When Philip Henry's mother lay dying of the consumption that was to remove her from this life on the 6th March 1645, she had this saying “My head is in heaven, and my heart is in heaven; it is but one step more, and I shall be there too.” It was a sentiment well expressed, and one that was to characterise the Henry household, especially, perhaps, in her godly son Philip, and to no loss a degree in his son Matthew, whose praise is throughout the Church of Christ. A popular saying of our day declares that a person can become so “heavenly-minded” as to be “no earthly use.” But a consideration of the lives of those who have been of most “use” to the Church of God on this earth puts paid to any such superficial cliché. Philip Henry believed that every day spent on earth was a day lost in heaven, and the earnest prayers of his son Matthew reduce themselves to this, - “Lord, let me not remain one day more than there is work for me to perform.” It was this kind of thinking that ran in the spiritual bloodstream of the Henrys, and which ran richest during those years when God gave gifts to His Church in the lives of a father and a son of that family.
Philip Henry was born on a day, the name of which was to take on a black significance in the life of non-conformist Christianity – St. Bartholomew's - 24th August. It was on this day in 1631 that he was born, and in his own words, it was on this day thirty-one years later that he underwent a death-like experience with two thousand other ministers of the gospel who refused to subscribe to a persecuting King's Act of Uniformity, and were ejected from their livings. The place of his birth was Whitehall, in the City of London, and the manner of his early upbringing may be easily surmised from those dying sentiments of his mother, uttered above. Like a good many of that age he was something of a prodigy in learning, and his mother took pains to advance her son's education. However, one aim above all others was always present with her: the spiritual advancement of her family. Accordingly, when morning lectures were begun in one of the city churches by such men as Philip Nye and John Hill, she requested the Principal of her son's college that leave of absence might be granted from his studies to attend on these. Permission was granted (on the undertaking that his regular work was not abated) and we have a picture of the young Philip Henry, between the ages of ten and fifteen, sitting on the pulpit stairs taking clear and copious notes of the things he heard concerning eternal life. “If ever any child,” he says, “... enjoyed line upon line, precept upon precept, I did. And was it in vain? I trust not altogether in vain.” That last remark is characteristic of the humility of Philip Henry; far from that time being in vain, it was this period in his life that brought him into that clear understanding of God's ways in the gospel. There is no specific date allocated to his actual conversion, and it is probably this fact that moves him to speak out against those of his day who pressed for an exact time in such eternal matters. His reasoning is still relevant for us today; “Who can so soon be aware of the daybreak, or of the springing up of the seed sown?” And his application is beyond dispute; “the work of grace is better known in its effects than in its causes.” The effectual life that Philip Henry manifested before the world and within the Church in the ensuing years can only mark him out as a man “in whom the grace of God is.”
From his school in London, Henry moved to Oxford in December 1647. His young life there is noted by his diligence, not only in normal studies, but in spiritual development – especially in discovering the ways of the Lord with his life. This “marking of providences” features very much in the lives of the Henrys, thus he can look back on a chain of events that might have concluded with him being admitted to the Royal Court at a young age, and rejoice that the Lord ordered it differently and chose a better inheritance for him. At Oxford itself he was always busily “tracing the rainbow through the rain,” and so, when an invitation was eventually extended to him to begin a work in the ministry in the village of Worthenbury in Flintshire, we may be assured that he desired to go only in the way that the Lord would lead him.
The future Worthenbury Minister's actual removal to that place was at the instigation of the wife of Judge John Puleston. The Judge's lady desired a tutor for her sons, and, after favourable reports and negotiations had been gone into, the young men arrived in that out of the way place in September 1653. The arrangements were that he should live with the Pulestons, look to the education of their sons in the classics, and preach the morning service each Lord's Day in the village church. This latter part proceeded favourably for a time, until one Lord's Day afternoon the stated supply failed to arrive. Philip Henry preached twice on that day and the die was cast for all future Sabbaths at Worthenbury.
With regards to that preaching, the biography draws out the wholesomeness of it, both in content and manner of serving; “As to the subjects he preached upon, he did not use to dwell long upon a text. - Better one sermon upon many texts, viz. Many scriptures opened and applied, than many sermons upon one text. To that purpose he would sometimes speak.” Again, we are told, “he used to preach in a fixed method, and linked his subjects in a sort of chain. He adapted his method and style to the capacity of his hearers, fetching his similitudes for illustration from those things that were familiar to them. He did not shoot the arrow of the Word over their heads in high notions, or the flourishes of affected rhetoric, nor under their feet, but by blunt and homely expressions, as many do under pretence of plainness, but to their hearts, in close and lively applications.” In this he seems to have been following some sound and seasonable words that found an entrance into his heart when spoken by Mr Malden at the close of his ordination. “This word went near my heart,” he records in his diary at that time, “As the nurse puts the meat first into her own mouth, and chews it, and then feeds the child with it, so should ministers do by the word, preach it over beforehand to their own hearts; it loses none of the virtue thereby, but rather, probably, gains. As that milk nourisheth most which comes warm from the breast, so that sermon which comes warm from a warm heart. Lord, quicken me to do thy will in this thing.”
From that, it will be seen that Philip Henry had retained the ability to be exhorted as well as exhort. Although now himself an ordained minister of God's word, he, too, was subject to that word, and to this end he never abandoned his childhood practice of writing down sermon notes and afterwards digesting them to his own soul. Time and time again, references are made to sermons heard with their effect upon him, while notes from other men's sermons, written out in his own hand, were retained by him to the last. He urged fellow-ministers to sit under the sound of the truth when opportunity presented itself; and to sit, “not as masters, but as scholars; not as censors, but as hearers.” Small wonder that such preaching, and such a high estimation of the preaching place, earned the testimony from Lady Puleston that the young man had done more for the parish in six months than had been done for the past eighteen years. Perhaps it is well to remember at this point that the actual communicants in the Worthenbury church numbered only around forty and never at any time during the ministry of Philip Henry ever reached double this number. But, God was preparing certain instruments of witness in those days, and the young minister's course was clear: he must be diligent and faithful on the earth, all the issues and outcomes lay in the eternal purposes of God in heaven. The narrowness of the sphere of labour, however, in no way restricted Henry's work; numerous were the fruitful branches that ran over the wall from Flintshire village.
His own home was a very Bethel for many. God in His grace and goodness had early provided a young bride for His servant; one who was “of one heart, of one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.” A traditional story illustrates her temperament when barriers were being placed in the way of their forthcoming marriage; “Among other objections urged by her friends against the connection was this, - that, although Mr. Henry was a gentleman, and a scholar, and an excellent preacher, he was quite a stranger, and they did not even know where he came from. 'True,' replied Miss Matthews, 'but I know where he is going, and I should like to go with him.'” God blessed the marriage over the years with two sons and four daughters, the younger being the famous Matthew who would give such service to the Lord's people through his preaching and commentary. However, Philip Henry couldn't make his daughters preachers and commentators; but, he did the next best and lawful thing: he bequeathed each of them a full set of Matthew Poole's Annotations of the Bible to read in their families. (We may remember how profitable another father's bequest was to that daughter who married the Bedford tinker and first opened his eyes to the issues of eternal life revealed in her literary dowry.)
But the days were hastening on to that fateful year of 1662. Already, trouble had begun to brew for the Worthenbury pastor. Although the actual ejection day was not until the 26th August of that year, Philip Henry was forbidden to preach from the preceding October. Like Samuel Rutherford before Him, his “dumb Sabbaths” were to prove like “a stone tied to a bird's foot.” While at Worthenbury, he had received many enticing “calls” to larger churches and congregations but these failed to draw him from his village charge. However, when that Black Bartholomew's dawned, what enticement had failed to accomplish, conscience performed, when it had its perfect work, and Philip Henry withdrew with his wife and family – in common with two-thousand others who could not conform, “for conscience sake.”
The rigours of the coming years make sad reading for the Church of Christ. With one Act after another the non-conformists were pressed to extremes. The Five Mile Act forbade any minister to live within a radius of five miles of a place where he had held a pastorate. The Henrys had moved to a house at Broad Oak, but some of the zealous persecutors of the day claimed that this house was within “five reputed miles” of Worthenbury, and laboured for his eviction. In an effort to “live peaceable with all men” Mr. Henry withdrew with his family to Whitechurch. God soon granted a vindication to His silenced saint, however, for when the “actual” distance between Worthenbury and Broad Oak was taken, the house was found to be outwith the Five Mile Act by sixty yards.
Even more severe, perhaps, than the Five Mile Act, was the actual Conventicle Act itself. This among other things, denied any non-conforming preacher the right to minister to any more than eight persons at one time; in fact, little more than his own family and a few friends. Yet, the strictures of this Act only serve to highlight the faithfulness and diligence of the man whose heart was set on that eternal day. Not until the year 1689 was full liberty of conscience realised under William of Orange; and so, for the twenty-seven years between that event and the ejectment, Philip Henry's main charge was the household of Broad Oak. Of course, there were other engagements – invariably carried out under the risk of arrest – and many spheres of service entered into – especially during several periods of respite. Yet, it remains true that the able minister's flock was found mostly within his own four walls. But, what ministry was forthcoming there! Over the years he followed a full and thorough exposition of the scriptures from end to end, and the doctrines of the gospel distilled all around and watered the thirsty souls of the Lord's people throughout the Land. When the final announcement of Indulgence came under William, it was a glad pastor who rigged-out and opened an outhouse at Broad Oak for the public worship of the Lord's Name. In this capacity he served the Lord for another seven years of his life, until the Lord, in His own purposes – and according to Philip Henry's great desire – removed him from the pulpit of active service to the rest of the redeemed of heaven with no lingering or waiting in between. He died at Broad Oak on the 24 of June 1669.
(To be concluded)