promises are yea and amen; that he never, never will, as the apostle
24. I believe that their minds are incessantly subject to a thousand impertinent, unprofitable thoughts, even amidst their reading, meditation, and prayers; that all their religious exercises are deficient; that all their graces, how eminent soever, are imperfect; that God sees iniquity in all their holy things; and though it be granted that they love God with all their hearts, yet they must continually pray with the psalmist, Enter not into judgment with thy servant.
25. But I believe that Jesus is a full as well as a free Saviour, the same yesterday, today, and for ever. He alone is not only the believer's wisdom and righteousness, but his sanctification and redemption; and in him is a fountain ever open for sin and uncleanness unto the last breath of his life. This is my daily, necessary privilege, my relief, and my comfort.
26. I believe, lastly, that God is faithful and unchangeable; that all his promises are yea and amen; that he never, never will, as the apostle says, leave me; will never, never, never forsake me; but that I, and all that believe, love, and fear him, shall receive the end of our faith—the salvation of our souls.
"Here is the sum and substance of my creed. It is at least what I presume to call my form of sound words. In it I can truly say I have no respect to men or books, ancient or modern, but to the Holy Scriptures, reason, and experience. According to this creed hitherto I have, and I hope hereafter to proceed in all my preaching, debasing man and exalting any dear Lord in all his offices."
The last specimen that I will give of Grimshaw's remains is a letter addressed by him to certain Christians in London. It is dated January 9, 1760, and is to be found in Hardy's Life.
"Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus. It is well with some sorts of people that you have had, or now have to do with. It is well with those of you in Christ
who are gone to God; it is well with those of you in Christ who are not gone to God; it is well with those of you who earnestly long to be in Christ, that they may go to God; it is well for those who neither desire to be in Christ nor to go to. God; and it is only bad with such who, being out of Christ, are gone to the devil. Them it is best to let alone, and say no more about them.
"It is well with those of you who, being in Christ, are gone to God. You, ministers and members of Christ, have no more doubt or pain about them. They are now and for ever out of the reach of the world, flesh, and devil. They are gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. They are sweetly reposing in Abraham's bosom. They dwell in His presence who hath redeemed them, where there is fulness of joy and pleasure for evermore. They are waiting the joyful morning of the resurrection, when their vile bodies shall be made like unto his glorious body, shall be re-united to the soul, shall receive the joyful sentence, and inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
"It is well also with those of you who are in Christ though not gone to God. You live next door to them. Heaven is begun with you too. The kingdom of God is within you; you feel it. This is a kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. It is begun in grace, and shall terminate in glory. Yea, it is Christ within you the hope of glory. Christ the rock, the foundation laid in your hearts, hope in the middle, and glory at the top. Christ, hope, glory! Christ, hope, glory! You are washed in the blood of the Lamb; justified, sanctified, and shall shortly be glorified. Yea, your lives are already hid with Christ in God. You have your conversation already in heaven. Already you sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. What heavenly sentences are these! What can come nearer Paradise? Bless the Lord, O ye happy souls, and let all that is within you bless his holy name. Sing unto the Lord as long as you live, and praise your God while you have your being. And how long will that be! Through the endless ages of a glorious eternity!
"It is well with all those of you who truly desire to be in Christ, that you may go to God. Surely he owns you. Your desires are from him; you shall. enjoy his favour. By-and-by you shall have peace with him through our Lord Jesus Christ. Go forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed by the Shepherd's tents. Be constant in every means of grace. He will be found of them that diligently seek him. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Though your sins be never so many, never so monstrous, all shall be forgiven. He will have mercy upon you, and will abundantly pardon. For where sin bath abounded, grace doth much more abound. He who hath begun this good work in you will accomplish it to your eternal good and his eternal glory. Therefore doubt not, fear not; a broken and a contrite heart God will not despise. The deeper is your sorrow, the nearer is your joy. Your extremity is God's opportunity. It is usually darkest just before daybreak. You shall shortly find pardon, peace, and plenteous redemption, and at last rejoice in the common and glorious salvation of his saints.
"And lastly, it is well for you who neither truly desire to be in Christ, nor to go to God. For it is well for you that you are not in hell. It is well your day of grace is not utterly past. Behold, now is your accepted time; behold, now is your day of salvation! Oh that you may employ the remainder of it in working out your salvation with fear and trembling. Now is faith to be had—saving faith. Now you may be washed from all sins in the Redeemer's blood, justified, sanctified, and prepared for heaven. Take, I beseech you, the time, while the time is You have now the means of grace to use, the ordinances of God to enjoy, his Word to read and hear, his ministers to instruct you, and his members to converse with. You know not what a day may bring forth. You may die suddenly. As death leaves you judgment will find you. And if you should die as you are—out of Christ, void of true faith, unregenerate, unsanctified —fire and brimstone, storm and tempest, God will rain upon you, as your eternal, intolerable portion to drink.
"Suffer me, therefore, thus far, one and all of you. God's glory and your everlasting salvation is all I aim at. What I look for in return from you is, I confess, much more than I deserve—your prayers."
It would be easy to supply many more extracts than these. But I forbear. I make no apology, however, for the length of those I have already given. The reader will probably agree with me that they are in themselves full of interesting matter. But this is not all. They possess an additional value as supplying a most graphic picture of Grimshaw's mode of expressing himself, and of the topics on which his mind was constantly dwelling. In fact, they furnish a pretty correct idea of what the good man's preaching must have been. He evidently wrote as he thought and spoke. His remains are just the overflowing of a heart full of Scripture, full of Christ, full of deep thoughts on the sinfulness of sin, the value of the soul, the need of repentance and faith, the happiness of holy living, the importance of a world to come. Let a man analyze Grimshaw's remains carefully and thoughtfully, and I suspect he will have a very fair conception of the style in which Grimshaw used to preach.
The anecdotes and traditions that have been handed down about the good Incumbent of Haworth are very many and very curious. All of them, perhaps, are not true. Some, perhaps, are greatly exaggerated. Many, however, after making every fair deduction, are undoubtedly credible and genuine. I will mention some of them.
The influence he gradually obtained in his own parish was very great. Even those who were not converted looked up to him and feared him. John Newton says: "One Sunday, as a man was passing through Haworth on horseback, his horse lost a shoe. He applied to a blacksmith to put it on. To his surprise, the man told him he could not shoe a horse on the Lord's day without the minister's leave. They went together to Mr. Grimshaw, and the man satisfying him that he was really in haste, going for a doctor, Mr. Grimshaw permitted the blacksmith to shoe the horse, which otherwise he would not have done for double pay."
"It was his frequent custom," adds Newton, "to leave the church at Haworth while the psalm before sermon was singing, to see if any were absent from worship and idling their time in the churchyard, the street, or the ale-houses; and many of those whom he so found he would drive into church before him. A friend of mine, passing a public-house in Haworth on a Lord's day morning, saw several persons making their escape out of it, some jumping out of the lower windows, and some over a low wall. He was at first alarmed, fearing the house was on fire; but upon inquiring what was the cause of the commotion, he was only told that they saw the parson coming. They were more afraid of the parson than of a justice of the peace. His reproof was so authoritative, and yet so mild and friendly, that the stoutest sinner could not stand before him.
"He endeavoured likewise to suppress the common custom of walking in the fields on the Lord's day in summer, instead of coming to God's house. He not only bore his testimony against it from the pulpit, but went into the fields in person to detect and reprove the delinquents. There was a spot at some distance from the village, where many young people used to assemble on Sundays in spite of all his warnings. At last he disguised himself one evening, that he might not be known till he was near enough to discover who they were. He then threw off his disguise, and charged them not to move. He took down all their names with his pencil, and ordered them to attend on him on a day and hour which he appointed. They all waited on him accordingly, as punctually as if they had been served with a warrant. When they came, he led them into a private room, when, after forming them into a circle and commanding them to kneel down, he kneeled down in the midst of them, and prayed for them with much earnestness for a considerable time. After rising from his knees, he gave them a close and affecting lecture. He never had occasion to repeat this friendly discipline. He entirely broke the objectionable custom."
One of the most remarkable and well-authenticated anecdotes about Grimshaw is in connection with Haworth races. These races were an
annual festival got up by the innkeepers, and a great occasion of drunkenness, riot, profligacy, and confusion. For some time Grimshaw attempted in vain to stop these races. "At last," says John Newton, "unable to prevail with men, he addressed himself to God. For some time before the races he made it a subject of fervent prayer that the Lord would be pleased to interfere, and to stop these evil proceedings in his own way. When the race-time came, the people assembled as usual, but they were soon dispersed. Before the races could begin, dark clouds covered the sky, and such excessively heavy rain fell, that the people could not remain on the ground, and it continued to rain incessantly during the three days appointed for the races. This event was much spoken of at Haworth. It became a sort of proverbial saying among the people that old Grimshaw put a stop to the races by his prayers. And it proved an effectual stop. There were no more races at Haworth."
"He was particularly watchful," says Newton, "over those of his flock who made an open profession of religion, to see if they adorned the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things, and maintained a consistent character; and he was very severe in his censures if he found any of his communicants guilty of wrong practices. When he suspected hypocrisy, he sometimes took such strange methods to detect it, as perhaps few men but himself would have thought of. He had a suspicion of the sincerity of some of his hearers, who made great pretence to religion. In order to find out one of them, he disguised himself as a poor man, and applied to him for relief and a lodging; and, behold! this person who wished to be thought very good and charitable, treated him with some abuse.— He then went to another house, to a woman who was almost blind. He touched her gently with his stick, and went on doing it until she, supposing it was done by some children in the neighbourhood, began not only to threaten but to swear at them. Thus he was confirmed in his apprehensions."
"At a cottage prayer meeting," says Hardy, "some of Grimshaw's people had to endure much annoyance and persecution, and for a
long time no one could discover who the delinquents were. At last the incumbent came to their assistance and solved the mystery. He put on an old woman's cap, and peeped stealthily from behind the door, and then appeared to grow rather bolder, while he quietly made the observation he wished. He found there was a set of rude boys who only came to make sport and annoy others. They soon began to make fun of the old woman (as she seemed to be), and defied her with mocks and menaces. In this way they were all found out and brought to justice, and then the persecution ceased."
He carried his humility and simplicity of living to such an extent that he thought anything good enough for himself, if he could only show a Christian brother kindness and hospitality. A godly friend who once came to stay a night with him, was horrified on looking out of his bedroom window in the morning, to see Grimshaw with his own hands cleaning his guest's boots! Nor was this all. On coming down stairs he discovered that Grimshaw had actually given up his own bedroom for his accommodation, and had spent the night in a hayloft!
His ways in his own parish, as he went about doing the work of a pastor, were very peculiar. Hardy says, "When he met with anyone in the lanes he would enter into familiar conversation with them, and generally asked if they were accustomed to pray. When they answered in the affirmative, and he doubted their sincerity, he bade them kneel down and show him how they performed this duty. There were sometimes scenes by the road-side, in consequence, that a stranger could not look at without a smile; but to the persons concerned these inquiries were, in some instances, the means of awakening concern about their souls. The tradition of the district is, that he would rive them from horseback to make them pray.' But he was as ready to do an act of courtesy as to administer reproof. Once on his way to Colne, he overtook an old woman, and asked her where she was going. She replied, 'To hear Grimshaw.' He pitied her many infirmities; but she said her heart was already there, and she would make the body follow. Struck by her earnestness, he actually
took her up behind him on the pillion of his own horse, and thus enabled her to reach the place without further toil."
Hardy adds, "Grimshaw was not unmindful of himself, whilst watchful over the souls of others. Once he had a very fine cow, in which he took so much pride, that the thought of her followed him into the service of the Church, and hindered his communion with God. He determined that she should no longer ruffle his mind, and so announced her for sale. When a farmer came to look at her, he asked, as usual, whether she had any fault. To this Grimshaw made this quaint reply, Her fault in my eyes will be no fault to you; she follows me into my pulpit."
The things that he did inside his church, both in the reading-desk and the pulpit, may certainly seem to us very eccentric and strange in the present day. Undoubtedly, they are not examples for imitation; and unless a man is "a Grimshaw," he has no right to attempt them. Before condemning them too strongly, however, men should call to mind the times and the population with which he had to do. We are, in fact, dealing with a man who lived a hundred years ago.
He was very particular in enforcing order and devout behaviour among the worshippers in his church at Haworth. Carelessness and inattention were instantly observed and openly rebuked; and he would not proceed with the service until he saw every person present in the attitude of devotion. Some of his hearers certainly deserved great attention and encouragement. Not a few came ten or twelve miles every Sunday to attend his ministry. One John Madden of Bacup often walked to Haworth on the Sabbath, and returned the same evening, a distance, out and home, of nearly forty miles.
In giving out the hymns to be sung in church, he sometimes took singular liberties. A valued friend of mine was told by an old man in Haworth that he remembered his grandfather speaking of Grimshaw, and telling the following story:—His grandfather was in Haworth
Church, when Grimshaw gave out the well-known hymn of Dr. Watts, beginning,—
"Come, ye that love the Lord,
And let your joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord,
And so surround the throne."
He said, that when Grimshaw had read the first verse, he looked at the people, and cried out, "Now, unconverted sinners here present, can you sing that?"
His sermons were seldom short when he occupied his own pulpit at Haworth. Indeed, he sometimes preached for two hours! For this he once made an apology to John Newton: "If I were in some places," he said, "I might not think it needful to speak so much. But many of my hearers, who are wicked and careless, are likewise very ignorant and slow of apprehension. If they do not understand me, I cannot hope to do them good; and when. I think of the uncertainty of life, that, perhaps, it may be the last opportunity, and that it is not impossible I may never see them again till the great day, I know not how to be explicit enough. I try to set the subject in a variety of lights. I express the same thoughts in different words, and can scarcely tell how to leave off, lest I should have omitted something, for want of which my preaching and their hearing should be vain."
His prayers after sermon must have been sometimes very remarkable. John Pawson, a well-known Methodist preacher, said, in 1803, that he heard him, fifty years before, preach a most comforting discourse on the words, "O fear the Lord, ye his saints, for there is no want to them that fear him" (Psalm 34:9), in which he spoke very strongly about God's faithfulness to his promises, and said, "Before the Lord will suffer his promise to fail, he will lay aside his divinity and un-God himself." He then offered the following prayer: "Lord,
dismiss us with thy blessing. Take all these poor people under thy care, and bring them in safety to their own houses, and give them their supper when they get home. But let them not eat a morsel till they have said a grace. Then let them eat and be satisfied, and return thanks to thee when they have done. Then let them kneel down and say their prayers before 'they go to bed. Let them do this for one at any rate, and then thou wilt preserve them till the morning."
Though Grimshaw's ministry was almost entirely among the poor and lower middle classes, he was quite able to take his position and speak wisely and shrewdly in any company. On one occasion he was invited to meet a nobleman who had imbibed infidel principles, and had resisted the efforts of two eminent clergymen to convince him of his error. He wished at once to draw Grimshaw into a discussion, but Grimshaw firmly and decidedly declined. "My lord," he said, "I do not refuse to argue because I have nothing to say, or because I fear for my cause. I refuse because argument will do you no good. If you really needed any information, I would gladly assist you. But the fault is not in your head, but in your heart, which can only be reached by a divine power. I shall pray for you, but I will not dispute with you." The nobleman afterwards said that he was more impressed by the honesty and firmness of those simple words than by all the arguments he had heard.
"To a lady," says Hardy, "with whom Grimshaw was conversing, he once gave a striking reproof. She was expressing her admiration of a certain minister who had more talents than grace. Madam,' said Grimshaw, I am glad you never saw the devil. He has greater talents than all the ministers in the world. I fear, if you saw him, you would fall in love with him, as you have so high a regard for talents without sanctity. Pray, do not be led away with the sound of talents."
Anecdotes like these tell a tale that ought not to be overlooked. The subject of them must surely have been no ordinary man. When sayings and doings are so carefully treasured up and handed down
from generation to generation, the character round which they cluster was one of no common mould. I repeat the opinion that I expressed at the beginning of this biography. There were not three greater spiritual heroes in England one hundred years ago than William Grimshaw.
I will now conclude this paper with three short extracts from men of approved characters in the last century, which serve to show the high estimation in which Grimshaw was held by his contemporaries.
Romaine said publicly in a sermon preached at St. Dunstan's in the West, shortly after Grimshaw's death,— "Mr. Grimshaw was one of the most laborious and indefatigable ministers of Christ that I ever knew. For the good of souls he rejected all hopes of affluent fortune, and for the love of Christ cheerfully undertook difficulties, dangers, and tribulations. He preached Christ and Christ alone; and God gave him very numerous seals to his ministry. Himself hath told me that not fewer than x 200 were in communion with him, most of whom, in the judgment of charity, he could not but believe to be one with Christ.. When some of his friends, in tenderness to his health, would wish him to spare himself, he would answer, 'Let me labour now: I shall have rest enough by-Ad-by. I cannot do enough for Christ, who has done so much for me.' He was the most humble walker with God I ever met with; inasmuch that he could never bear to hear any commendations of his usefulness, or anything which belonged to him. His last words were, 'Here goes an unprofitable servant!' "
Henry Venn, who preached his funeral sermon, said, among other things,— "It is hard to determine whether we have more cause to lament his removal from our world, or to rejoice that God was pleased to enrich him with divine knowledge in so large a measure, to make him so long an eminent instrument in his hand of converting sinners, and to enable him to persevere with an unblemished character till he finished his course with joy. Few have ever expressed so great ardency of affection to the service of Christ as your late much-loved pastor.
"Never was there any sordid child of this world more engrossed by the love of money, and more laborious in heaping it up, than your late pastor was in teaching and preaching the kingdom of God, and the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ."
John Newton says,— "I knew Mr. Grimshaw, and had repeated conversations with him for four or five years. I number it among the many great mercies of my life, that I was favoured with his notice, edified (I hope) by his instruction and example, and encouraged and directed by his advice, at the critical time when my own mind was engaged with the desire of entering the ministry. I saw in him, much more clearly than I could have learned from books or lectures, what it was to be a faithful and exemplary minister of the gospel; and the remembrance of him has often both humbled and animated me."
These testimonies are weighty and powerful. But they are not mere flattering words. They are well deserved, and they are true.
VI. William Romaine And His Ministry
Chapter 1
Born at Hartlepool in 1714—Educated at Houghton-k-Spring and Christ Church, Oxford —Character for Learning at Oxford—Ordained 1736—Curate of Lewtrenchard and Banstead—Lectures at St. Botolph's 1748, and St. Dunstan's 1749—Troubles at St. Dunstan's— Morning Preacher at St. George's, Hanover Square, 1750—Loses his Preachership 1755—Gresham Professor of Astronomy—Morning Preacher at St. Olave, Southwark, and St. Bartholomew the Great— Preaches before the University of Oxford—Gives great Offence.
The true Church of Christ is curiously like a well-appointed army.
The soldiers of an army all owe allegiance to one common sovereign, and are engaged in one common cause. They are commanded by one general, and fight against one common foe. And yet there are marked varieties and diversities among them. Cavalry, infantry, and artillery have each their own peculiar mode of fighting. Each arm in its own way is useful. It is the well-balanced combination of all three which gives to the whole army efficiency and power.
It is just the same with the true Church of Christ. Its members all love the same Saviour, and are led by the same Spirit; all wage the same warfare against sin and the devil, and all believe the same gospel. But the work of one soldier of Christ is not the work of another. Each is appointed by the Great Captain to fill his own peculiar position, and each is specially useful in his own department.
Thoughts such as these come across my mind, when I turn from Whitefield, Wesley, and Grimshaw, to the fourth spiritual hero of the last century—William Romaine. In doctrine and practical piety, the four good men were, in the main, of one mind. In their mode of working, they were curiously unlike one another. Whitefield and Wesley were spiritual cavalry, who scoured the country, and were found everywhere. Grimshaw was an infantry soldier, who had his head-quarters at Haworth, and never went far from home. Romaine, in the meantime, was a commander of heavy artillery, who held a citadel in the heart of a metropolis) and seldom stirred beyond his walls. Yet all these four men were mighty instruments in God's hand for good; and not one of them could have been spared. Each did good service in his own line; and not the least useful, I hope to show, was the Rector of Blackfriars, William Romaine. In what are called popular gifts, no doubt, he was not equal to his three great contemporaries. But none of the three, probably, was so well fitted as he was to fill the position which he occupied in London.
William Romaine was born at Hartlepool, in the county of Durham, on the 25th of September 1714. His father was one of the French Protestants who took refuge in England after the revocation of the
edict of Nantes. He settled at Hartlepool as a corn merchant, and appears to have prospered in business. At any rate, he brought up a family of two sons and three daughters, and left behind a high character as a kind and estimable man when he died, 1757, at the ripe age of eighty-five.
There is every reason to believe that Romaine's parents were decidedly religious people, and that from his earliest years he saw true Christianity both taught and exemplified in his own home. The value of this rare privilege can hardly be overrated. The seeds of a long life of service and usefulness were certainly sown by the Holy Ghost in this Hartlepool home. Romaine never forgot this. In a letter written to a friend when he was seventy years old, he uses the following expressions: "Mr. Whitefield used often to put me in mind how singularly favoured I was. He had none of his family converted; while my father, mother, and three sisters were like those blessed people of whom it is written, 'Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus.' And as they loved him again, so do we."
At the age of ten, Romaine was sent to a well-known grammar school at Houghton-le-Spring, in the county of Durham, founded by the famous Bernard Gilpin at the time of the Protestant Reformation. At this school he remained seven years. From thence, in the year 1731, he was sent to Oxford; and after first entering Hertford College, was finally removed to Christ Church. For the next six years he appears to have resided principally at Oxford, until he took his degree as Master of Arts in October 1737.
Of Romaine's manner of life at Oxford we know nothing, except the fact that he was a hard reader, and had a high reputation as a man of ability. Of his friends, companions, and associates, we have no record. This at first sight seems somewhat remarkable, when we remember that it was precisely at this period that "Methodism," so called, took its rise at the University. In fact, it was just the time when John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Whitefield, Ingham, and Hervey, were beginning to work for Christ in Oxford, and had formed a kind
of religious society. There is not, however, the slightest trace of any communication between them and Romaine. The most natural supposition is, that he was wholly absorbed in literary pursuits, and allowed himself no time for other work. To this we may add the fact, that the natural bent of his character would probably incline him to keep by himself and stand alone.
The high character which he attained in the university, as a learned man, is clearly shown by an anecdote related of him by his curate and successor, Mr. Goode, after his death. He says in his funeral sermon: "Dress was never a foible of Mr. Romaine's. His mind was superior to such borrowed ornaments. Immersed in the noble pursuit of literature, before his consecration to a still more exalted purpose, he paid but little attention to outward decoration. Being observed at Oxford, on one occasion, to walk by rather negligently attired, a visitor inquired of a friend, Master of one of the colleges: 'Who is that slovenly person with his stockings down? The master replied: 'That slovenly person, as you call him, is one of the greatest geniuses of the age, and is likely to be one of the greatest men in the kingdom.' "
Commendation like this was, of course, somewhat exaggerated and extravagant. But at any rate, there can be no doubt that Romaine left Oxford a thorough scholar and a well-read man. His worst enemies in after-life could never lay to his charge that he was "unlearned and ignorant." They might dislike his doctrinal views, but they could never deny that in any matter of Hebrew, Greek, or Latin criticism, his opinion was entitled to respect. Well would it be for the Churches, if in this respect there were more evangelical ministers who walked in the steps of Romaine. Grace and soundness in the faith, diligence and personal piety, are undoubtedly the principal things. But book-learning ought not to be despised. An ignorant and ill-read ministry, in days of intellectual activity, must sooner or later fall into contempt.
Romaine was ordained deacon at Hereford in 1736, by Bishop Egerton; and priest in 1738, by the Bishop of Winchester, the