Chapter 3 Matthew Henry: Minister and Preacher
David L. Wykes
1. Introduction
Matthew Henry, when he died in June 1714, was one of the most celebrated ministers of his generation. His reputation was founded on a remarkable evangelical ministry, both in the pulpit and in the study. He was minister at Chester for twenty-five years, from 1687 until 1712, when he was persuaded to accept a call from the Presbyterian congregation at Mare Street, Hackney. He had a talent for preaching matched by a willingness to preach when asked, and because of his abilities he was in great demand. He also published extensively. His best known and most influential work was his commentary on the Bible, which is still in use. When he died unexpectedly at Nantwich following a fall from his horse, William Tong, his old friend and colleague, wrote:
When the News of his Death had reached London, it is not to be exprest how great and universal a Concern and Sorrow it occasioned both in City and Suburbs; … I think there was hardly a Pulpit of the Dissenters in London but what gave Notice of the great Breach that was made upon the Church of God; … he was universally Lamented, and those that are no Friends to the Nonconformists readily acknowledged, that we had lost one that was an Honour and Support to our weak and despised Interest.1
His father, that ‘eminent, holy, heavenly Mr Philip Henry’, after refusing to conform to the Church of England lost his curacy at Worthenbury, Flintshire, in 1661, and was forced to leave the parish following the Act of Uniformity (1662).2 The Henry family was perhaps the most celebrated family of Dissenters in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, particularly as Matthew’s eldest sister, Sarah Savage, who long outlived her father and brother, continued to uphold their reputations. Today among historians Sarah is better known than either Philip or Matthew because of the interest in women’s history and her remarkable record of diary-keeping from 1686 until her death in 1752.3 This chapter will give an account of Matthew Henry’s life and assess his ministry upon which his reputation is founded.4
2. Matthew Henry’s Childhood and Education
Religious dissent dates from the Restoration of Charles II and the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Ministers and others in holy orders, such as university fellows, had to decide between conformity to the Church of England or losing their livelihoods. About two thousand ministers and teachers refused to conform or were removed in England and Wales between 1660 and 1662. Many of these ministers resolved to continue their ministry and gathered congregations despite the laws passed to suppress nonconformity. Over the next twenty-five years, persecution, if rarely continuous, was often fierce. The last major period of religious persecution occurred between 1678 and 1687 following attempts to prevent the Catholic James, Duke of York, from succeeding his brother Charles II as king. Dissenters obtained the freedom to worship in public following James II’s Declaration of Indulgence issued in April 1687, though it was not until 1689 that this freedom was confirmed by Parliament when the Toleration Act was passed as part of the religious settlement following the Glorious Revolution.5
Matthew was born prematurely on 18 October 1662 at Broad Oak in Flintshire, where the family had moved only a fortnight before from Worthenbury. He had four younger sisters, but he was the only son who reached adulthood. His elder brother, John, died of measles in April 1667, when not quite six years of age. His mother, Katherine, was the only child and heir of Mr Daniel Matthews of Bronnington and Broad Oak. The marriage gave the family landed status, which proved to be significant in terms of Matthew Henry’s own marriage.6
It was as a child that Matthew developed the habits of study and religion which so characterized his later life. His father maintained a godly household, and the family not only kept the Sabbath carefully, but there was constant worship in the week, with morning and evening expositions on the scriptures by Philip Henry followed by family and private prayers, and an hour spent every Saturday afternoon in religious exercises in preparation for Sunday worship.7 Matthew exhibited all the features of a conventional godly religious upbringing and conversion. At the age of thirteen he recognized that three years earlier, in 1672, he first had a sense of sin awakened in him by a sermon from his father on Ps 51:7.8 A year later, on 7 December 1673, at the age of eleven, he heard another sermon which ‘had in it the Marks of true Grace; I tried myself by them, and told my Father my Evidences; he liked them, and told me, if those Evidences were true, (as I think they were) I had true Grace’.9 This sense of grace was immediately (and quite conventionally) set aside and ‘for two or three Days, I was under great fear of Hell, till the Lord comforted me; having been engag’d in serious Examination’; Henry ‘found several Marks that I am a Child of God’.10 His biographer, William Tong, recognized that at the age of eleven Matthew was led to that vital part of religion, the examination of the state of his soul. Tong also identified the key role of preaching in conversion:
[H]is Ear and Heart were open betimes to the preaching of the Word; he heard his good Father and other Ministers press the Duty of Self-Examination, and lay down Marks for Trial; this was the constant Way of our good old Puritan Preachers, and God made it a Means of sound Conversion to many Souls.… Here was a happy Foundation laid for a holy useful Life, to be thus kept under the Power of Restraining Grace from his very Infancy.11
Matthew Henry was to preach the same duty himself when a minister. Two years later at the age of thirteen he wrote out a catalogue of mercies in which he set out the evidence of his religious conversion.12
Like the sons of most gentry families he was educated at home. His father often took students into his family, either to prepare them for university studies, or to fit them for ministry. They in turn assisted with the education of his children. William Turner taught Matthew the principles of grammar, but it was from his father that he had ‘the greatest Advantages of his Education, both in Divine and Human Literature’.13 There are the occasional references to his studies. In a letter to his father at the age of nine, Matthew described his daily lessons which consisted of ‘a side of Latin, or Latin verses, and two verses in the Greek Testament’.14 He studied with his father until he was nearly eighteen, by which time he had ‘made a very considerable Progress in the Knowledge of the Languages, Arts and Sciences’, but his love of study was at times excessive.15 His mother was often afraid when he was a child ‘lest he should over do it, and was sometimes forced to call him down out of his Closet, when he was very young, and advise him to take a Walk in the Fields, lest his Health should suffer from too much Confinement and Application to his Books’.16 It was the neglect of proper exercise which was to lead to his early death.
In July 1680 he was sent to London with his cousin Robert Bosyer to study under Thomas Doolittle, who conducted an important academy at Islington. There were twenty-eight students, making it one of the largest academies of the period. Most tutors taught only a few students. Dissenting academies attempted to provide students with a higher education similar to that offered by the universities. The principal subjects taught were philosophy and logic.17 Little is known about Henry’s studies under Doolittle, though in a letter to his sisters he gave his first impressions on his arrival at Islington with his father. ‘I saw ye place wee are like to abide in, and do perceive that our rooms are likely to be very strait and little’. Perhaps for someone who was to inherit a gentleman’s estate the accommodation was less than he had come to expect. He thought Doolittle, however, was ‘very studious and diligent’. Not surprisingly he found the change difficult and suffered from homesickness: he scarce dared ‘entertain a thought of returning home lest it discompose mee’.18 Within a month both he and Bosyer fell ill. Bosyer died and Henry finally recovered sufficiently to return home to Broad Oak in late September.19 It used to be thought that he only returned from London in 1682 when Doolittle was forced to move his academy to Battersea following the resumption of persecution, but in fact his attendance at Doolittle’s academy was very brief.20
The persecution of Dissenters increased following attempts to exclude the Catholic James, Duke of York, from the succession. In September 1681, Philip Henry was presented at the Flint Assizes ‘for Keeping a Conventicle at my house & for saying the law ag[ains]t conventicles was not to be obey’d, & that there is never a word of God &c. in it’.21 A year later there were ‘Reports from london of more trouble to the Min[iste]rs upon ye 5. mile Act. several in Prison, several flying’.22 Matthew Henry seems to have spent these years with his father, but in April 1685 he returned to London, except, following the advice of his father’s friend Mr Rowland Hunt of Boreatton, he was sent to Gray’s Inn to study law. This decision occasioned considerable unease amongst those acquainted with the family, who feared that Henry had left off thoughts of the ministry. He was told by his father ‘’Tis the talk & wonder of many of your friends what we mean by this sudden change of your course & way’.23 The reasons however were clearly related to the difficult political conditions facing those wishing to train for the ministry. The times were then very dark. Furthermore, as Tong pointed out:
Knowledge of the Law would not only be convenient for one that was Heir to an handsome Estate, but might be of use for the better understanding the Nature of the Divine Law and Government, and the forensick Terms so much used in the Holy Scriptures, and in other Divinity Books both Ancient and Modern.24
Henry ‘kept Terms w[i]th other [law] students yet stil w[i]th a secret purpose for Divinity when providence sh[oul]d open a door’.25 He attended a weekly disputation of ministerial students conducted by Francis Glascock. He also attempted to hear the best preachers of the day, though because of persecution they were all conformists.26
In June 1686, Matthew Henry came down from London to visit his father at Broad Oak during the law vacation. At the invitation of his friend George Illidge he agreed to spend some days at Nantwich, where he preached every night to a considerable crowd. A little later he visited Chester where he was also invited to preach, to which he readily agreed though he did so very privately. There was still no liberty. For two or three evenings he preached at the house of Anthony Henthorne, a wealthy sugar-baker, who supported the Presbyterians, and also at the house of two ejected ministers, John Harvey and Thomas Jolly, both Congregationals.27 As a result he became acquainted with some of the leading Dissenters in Chester. According to Tong, Henry ‘now began to preach pretty often as a Candidate’ for the ministry, meeting everywhere ‘with great Acceptation and Encouragement’.28
It is clear the Presbyterians, the largest and wealthiest group of Dissenters in Chester, were determined to have Henry as their minister. At Chester, three ejected ministers had gathered congregations after 1662. William Cook and Ralph Hall, both Presbyterians, had obtained licences under Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, and the Congregational John Harvey, ejected from Wallasey in the Wirral, also began preaching in the city about this time. These meetings fell in 1682 as persecution intensified. Cook and Hall both died in 1684, leaving only Harvey preaching privately to a handful, and because he was a Congregational, those who were Presbyterians would not join in communion with him. Instead they relied upon Dr George Long and Andrew Barnet to come to them ‘now and then’ to administer the Lord’s Supper.29
In January 1687, rumours of an indulgence to allow Dissenters to preach in public again encouraged the leading Dissenters in Chester to visit Matthew Henry at Broad Oak, to persuade him to become their minister if liberty was granted. After consulting his father, Henry agreed, ‘with this Proviso (which they seemed a little uneasy at)’, that Harvey, the other minister, should give his consent.30 He was, however, already determined to return to London to complete his studies. The Presbyterians in Chester were so anxious to obtain Henry as their minister that they agreed ‘to receive him upon his own Terms, and in his own Time’.31 He set out for London on 24 January 1687. There, with growing rumours of an Indulgence, and with it opportunities for preaching, Henry found himself pressed on all sides to help out, most notably by Thomas Woodcock who wanted Henry to help in setting up a Lecture for young people, but he declined. He continued to be reminded by the Presbyterians in Chester of his promise to them.32
3. Toleration and the Development of Dissent in Chester
Freedom to worship in public came not with the Toleration Act in May 1689, but two years earlier with the publication of James II’s Indulgence in April 1687.33 It is clear the change was dramatic. Ministers were able to preach in public again without restraint, though there was great uncertainty about how long the indulgence would last. The enthusiasm with which they were received was remarkable. The ejected minister, Thomas Jolly, in whose house Matthew Henry had preached earlier, wrote in his diary in April 1687, the same month that the Indulgence was issued: ‘At Chester I found a great change, that where I might not before appear at all, now I had the opportunity to preach openly to a congregation of severall hundreds, soe also in all my journey’.34 It was this indulgence, rather than the Toleration Act, which finally brought relief to the Dissenters.
The Presbyterians in Chester were among those who established preaching in public again. They continued to remind Matthew Henry of his promise to them, but in the meantime they invited William Tong to preach to them. At the beginning of May, Henthorne visited London on business, ‘where he was personally very urgent with me in the matter, and at length I agreed to hasten down’.35 Matthew Henry therefore began to prepare himself for ordination, which after being examined ‘in the several parts of Learning’, and defending his thesis ‘upon a Question given me’ in Latin, he preached his probation sermon.36 A week later, on 9 May, he was ordained by six ejected ministers but, because of the difficulty of the times, in ‘great Privacy’.37 Moreover the ministers were unwilling to give him a certificate, signing only a testimonial that they were ‘well assured’ that Henry was an ordained Minister of the Gospel.38 Before the end of the month Henry had returned home to Broad Oak. The Presbyterians in Chester continued to press him to come and help them as soon as possible. On 1 June, Matthew Henry ‘was fetched from Broad-Oke by Mr Greg, Mr Hall, Mr Coker &c., and brought to Chester’.39 The following day being Thursday (‘some Time before chosen to be the Lecture-Day’),40 ‘I preach’d my first sermon publickly, on 1 Cor. 2. 2, with the words “I determin’d to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified” ’.41 Tong in his memoir of Matthew Henry recalled how he had been ‘a Witness of the Joy and Thankfulness with which they received him’.42
On Henry’s coming to Chester, Tong ‘gladly resigned up the Work to him’.43 He was minister first at Wrexham, then at Knutsford, where he helped found a congregation, before moving to Coventry in early 1690. He was called to London in 1702, where he became one of the leading ministers.44 The choice of Henry does seem extraordinary. Although he was born the same year as Tong, unlike Tong he was virtually untried as a minister. The Presbyterians at Chester had formed their impression of him after hearing him preach only a couple of times, though doubtless his father’s reputation played a part. They accepted his conditions, including waiting until he had completed his studies, although clearly they were impatient for him to begin preaching.
On settling at Chester, Henry sought the agreement of his Congregational colleague, John Harvey, for his ministry in the city: ‘Before I preach’d that day, I went to Mr Harvy to know whether he had consented to my coming, as my Friends had assured me’. Harvey told him that he did consent and that ‘he thought there was work enough for two Ministers in Chester, and if another must come, he would rather I should than any man in the North of England’.45 Relations with Harvey never appear to have been easy, though Henry made every effort to show respect to his senior colleague. Harvey preached a Lecture on Tuesdays, which Henry attended constantly.
[He] always carried it towards Mr. Harvey as a Son to a Father, carefully avoiding every thing that might give any occasion of Offence, and always advised his Friends to shew all possible Regard to him, as to a faithful Minister of Christ that had for many Years served among them in the Gospel, and had been a Sufferer for it.46
It must, however, have been galling to the older minister, after suffering the privations of nearly three decades of nonconformity, to have to share his ministry, particularly with one so popular. There was, in addition, the traditional rivalry between Presbyterians and Congregationals. Attempts by Henry to fulfil the later ideals of the Happy Union (which, following the Toleration Act, sought to end the division between the Presbyterians and Congregationals) failed. His suggestion that the two congregations should unite, or at least join for the Lord’s Supper, and that he should serve as Harvey’s assistant, was ‘peremptorily refused’ by Harvey, he ‘saying we would each stand on our own bottom’.47
The Presbyterians also attempted to maintain relations with the Church of England. When Henry first started to preach, the meeting on Sundays was held:
at Church Time in the Mornings, but in the Afternoon not til four a clock, when the Publick Service was over.… But Mr Greg pleading it with Dr F[ogg] in mitigation of the Separation that we came to the Church one part of the day, the Dr told him it made the matter no better. It was schismatical at any time; whereupon in September following we alter’d our Method, and our Meeting was held at Church-time both morning and afternoon, and so has continued…48
Harvey, who had before only held his meetings in the evening on Sundays, except his sacrament days, now began to keep both morning and afternoon at ‘Church-time’. Nevertheless, both Harvey and Henry attended the public lectures given in the St Michael’s parish church.49 At Chester, at least, the breach between Dissent and the church took place before toleration, because the clergy refused to accept any accommodation with the dissenting ministers or their supporters. All this occurred in the summer of 1687, nearly two years before the Toleration Act became law.
At this time Henry’s personal life also underwent a major change. A month after he began his ministry he married Katherine, the only daughter of Samuel Hardware of Bromborough Court in the Wirral. This was clearly an exceptional match for a dissenting minister, and the mother at first opposed the marriage thinking it her duty to find a better partner for her daughter.50 But Henry was also of gentry stock, having inherited the estate of his maternal grandfather (a reminder of the significance of his father’s marriage to the daughter and heir of Daniel Matthews, which first gave the family gentry status). The marriage only lasted a short time. His wife died in childbirth on 14 February 1690 aged 25, leaving a daughter Katherine.51 A little under a year-and-a-half later Matthew remarried, to Mary, the youngest daughter of Robert Warburton of Helperstone Grange, Esquire, another gentry family that supported Dissent. By the second marriage there were eight daughters, three of whom died in infancy, and one son, Philip, who assumed the surname of Warburton on becoming heir to Helperstone Grange. He was Tory MP for the City of Chester between 1742 and 1754, and died unmarried in 1760.52
Henry was fortunate in the support he received from his new congregation. He told his father in August 1687 that he and his new wife found themselves ‘here in ye midst of a great many affectionate Friends’.53 The part played by Henthorne in securing Henry and in encouraging meetings has already been mentioned. Other prominent supporters of the congregation included George Booth (a lawyer and near relative of the Earl of Warrington), John Hunt (younger brother of Rowland Hunt of Boreatton), as well as some of the principal tradesmen in the city. Besides Henthorne, they included Alderman Mainwaring and Giles Vanbrugh (father of Sir John Vanbrugh the architect), who though in communion with the Church of England attended Henry’s lectures, and also Samuel Kirk and Edward Gregg. He was also supported by the husbands of three of his sisters.54 Though Dissent depended upon a number of wealthy individuals to provide a meeting-place and for much of the finances to pay the minister, there is evidence for a wider level of support. The congregation at Chester had already paid for the fitting-out of their new meeting-place before Henry arrived. In late October, five months after his arrival, he was given £20 11s. 6d. raised from his congregation by personal contributions ‘w[hi]ch they said was more yn yei expected, … but they said yei found people extraord[inarily]. free & willing never prest any, to it, and coming out of so many hands near 200, they reckon it far from being any burthen’.55 In September 1699, because of the growth in numbers and a change of ownership for their meeting-place, the congregation built their own meeting-house in Crook Lane, which was completed in July 1700 at a cost of £532 16s., and paid for by a subscription raised among the members (see figure 1.3). Harvey died in November 1699 and was succeeded by his son, Jonathan, who continued preaching until September 1706, when ill-health and a sharp decline in the support he received from his congregation led him to resign his charge and give up preaching. The Congregational meeting dissolved. A gallery was added to the Presbyterian meeting to accommodate the additional members from Harvey’s old church.56
4. Matthew Henry and his Ministry
William Tong described in detail Matthew Henry’s work as a minister. ‘His Labours were so many and great’ that Tong arranged Henry’s ministerial efforts under different heads: public and private, constant and occasional, at home with his own congregation and abroad with other congregations.57 At home and in public among his own people he was regular in preaching twice on Sundays and again at a lecture mid-week on Thursday afternoons, and in administering the sacrament the first Sunday in the month.58 He also catechized the young on Saturday afternoons for about an hour, originally using the Assemblies Catechism but later drawing up and publishing his own scripture catechism, shorter and plainer and more suited to the abilities of children. He continued to catechize on Saturday afternoons partly as ‘it was attended by others besides the Catechumens, and esteemed by them a good Means of Preparation for the Lord’s Day’.59 It was an hour many were used to attending since Mr Cook, who had been minister until his death in 1684, ‘used to preach at that time’, while Matthew Henry also had more time with the children than would have been possible catechising publicly on Sundays.60
On the Sabbath, after prayers at home (both privately in his closet and with his family), Henry began his service at 9am with the singing of the 100th Psalm, then after ‘a short but fervent prayer’, he read some part of the Old Testament which he expounded.61 He then sang another psalm and prayed for about half an hour in preparation for the sermon. After preaching for about an hour, he prayed again. This was followed by the singing of the 117th Psalm and he then gave the blessing. Henry followed exactly the same pattern in the afternoon except he expounded a text out of the New Testament and concluded with a different psalm.62 While at Chester he went through the Bible more than once: ‘by this Means his People have been observed to excel in their Acquaintance with the Holy Scriptures’.63 A key part of Henry’s ministry was encouraging family religion and the reading of the Bible in family devotions. His immensely influential Exposition of the Old and New Testament was prepared specifically for use in families.64
Henry’s personal ministry extended much further than just his work (both public and private) with his own congregation. As Tong recorded, ‘he had a just Care for all the Churches, and especially those that were within his Line; I mean, such as he could visit and return home at the Weeks end’.65 From the time he settled at Chester, Henry developed a regular preaching circuit of some thirty miles around the city. Again in Tong’s words:
The Towns and Villages that lay near to Chester enjoyed a great share of his Labours; in some of these he preached a Monthly Lecture, as at Moldsworth, Grange, Brombrough, Elton, Saighton; and frequently at Beeston, Mickledale, and Peckfurton; he was often employed at Wrexham, Shocklidge, Burton and Darnal; there was scarce a Week but he was at one or more of these Places, preaching the Gospel (besides his constant Work at home …).66
This work differed from his ministry to his own congregation in Chester, for it consisted largely of weekday lectures: a lecture was a sermon given on a regular basis, usually monthly, and often in this period by a group of ministers preaching in turn. The people who gathered specially to hear the sermon were not a regular congregation, though of course they might become one in time. Henry’s correspondence provides more details of his work. He told his father in June 1689:
I went on Monday last to Nantwych, thence came to ye wood [Wrenbury Wood] on Tuesd. where our meeting was thin, bec[ause]. of ye coming of my L[or]d Del[amere] to Nantwych, … on Wedn. morn. Bro. Sav[age] brought mee to Ridley hall, where Rich. Craven lives, there wee had room enough & a competent congregacon.67
Many of these meetings were held in private houses, most commonly in the houses of the local gentry supporters or a wealthy yeoman, with room enough to accommodate the neighbours. This was not new, having been the pattern since the earliest days of Dissent. Henry also used to take an annual preaching excursion into Staffordshire and Lancashire.68
The gentry had provided much of the support for Dissent in the countryside during the period under the penal laws following the Restoration of Charles II, often employing ejected ministers (or later, recently trained ministers) as their family chaplains or as tutors for their children. Henry therefore felt obligated to these families. As he told his father:
I had a message from Madam Hunt last week to claim the performance of a cursory promise I made of spending a Sabbath with them, which I would willingly do if I could get some Supply here. I had then thoughts of Dr Barnet, but hee’s taken up as much as ever, and so unless you can provide any for mee, or Mr Owen can come I must be excus’d.69
The published accounts of the history of Dissent are concerned with settled meetings, such as Matthew Henry’s congregation at Chester, or the meetings at Nantwich or Knutsford. This gives a misleading picture of the pattern and structure of religious dissent in this period. Besides the established congregations in the cities and market towns, with their meeting-houses, endowments, and a settled minister who provided services twice every Sabbath day, there were many other local centres of nonconformist activity, providing regular lectures and sermons, and where fasts and prayer meetings were held.70
The demands on Henry’s time and that of other ministers to maintain these lectures and to provide Sabbath services for the smaller rural congregations were great, and until a new generation of younger ministers could be trained up there were difficulties. When his father was ill in the early summer of 1692, Matthew told him if he could have any leave ‘I would bee very glad to come help you, but I know not which way to look.… Might not Mr Corbet’s Chaplain help you sometimes?’71 A year later he told his father:
I have thoughts of bringing my wife to Broad-Oke the day after the Fast, if she be wel & able thats Thrusd. come sevnight, and if Mr Owen could be at Chester the Lords day after, I would spend it at Boreatton, if not I must come home on Saturday, & come again on Munday morning: & go then to Bor[eatton]: & so be at Salop on Tuesday – may be you wil have an opportunity of proposing it to Mr O[wen]. before I shal, and if he cannot I have no where else to look.72
A couple of days later he wrote: ‘If Mr Owen cannot very conveniently be at Chester on Sabb.day I think I could wel enough bear a journy back to Chester on Saturday, and yn y[o]u again on Munday, and so to Boreatt. but if he can I might save that labor’.73 Not surprisingly Henry made himself ill by his exertions and there were worries about his health.74
5. Conclusion: Matthew Henry’s Lasting Reputation
Henry’s lasting reputation depends upon his published work rather than his preaching. His most celebrated and enduring work, his Exposition of the Old and New Testament, the product of much close scholarship in his study, was incomplete at his death, with a fifth volume in the press only taken so far as Acts. A final volume was completed in 1721; the work of fourteen nonconformist ministers.75 It gained great popularity, and by 1855 twenty-five editions had been published with further editions in the modern period, including an online version. Henry published another thirty works principally concerned with family religion, instructing youth, and religious faith. His Scripture Catechism (1703) had reached a fourth edition by 1720, and was published in Welsh in 1717; his Communicant’s Companion (1704) an eighth edition by 1720, with both a Boston and a Dublin printing in 1716; and his Method for Prayer (1710) a fifth edition by 1718. The titles reveal the practical nature of much of his work.
With his increasing reputation, Henry received invitations from the congregations of Mare Street (Hackney) in 1699, Salters’ Hall (London) in 1702, Cross Street (Manchester) in 1705, and from Silver Street and Old Jewry (London) in 1708, all of which he refused. In 1710 he was again invited to Mare Street, Hackney, which at first he declined, and then after much irresolution he was finally persuaded to accept on the basis of being publicly more useful at Hackney. He left Chester in May 1712, but with many tears.76 In London he quickly took his place amongst the leading ministers.
He died on 22 June 1714 near Nantwich as a result of a fall from his horse while on a visit to Cheshire, aged 52. Too much time spent in his study had made him corpulent. His sister, Sarah Savage, recorded in her diary that she found when they arrived at Nantwich that ‘he had met wth a fall’, but was apparently unhurt and said he was well. He ‘hastn’d to Chapel, w[hi]ch was fill’d w[i]th hearers’, but he did not preach with that vigour he usually had, and was afterwards exceedingly tired. He was bled, but towards morning grew convulsive, and, about seven or eight o’clock, he died after very little struggle. The following day, Sarah went to take her leave of her brother. I ‘shall always remember there was nothing of death to be seen in his face, but rather something of a smile’. Two days later ‘we gather’d up ye mantle of this dear Elijah took ye dear remains to Chester, where they buried him in Trinity-church next to his first Wife’, accompanied by ‘a vast crowd desiring to pay their tribute to his blessed memory’.77
There can be little doubt of Matthew Henry’s reputation at the time of his death. He was minister of one of the leading congregations near London, having refused repeated invitations from other major congregations both in London and in the provinces. He had been named in 1711 by Daniel Williams (the founder of the library which bears his name) in his will as one of the original twenty-three trustees of his great charity, though he never acted because he died before Williams. He was elected a manager of the Presbyterian Fund in June 1711, before he had left Chester.78 Following his death, four of the leading dissenting ministers (including Williams) published funeral sermons, and many others were preached. A vast crowd attended his funeral, and eight of the city’s clergy were in attendance at his internment. No other early eighteenth-century dissenting minister was so honoured; not even Daniel Williams eighteen months later. Except for the clergyman conducting the service (a duty usually left to the curate), attendance by Anglican clergy at the funerals of Dissenters, particularly dissenting ministers, is almost unknown. They deliberately avoided honouring them.
Without doubt Matthew Henry’s reputation at his death was based upon his work as a minister, indeed upon his evangelical ministry. It was this reputation which led to so many invitations from congregations. Of course his publications extended his reputation much further than his preaching could have done, but for Henry they were an enlargement of his ministry and of a practical nature. William Orme, the early nineteenth-century biblical commentator, made this point, seeing Henry’s Exposition as ‘distinguished, not for the depth of its learning, or the originality of its views; but for the sound practical piety, and large measure of good sense, which it discovers’.79 His other practical works (his Scripture Catechism, his Communicant’s Companion, and his Method for Prayer) were popular, going through many editions in his lifetime. Henry died while still a relatively young man. What might he have achieved had he lived longer?
Less obvious perhaps was the legacy Henry left in Cheshire as a result of his preaching and his ministry. It is now clear that religious dissent underwent a remarkable transformation during the twenty-five-year period that followed the granting of toleration in 1689. In 1689, Dissenters were still emerging from the effects of nearly three decades of persecution, which, if not continuous, had at times been extremely fierce. In some areas, principally the larger towns, Dissenters had held their meetings for many years, often served by the same minister. Few congregations, however, had escaped the disruptive effects of the two Conventicle Acts and the other penal laws. Many nonconformist groups, as was the case in Chester, were scattered by the intense persecution which followed the Exclusion Crisis, re-establishing their meetings only after James II had issued his Declaration of Indulgence in April 1687.80 In other places Dissenters had never succeeded in holding regular meetings or been able to support a minister of their own, having instead to rely upon the efforts of occasional preachers. By 1715, when the survey known as the Evans List was undertaken, religious dissent had been transformed, and the returns reveal a pattern of settled meetings covering most parts of the countryside as well as the main towns, a majority served by their own minister. In Cheshire, meetings had been held in Chester, Congleton, Stockport, and Dukinfield before toleration, but new meetings were established after 1687 in Nantwich, Knutsford, Allostock, Hyde, Dean Row, Bromborough and Upton in the Wirral, Ashton upon Mersey, Tinsel, Northwich, and Middlewich.81 This transformation was achieved as a result of sustained evangelical preaching by the generation of ministers who were active in the decades after toleration was granted and their imaginative use of lectures and other opportunities to gather an audience to hear them preach. Matthew Henry was exceptional in his ministry, but he was not unique. The strength of English Presbyterianism in Cheshire is a tribute to his efforts and the efforts of his ministerial colleagues. For Henry, in many ways it would have been this record rather than his own personal reputation which would have pleased him the most.
1 William Tong, An Account of the Life and Death of Mr. Matthew Henry, Minister of the Gospel at Hackney (London: E. Matthews, M. Lawrence, and S. Cliff, 1716), 282.
2 Tong, An Account, 8 (cf. 27). A.G. Matthews, Calamy Revised (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934), 257. For general accounts of the period, see: Tim Harris, Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, 1660–1685 (London: Allen Lane, 2005); Gary S. De Krey, Restoration and Revolution in Britain: A Political History of the Era of Charles II and the Glorious Revolution (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
3 Patricia Crawford, ‘Katharine and Philip Henry and their Children: A Case Study in Family Ideology’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire 134 (1984): 39–73; Amanda E. Herbert, Female Alliances: Gender, Identity, and Friendship in Early Modern Britain (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2014), ch. 6; Gillian Wright, ‘Delight in Good Books: Family, Devotional Practice, and Textual Circulation in Sarah Savage’s Diaries’, Book History 18 (2015): 48–74.
4 For a modern biographical account, see David L. Wykes, ‘Henry, Matthew (1662–1714)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. David Cannadine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/12975.
5 David L. Wykes, ‘The Early Years of Religious Dissent in Cheshire following James II’s Declaration of Indulgence in April 1687’, Northern History 52 (2015): 217–32 (217, 219).
6 Tong, An Account, 9, 11, 15.
7 Tong, An Account, 19.
8 Tong, An Account, 12.
9 Tong, An Account, 12.
10 Tong, An Account, 13, cf. 15–16. Both this paragraph and those to follow draw extensively on William Tong’s Account.
11 Tong, An Account, 16–17.
12 Tong, An Account, 12–15.
13 Tong, An Account, 22 (cf. 15, 21–22). See also: Matthew Henry, An Account of the Life and Death of Mr Philip Henry, 2nd ed. (London: n.p., 1699), 88, 128; Matthew Henry Lee, ed., Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1882), 139, 172, 176, 196, 216, 249, 317.
14 John Bickerton Williams, Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry (London: B.J. Holdsworth, 1828), 3.
15 Tong, An Account, 31 (also 29).
16 Tong, An Account, 20.
17 For an account of these early tutors, see Mark Burden, A Biographical Dictionary of Tutors at the Dissenters’ Private Academies, 1660–1729 (London: Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies, 2013), http://www.qmulreligionandliterature.co.uk/
18 Letter from Matthew Henry, London, to his sisters (18 July 1680), printed in H.D. Roberts, Matthew Henry and his Chapel: 1662–1900 (Liverpool: The Liverpool Booksellers’ Company, 1901), 39–42 (41). Also Tong, An Account, 26.
19 Lee, Diaries and Letters, 294.
20 ‘Diary of Sarah Savage, 31 May 1714 – 25 Dec 1723’ (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng. Misc. e. 331), 5; Tong, An Account, 28.
21 Lee, Diaries and Letters, 309.
22 Lee, Diaries and Letters, 318–19.
23 ‘Letter from Philip Henry to Matthew Henry, Gray’s Inn, 30 May 1685’ (National Library of Wales, MS 14563B, p. 4). Also, Tong, An Account, 34–35.
24 Tong, An Account, 34.
25 ‘Diary of Sarah Savage’, 6.
26 Tong, An Account, 34–35.
27 Tong, An Account, 43–45. Matthew Henry, ‘A Short Account of the Beginning and Progress of our Congregation’ (1710) (Cheshire Archives, D/MH/1), fol. 7r. The latter is Henry’s early history of his congregation (also printed in Roberts, Matthew Henry, 72–101).
28 Tong, An Account, 43.
29 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r; Roberts, Matthew Henry, 36, 74. For the ejected ministers active in Chester at this date, see Matthews, Calamy Revised, 29–30, 132–33, 242, 251, 327.
30 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r. Also, Tong, An Account, 45.
31 Tong, An Account, 45.
32 Tong, An Account, 45–46; Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r.
33 Wykes, ‘Early Years’, 221–22.
34 Henry Fishwick, ed., The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly, A.D. 1671–1693, Chetham Society New Series 33 (Manchester: Chetham Society, 1894), 82.
35 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r.
36 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r.
37 Tong, An Account, 63.
38 Tong, An Account, 63–71.
39 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r.
40 Tong, An Account, 75.
41 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r.
42 Tong, An Account, 75.
43 Tong, An Account, 74.
44 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r; David L. Wykes, ‘Tong, William (1662–1727)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. David Cannadine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/27534.
45 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r. Also, Tong, An Account, 75, 78–79.
46 Tong, An Account, 75.
47 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fols. 7r–7v. For an account of the Happy Union and the breakup of the agreement, see David L. Wykes, ‘After the Happy Union: Presbyterians and Independents in the Provinces’, Studies in Church History 32 (1996): 281–93.
48 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r. Dr Lawrence Fogg was Dean of Chester.
49 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7r.
50 Tong, An Account, 78–79.
51 Tong, An Account, 79–81.
52 Tong, An Account, 82; Roberts, Matthew Henry, 194; Eveline Cruickshanks, ‘Henry Warburton, Philip (1700–60), of Hefferstone Grange, Cheshire’, in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1715–1754, ed. Romney Sedgwick, 2 vols. (London: HMSO, 1970), 2:128.
53 ‘Letter from M[atthew] H[enry] to his father, 16 Aug 1687’ (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng. lett e. 29, fol. 43r).
54 Tong, An Account, 76–77.
55 ‘Letter from M[atthew] H[enry] to his father, 26 Oct 1687’ (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng. lett e. 29, fol. 45r).
56 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fols. 7r–8v; Roberts, Matthew Henry, 92–93.
57 Tong, An Account, 116.
58 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fols. 7r–7v.
59 Tong, An Account, 156.
60 Henry, ‘Short Account’, fol. 7v.
61 Tong, An Account, 117.
62 Tong, An Account, 117.
63 Tong, An Account, 119.
64 Scott Mandelbrote, ‘A Family Bible? The Henrys and Dissenting Readings of the Bible, 1650–1750’, in Dissent and the Bible in Britain, c.1650–1950, ed. Scott Mandelbrote and Michael Ledger-Lomas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 38–56 (esp. 45, 47–48).
65 Tong, An Account, 184.
66 Tong, An Account, 184–85.
67 ‘Letter from Matthew Henry to his father, 30 Jun 1689’ (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng. lett e. 29, fol. 93r). Savage had married Henry’s sister, Sarah.
68 Tong, An Account, 196.
69 ‘Letter from Matthew Henry, Chester, to Philip Henry, Broad Oak, 5 Sept 1692’, printed in Roberts, Matthew Henry, 37.
70 Wykes, ‘Early Years’, 225.
71 ‘Letter [from Matthew Henry, Chester], to Philip Henry, [May/Jun 1692]’ (British Library, MS 41071, fol. 54r).
72 ‘Letter from M[atthew] H[enry] to [Philip] Henry, 2 Jun 1693’ (Dr Williams’s Library, MS 90.7.23).
73 ‘Letter from M[atthew] H[enry] to [Philip] Henry, 7 Jun 1693’ (Dr Williams’s Library, MS 90.7.24).
74 ‘Letter from M[atthew] H[enry] to Philip Henry, Broad Oak, 26 Apr 1689’ (Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng. lett e. 29, fols. 87r, 86v).
75 For the significance of Henry’s Exposition, see Mandelbrote, ‘Family Bible’.
76 Tong, An Account, 239–40, 246–47, 250–53.
77 ‘Diary of Sarah Savage’, 4–6. For a copy of the monumental inscription in Trinity Church, see Joseph Hemingway, History of the City of Chester, from its Foundation to the Present Time (Chester: J. Fletcher, 1831), 97.
78 ‘Presbyterian Fund Board minutes, 5 Feb 1694/5 – 4 Jun 1722’ (Dr Williams’s Library, MS OD68), 207 (4 June 1711). The Presbyterian Fund was the principal source of grants supporting students for the ministry, ministers, and their congregations after the Glorious Revolution.
79 William Orme, Bibliotheca Biblica: A Select List of Books on Sacred Literature (Edinburgh: Adam Black, 1824), 240–41.
80 Wykes, ‘Early Years’, 219–20.
81 John Evans, ‘List of Dissenting Congregations and Ministers in England and Wales, 1715–29’ (Dr Williams’s Library, MS 38.4), s.v. ‘Cheshire’. This was a survey undertaken for the committee of the Three Denominations of Baptists, Congregationals, and Presbyterians on their numerical and political strength between 1715 and 1717, with additions up to 1729.