Her Birth, Early Piety, and Marriage
Sarah, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Phihp Henry and Katherine his wife,* was born August 7th, 1GG4, at Broad Oak, in Fhntshire. Of her eminently pious parents nothing need be here said; their praise has long been in the churches.
It is not surprising that, at this distance of time, but little can be stated as to the early period of her life. The discovery of an unusual degree of amiableness, connected with mental energy, secured particular attention to her education.
* Appendix I.
She was taught to read by the Rer. William Turner, who, prior to his admission into the University, resided at Broad Oak for instruction. Her learned father, by the aid of a grammar which he compiled for the purpose, in English, instructed her, when only six or seven years old, in the Hebrew tongue, and she went so far in it as to be able readily to read and construe a Hebrew Psalm.
She also, while young, wrote outlines of the sermons she heard preached; and her diary frequently mentions the comfort and edification she experienced in reviewing them. This custom was continued to old age, and many volumes are still extant, no less proofs of her industry and neatness, than valuable specimens of ministerial skill and fidelity. She preserved in writing, likewise, her honoured parent’s stated expositions in the family, and used them, through life, in her private perusal of the Scriptures.
Through the divine blessing, promised to a religious education, the means used for her spiritual welfare were not in vain, for her parents witnessed, in the years too often sinfully employed, a devotedncss to God, which could not fail to promote their veneration and love to the great Author of saving mercy.
Noticing, when seventy years of age, the period alluded to, she thus expressed herself; “I was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity; yet a kind providence took care of me, and preserved me safe through the perils of infancy. My great Creator and benefactor endued me with understanding, reason, a capacity to learn, but infinite goodness gave me early advantages by religious parents, such as, I am ready to think, the wdiolc world can hardly produce the like. I was betimes taught my catechism, and other things proper for my age. I had excellent examples. Religion was set before me in the clearest and best light. Secured, by privacy, from so much as seeing the corruptions the world abounds with, for the first twenty years of my life, I do not remember to have heard an oath, or to have seen a person drunk. But still, this was but negative religion; the free grace of God, in infinite mercy, took early hold of me, and brought me to feel something of the powers of the world to come.”
It is well known how careful Mr. Henry was to give serious youth an early introduction to the Lord’s supper. We, therefore, find Mrs. Savage, in her sixteenth year, a guest at the sacred table, and the time was” a time so MEMOIRS OF MKS. SAVAGE.
of love.” Several years afterwards, the recollection was pleasant. “1697 (Sabbath,) May 23, she writes, I cannot but remember that upon this day, now seventeen years ago, I first gave up my name to God in the sacrament of the Lord’s supper. There, through his goodness, I found great sweetness. I trust the knot was then tied, and the bargain made which will prove an everlasting covenant, never to be broken, Amen,”
Henceforth her papers record increased anxiety that, by departing from iniquity, she might adorn the gospel. She was far from being satisfied with even a devotional attendance at “the feast,” she aimed to manifest the reality of her faith by zeal for “good works,” and so, “with well doing, put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.”
How much soever practical godliness may, by some soaring religionists, be decried as too earthly to attract their notice, or as too legal to interrupt their piety, the humble Christian will not object to meet, in this connexion, with the substance of one of Philip Henry’s sermons on the important subject. It is introduced from Mrs. Savage’s copy; and as it, very probably, was her frequent companion in the closet, it may on that account, appear the more interesting. The text is, Psalm 1. 23. “Whoso oflbreth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright, will I shew the salvation of God.”
“There is a question. Psalm cxvi. 12. “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits I” These words are an answer to it. Two things you must render — praise — a well ordered conversation.
1. Praise. Be inwardly thankful in heart. Be outwardly thankful i word. This is our rent, to be paid daily, according as our receivings are. He that doth this is said to glorify God, that is,
Pleases him. “Glorifies me.” Does the thing that I delight in. The prayer of the upright is his delight. But he hath more delight in their thanksgiving than in their prayers, because therein they do not seek themselves, but ,W’holly his glory.
Glorifies me, that is, gets me a good name among men.
2. Besides this; another duty is to look to our conversation. Those that have received mercy from God should be very careful about their conversation.
You have all reason to feel weight from
God’s benefits; are you willing to know what you shall render 1
Doctrine. Though thanks giving be very good, yet thanks living is a great deal better.
What is to be done that ours may be a well-ordered conversation? Two things are of great concernment.
1. Our conversion. Are we new creatures? born again? Are we passed from death unto life? Without this there is no salvation. Matt, xviii. 3. I pray see to this. Let there be a principle. Matt. xii. 33.
2. Our conversation. This must be ordered aright. What is that? I answer, living and walking by rule, as soldiers are set rank and file in their march. “These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.” Psalm L 21. There is a time coming when God will set our disorders in order. There are omissions and commissions, sins of ignorance and sins of presumption. He that orders his conversation aright now, need not be afraid of the day of judgment. A sad sight it will be when God shall set all the sins of a wicked man before him.
I shall give some rules for the ordering of the conversation aright.
1. Begin and end every day with God. He is the Alpha and Omega, Make him so. When you awake, let your first thoughts be of God, not of the world, or vanity. Lift up your thoughts in thankfulness for the rest of the night, for the health of the morning. Will you remember this?
When you arc up, you must make a more solemn bushiess of it. God expects to find you somewhere alone, every morning. “In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee.” Afterwards, in the family. In a well-ordered conversation, the man dares not go about worldly business till he and his family have been together to worship God. In the evening, worship God in your families also. Pray alone. Close the day with God. Let prayer be the key of the morning, and the bolt of the night. And, see to the manner of it, that it be done after a due order. “I will wash mine hands in innocency; so will I compass thine altar, O Lord.”
2. Set the Lord always before you. He is always before you. His eye is always upon us. But do you set him before you? “Mine eye is ever towards the Lord.” “Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God.” Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus to the glory of God.
3. Be good husbands of time, especially of opportunity time. Time is precious. Ask dying people. Ask damned people. An inch of time is worth a wedge of gold. I believe wherever God gives grace to a man, from that time he will value time at another rate than before. Especially value opportunities. These are the cream of time, whether of doing or getting good. Improve them. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it.” Eccles. ix. 10. Time may last, and opportunity be gone; “Go to the ant, thou sluggard.” This present day is a price. I pray improve it. Think what shall I do for God, or for my soul, this day.
4. Be diligent in your callings. Each of us ought to have a calling. We are not to stand idle in the market-place of this world. The first Adam, heir apparent of the world, had a calling, so had the second Adam. For thirty years together our Lord worked with his supposed father in the trade of a carpenter, “Be diligent to know the state of ihy flocks.” Whatsoever your calling is, therein abide with God. Let it be never so mean, if honest, and followed diligently, with an eye to God, he accepts us. Take heed of inordinateness. Those are too busy who cannot find time from their calling to attend the service of God. Be industrious in the fear of God.
5. Look well to the duties of your particular relations. It is a certain truth, that you are really what you are relatively, as husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, masters and servants, and fellow-servants. A well-ordered conversation discharges the duties of each of these relations M’ith all might in the fear of God. “I and my house will serve the Lord,” not only in immediate acts of worship, but in all family relations and duties. The second and third chapters of St. Peter’s first Epistle are to direct in the several relations. All is comprised in one word, love. Walk in love, and dwell in love. There is no walking, no dwelling like this. They that dwell in love dwell in God, and shall be with him forever. A whole Psalm, the cxxxiii.; a whole chapter, 1 Cor. xiii.; a whole book of Scripture, the first Epistle of John, all written to commend brotherly love.
6. Be careful what company you keep. Psalm i. 1. Acts ii. 40. Be not delighted in that company that you would not be with forever. “I am a companion of all them that fear thee.”
7. Set a watch over the door of thy lips. Psalm cxU. 2. By our words we shall be justified, by our words condemned. Some say, “Our lips are our own.” Do not say so. Do not think so. The sound of the vessel discovers the emptiness of it. Those that are bound for Canaan must not speak the language of Ashdod. Be the first to begin good discourse, never the first to let it fall.
8. Acknowledge God in all thy ways. Knock at his door. Beg of him guidance and direction, success and a blessing. Ask at his mouth, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Own him in your successes. In your disappointments acknowledge him. The Lord is pleased to disappoint me in this.
9. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. I fear God hath a controversy with our nation about this. Our fights and our fires discover this so plainly, that he that runs may read. London fire began on the Sabbath day. So did divers others. You will find that, according as you keep the Sabbath, your worldly affairs succeed well or not; “Will a man rob God?”
10. Die daily. Let no day pass without some serious thoughts or words about death and the grave. This will help to make you serious. It was Paul’s practice,” I die daily.’* Do something every day to make your dying day comfortable.
11. Honour the Lord with thy substance; that is, dishonour him with no part of it, and pay him his rent out of it, in charity to the poor. They are God’s receivers, and are always with us.
12. Make Christ your all in all. Make Christ your strength, to assist you in duty. Make him your righteousness, for nothing we do is, or can be, acceptable to God. None but Christ, none but Christ. I live tipon him. I live by him. I live through him.
INIrs. Savage, a few years after her public profession of religion, commenced that particular scries of writing, to which I am indebted for the most interesting parts of her biography. “August, 1686, I have had it,” she remarks, “in my thoughts to do something in the nature of a Diary, being encouraged by the advantages others have gained thereby, and the hope that I might be furthered by it in a godly life, and be more watchful over the frame of my heart when it must be kept on record. I would ai)prove myself to God, who alone knows the sincerity of my heart. To him I have made my request known herein, and I heartily beg that what I shall at any time put down may be the true workings of my heart, and that I may in nothing bear false witness against myself.”
The following year, March 28, 1687, she was married to Mr. John Savage, a respectable farmer and land agent, residing at Wrenbury -Wood, near Nantwich, in Cheshire. Her notice of the annual return of that day evinces much gratitude for the providential kindness which she experienced in the important change. She was not unequally yoked. Mr. Savage appears to have been a pious, active, and useful man. It was his custom, in addition to family and closet duties, to pray with his wife morning and evening, and it pleased God to continue them together on earth forty-two years.
Mr. Henry, conformably to the pious custom of the times, addressed a sermon to Mr. and Mrs. Savage on their marriage. The text was Genesis ii. 22. “And brought her unto the man.”*
“Weddings are likely,” he observed” to be comfortable, when God brings the married couple to each other. All who come together, do so by his common providence. A sparrow doth not fall to the ground without him. But there is a special providence to be owned, when people marry in the Lord. That a marriage may be in the Lord, it is necessary that the proceeding be according to rule. In respect of parties, they must not be too near in relation, nor too far off in age, quality, and profession. The more suitableness, the more likely is it that they were brought together by God. Solomon missed it in marrying strange wives, and it was his ruin. Sons of God should not match with the daughters of men. Be not unequally yoked. There should be free consent of both parties, and parents also. Parents are not to infringe children’s right, by forcing them, nor children theirs, by dispoposing of themselves. It should be managed
* Dear father preached at family prayer that night, from that ecripture in Genesis,’and brought her to the man.’ Mrs. Savage. Diar)-, Orig. MS.
as an ordinance of God, sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
“What God brings, he will bless to us, and what he blesses, must needs be comfortable. When God blows upon any thing, it never prospers. Psalm cxxvii. 1.”*
A sermon preached by his son, Matthew Henry, on a similar occasion, is given in the Appendix.t
A pious solicitude honourably to discharge the duties of her new relation, is apparent in her diary. The anticipation of them was connected with fervent prayer, and her uniform deportment proved that the petitions were sincere.
The first visit she received, in her new abode, from her excellent father, is thus noticed.” He read and expounded the ci. Psalm (well styled the householder’s Psalm,) and gave us these rules always to act by; well worth remembering. That God, who is the first and best, must be served with the first and best. That except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. That every creature is that to us that God makes it to be, comfortable or uncomfortable. That man’s life and happiness does not consist in the abundance
From Mrs. Savage’s MS. + Appendix II.
of what he possesses. That the things of time and the body are not to be compared with the tilings of the soul, and eternity.”
As from this period, her religious principles were necessarily more fully called into exercise, it will not be unprofitable to mark with increased attention, their holy influence. Religion did not flow, in her soul, as a contracted rivulet in a subterraneous cavern, but, like a widely-extended river, by its fertilizing streams, it enhvened and enriched the sphere in which she moved.