The Life And Death Of William Borrows
Gospel Magazine 1852:
Derby Mercury—“The Late Rev. William Borrows”
Our obituary of Wednesday last (April 7) contained a notice of the decease of this faithful minister of Christ, who long and successfully laboured in the neighbourhood of London. The Rev. William Borrows was a native of Derby, and studied at St.Edmund Hall, Oxford, under the present Bishop of Calcutta, who also gave him his first introduction to the metropolis, by placing him in the pulpit of St. John’s, Bedford Row, during his own temporary absence. In 1815, Mr. Borrows became the Incumbent Minister of St. Paul’s, Clapham; and for fully twenty years combined the duties of that appointment with the Sunday Evening Lectureship of St. Luke’s, Middlesex. In both places his ministry was greatly valued for his faithfulness, zeal, and ability. Firmly attached to the principles of the Protestant faith, he deeply deplored every measure which tended to the increase of Popery, and he early discerned the Romanizing tendency, of so-called High Church doctrines. Nor did he ever fail to raise his voice firmly and strongly against that and every other innovation on the faith once delivered to the saints. Sound in doctrine, irreproachable in character, laborious in diligence, he lived for his ministry, and devoted the talents with which he was entrusted to the setting forth of Christ and him crucified, as the only hope of perishing sinners. He lived much respected and beloved, and departed in peace, worn out with labour in the service which he loved, and accounted his greatest privilege and honour. He entered his eternal rest at the age of seventy, on Saturday, April 3rd, in the thirty-seventh year of his ministry at Clapham. On the Saturday following, the body was brought from London by railway, and interred at the east end of the Church of All Saint’s, Derby. The beautiful and impressive service for the dead was read by the Rev. Philip Gell. On the body being carried into the Church, the ‘Dead March in Saul’ was played on the organ by Mr. George Fritche; and at the conclusion of the portion of the service used in the Church, previous to the body being conveyed to the grave, Handel’s Anthem, ‘He is buried in peace,’ was sung in a manner appropriate to the occasion by a select choir. The majority of the clergy, alongwith other friends of the deceased, attended the funeral from respect to his memory.”
William Borrows (1782-1852) was a sovereign grace preacher. He served thirty-seven years as pastor of the church meeting at St. Paul’s, Clapham.
