud.
That this end may be attained, be all of you attentive to the voice of God by this rebuke, and comply therewith.
Let each impartially inquire, whether you have not a
REV. MATTHEW HENRY. i 57
hand in removing this mercy, by your forfeiture. The death of very useful ministers, especially when much needed, is generally a punishment for some sins of those who were most concerned in them. Wherein conscience points to any guilt neglect not repentance; and apply to the blood of Christ by faith, lest even a worse thing come unto you. Again, see you act as becomes Christians under this providence. Let the afflicted widow trust in God, as able to fill up the place of the deceased, and the children walk worthy of his name, and not depart from such a father’s ways, as too many have done in this degenerate age. How solemnly would he have laid this charge if he had seen them about him in his dying agonies! Oh may they find the return of his many recorded prayers! You who here attended on his ministry, see you live the truths he dispensed, for you are accountable for great advantages: Christ will not account them good servants who gained but two talents when they received five. Nor is it proper for you to overlook it; that since the death of the eminent Dr. Bates, you have lost two such worthy men, as Mr. Billio and Mr. Henry, in the midst of their days, and the greatest capacity for service. Many observe you, and your influence on our public interest, as Dissenters, is very considerable. Therefore it is your concern, unanimously, to get a well-qualified pastor; but regard sincerely the real benefit of your souls in the choice you make; for if lower matters govern your inclinations it discovers carnality of mind, and will grow more so if indulged in this instance. We ministers are hereby called to double our care in serving the designs of our Lord; we have fewer hands, and may soon meet with harder work. The aspect of things warns us to apply ourselves to get more wisdom, faith, and fortitude; that we may neither mistake our duty, nor treacherously desert it, in the greatest trials.
Finally, It is incumbent on all to lay to heart the suddenness of your pastor’s death. When he left you he was
- likelier to live than many of us, and no symptom of any danger till within a very few hours before his dissolution. We must be stupid unless it excite us to pray, “Lord, teach us to know how frail we are!” And to endeavour so to know the frailty of your state as to be always ready. Oh get oil in your lamps, and those lamps trimmed: he that may die without warning has reason to see that he delay not repentance, nor trifle in what eternity depends on. He “who applies his heart to wisdom,” must so number his days as to finish the proper business of every day in its day; for the morrow is not ours, and if it come, its own work is assigned with it.
It will be vain to wish we could recall past time, when conscience represents the many abuses and neglects of a past life now ending. The summons may be so hasty that you have not many moments to set heart or house in order.
Therefore take care that your pursuits of this world be not excessive, lest you be arrested by that voice, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.” When you are tempted, remember, you may be cut off in the very act of sin, as Zimri was. Entertain every call to duty, and opportunity for service and spiritual benefit, with this thought, there is no working in the grave, where I must soon be; “the night cometh, wherein no man can work.”
You must all confess that you cannot die safely unless you have served your generation, are real converts, and in temper of spirit meet for heaven: nor can you die comfortably, unless your graces flourish, your fruit abound, and have at least a grounded hope of your interest, in Christ, with a vital sense of his favour.
. These are too great, too necessary, and too difficult, to be postponed, or negligently applied to, by men who are “crushed before the moth.” The greatest haste, and the utmost diligence, are scarce enough to quiet us, when we realize how much depends upon a life subject to be cut off in a moment, by a thousand accidents. Happiest he who soonest enters into wisdom’s paths, passeth the whole time of his sojourning here with the most solicitous care in discharging all present duty, and improving all present helps. This is the way to finish well.
This finishing well was a sentence oft made use of by my deceased brother, and therefore I conclude with an importunate desire that we may have a solemn regard thereto in all our sacred and civil transactions.
FROM SERMON BY THE REV. W. TONG.
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Lert us live in the well-grounded hope of following our godly friends to heaven, and meeting them there, and being together for ever with the Lord; lay the ground-work of such hope sure and strong, for the superstructure is to reach as high as heaven; and when you have done this, thén rejoice in hope. I know nothing that can better support your spirits under the loss of such excellent ones, than a lively hope of a speedy meeting again in a better world; the time of separation is but short, yet a little while and you shall see them again; you parted in sorrow, you shall meet in joy. Perhaps you had not the opportunity of seeing some of them die, of closing their eyes, and bidding them farewell: but that shall not hinder your joyful meeting; and how will you then welcome each other in a world of bliss, and wonder to see how much you are all changed for the better, since your last parting! How will you congratulate each other in the favour of; our blessed Lord, who has washed your souls so clean, and made them so glad! But I must stop my thoughts here, that are ready to run out beyond bounds. Comfort yourselves and one another with these things.
I know I speak to many this day who need such comforts. Here is a great congregation, bereaved of a most faithful, t
wise, laborious minister; here is a disconsolate family, bereaved of one of the most exemplary and useful relations that I ever knew any family blessed with. How is a great blow given to us all! The death of Mr. Henry is an universal loss! It is and will be universally lamented.
Expect not, sirs, that I should enter upon the particulars of his excellent character; very much has been said of him already in a little compass, by that worthy aged minister who first preached ta you on this mournful occasion.
I hope this will be more fully done in an account of his exemplary life: that constant diary he kept will furnish out proper and excellent materials, besides what may be added from the observation of others.
But that which chiefly restrains me now is, that it is needless to do it in this place; for though you have not enjoyed him much above two years, yet in that time you “have known his doctrine, his manner of life, his purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, and patience,” 2 Tim. iii. 10.
And who has not known him? His works praise him in the gates, and will do so; his great and good works from the pulpit, from the press, his immense labours, his incredible diligence in preaching, in expounding, in writing, his care of all the churches: he, like “Demetrius, had a good report of all men, and of the truth itself; and we also bear witness, and ye know that our witness is true,” 3 John 12.
He had in him that happy mixture of excellent gifts — and graces that seldom meet in the same person, and they made him very amiable to all who knew him.
In him you had the happy mixture of great strength of judgment and fervour of spirit. Some are very zealous, but not so judicious; others judicious but not so zealous: he was both a burning and a shining light.
In him you had a true greatness of soul, mixed with exemplary modesty and humility; nothing in him appeared sordid and abject, nothing vain and supercilious.
In him you had a most agreeable cheerfulness, with a due temperament of solidity and seriousness.
In him you might observe a strict regard to the dictates of his own conscience, joined with a most candid tenderness to those who differed from him.
In his preaching you had a very just and close way of thinking, with the most plain, proper, natural, and easy expression, and a great regard to the honour of Christ and free grace, joined with a constant endeavour to beat down sin, and revive the power and practice of godliness.
It was this happy conjunction of excellent gifts and graces, that made him live so much desired, and die so much lamented.
I am a witness of that tender and conscientious concern with which he left his old and dear friends at Chester, and of that comfort and satisfaction he had in his accéptance and usefulness in this part of the vineyard. I am persuaded, these last two years of his life and labours have been a great blessing to many souls in and about the city of London.
My own interest in his acquaintance and friendship for the space of above twenty-eight years, is a thing of too private a nature to mention upon so solemn an occasion; but it must never be forgotten by me. I own it asa precious talent put into my hand, and to be accounted for. He was a most cordial, prudent, faithful, unalterable friend; and if a passionate affection does not deceive me, I think verily I shall less value this life and world, since he is gone from it.
The death of this faithful servant of Christ at this time is a very dark and threatening providence: God calls us to more than common sorrow by it; he expects we should lay it to heart; and all the circumstances of it considered, both those of a private and public nature, we should lay it nearer to our hearts than ordinary. We should not suffer it to pass over us lightly; we should feel our loss, and fear the displeasure of our God, and tremble because of the ark of God.
But yet we must not abandon ourselves to inconsolable grief, or quarrel with God, nor despair of his mercy to us.
As for the broken family, Iam persuaded there are great mercies in store for them: the fatherless children are left with God, and he will keep them alive; and let the widow trust in him. Though God in this sad providence seems to have spoken against them, I believe he will a and affectionately remember them still.
I know no family in which the entail of the covenant from one generation to another has more evidently appeared. I know no family more enriched with a large stock of treasure of prayers by religious predecessors on both sides. And a family that is thus rich in prayer, is rich in the promises too, while the present branches of it adhere to the covenant, and live up to their education; and we rejoice to see that it is thus with them, and daily pray for their growth and establishment in wisdom and grace.
And for this afflicted broken congregation, though they ought to be sensible what they have lost, a skilful guide, anda faithful helper of their souls; one who, they hoped, would have been the happy instrument of great good, not only to themselves, but to their families; one that was wonderfully fitted to feed the lambs of the flock, and took great delight in that part of his work.
Yet let them not distrust the care of the great Shepherd and Bishop of their souls. This place and people have been signally owned and favoured of God, from one time to another. In the mount it has been seen that God has provided; and we hope he will have the same care and concern for you still. And the great respect you always had for your faithful ministers while they were with you, and the true Christian generosity with which you have treated their families when they have been gone, gives us good encouragement that the presence of God shall be the glory in the midst of you; and that you shall yet have a pastor according to his own heart, who shall carry on the same work, feed you with the same sincere milk of the word, and
be a great blessing to you, and the rising generation among you.
And though the church of God in general feels this loss, and laments it greatly, that this your minister was taken away before he had finished the great undertaking, his noble, delightful task, the Exposition of the Bible; yet we have all cause to bless God, who spared him so long, and helped him to carry it on so far.
It is the observation of a worthy minister, on the death of a person of great note in all the churches, who had a heart enlarged for God, and bent upon doing more eminent service, “that no one ever finished all the great designs he had for the glory of God in this world, excepting the Lord Jesus Christ. He indeed could say, ‘It is finished.’” ~As for others, their good desires and purposes go beyond the limits of their time and life; but they have finished all that God designed to do by them; and he is able to carry on his own work by other hands, and thereby to make it evident that he is to his people “all in all.”
And I hope those who have attended long upon the ministry of good Mr. Henry, and taken down his expositions upon that part of the Bible that yet remains, whether in the public assembly or in his family, will carefully gather up those precious fragments, that none may be lost; and will communicate them to the world in the best way they can, that this great work may be finished, and be as much as possible his own performance.
To conclude: We must flee to this as our last resort; though ministers, the best of ministers, die, the gospel does not die with them; 1 Pet. i. 24, 25, “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.”