The Life And Ministry Of John Collis

Gospel Standard 1867:

John Collins, Of Coggeshall, Essex

My departed friend was born at Braintree. His parents were both poor and ungodly; consequently they set him a very bad example.

When about ten years old, his father enlisted into the army, and soon afterwards his mother died, when John went to live with an uncle, who treated him with great unkindness, his food being of the commonest kind. The treatment he met with was the means of driving him away from his uncle’s, to seek a home elsewhere. Being of a gay and lively disposition and under no restraint, he ran into great lengths of sin and folly, the remembrance of which gave him much distress, and made him feel greatly ashamed through life. His companions were of the most debased kind. One incident will show their character. They went one Lord’s day to a place of worship, the pews of which were very high-backed, hiding these profane youths from observation. During the service they tossed coppers for drink to be had when the service was over.

On another Sabbath day he and his companions started for a walk. They proceeded through some meadows where there was no footpath. The weather was very cold, and the frost severe, and they had to cross a stream which was frozen, but not sufficiently so to bear their weight; so they resolved to leap over. All performed the task in safety, except John; and when he, being very nimble and very confident, leaped, he fell about half-way through the ice into the water. He said he felt as if some unseen power thrust him down, but his companions were able to rescue him from his perilous position.

This event was the means of his first convictions for sin. He began to attend religious services. On one occasion, being at a prayer meeting, feeling himself under the condemnation of the law, he was asked to engage in prayer; but he felt as if he should sink through the floor; for how could he pray for others who could not pray for himself’? Being so very miserable, it was suggested to his mind that religion was very melancholy; and through the workings of his carnal mind he found it hard work to give up his sensual pursuits and wicked companions. Still he felt a great reverence for those he thought were Christians, and as his gloomy feelings increased, he felt determined to expel them, if possible, from his mind; so he was tempted to go into company, and public houses; but all was of no use, for he became worse and worse, and was obliged to give up all his companions, and all those sources from which he had been seeking peace, happiness, and rest. He used to say, “I was compelled to yield; and although I was forced, yet I was made willing in the day of God’s power.” The time and place, the when and where, he was first brought to his knees, in solemn confession of his sins, he used to say, remained ever fresh on his memory; and although he determined not to yield, grace conquered his proud, rebellious, and wicked heart, and brought him to the footstool of mercy, a poor, helpless, lost, penitent sinner. The law, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, was applied to his soul with such convincing, cutting, condemning power, revealing the holiness, purity, and justice of God, that he felt he was condemned to eternal perdition, and justly too. A verse of Hart’s was the means of imparting to him a sweet hope; indeed also to deliver his “soul from death, his eyes from tears (of sorrow), and his feet from falling.” The first two lines imparted the sweet hope:

“Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched, 

Weak and wounded, sick and sore.”

and the last two lines set the captive free:

“If you tarry till you’re better, 

You will never come at all.”

Here the scales fell from his eyes. Satan had been telling him he must not pray, he must tarry till he was better before he could expect to be saved; but he was forced to his knees in prayer, feeling as if men and devils stood before him to hinder him approaching the Lord, also the deep sense he had of the baseness and vileness of his wicked heart; but now he felt such meltings of soul, and such love to the Lord, enabling him to rejoice in the Lord as his salvation, that his sorrow was turned into joy. Sin, guilt, condemnation, Satan, and every foe were all gone, and mercy, grace, love, joy, peace, heaven, and glory appeared in their stead.

About a year after this blessed deliverance, he became a member of the Baptist Church in his native town, and some years subsequently, after many afflictions, sorrows, temptations, and trials of various kinds, he was called to the ministry. He, with a few others, became dissatisfied with the ministry they sat under, not being of that clear, sound, faithful, discriminating gospel character their souls could desire, so they left, and met together in the house of one of their friends for prayer and reading the Scriptures. John was desired to conduct the services, and if he felt his mind impressed to make a few remarks on the word, to do so. All felt persuaded the Lord had given him a measure of grace for the ministry, and eventually urged him to make the attempt and to preach to them. Some time, however, elapsed before he could feel encouraged to engage in so solemn and responsible an undertaking; but the following scripture was with him night and day: “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the house-tops.” (Matt. 10:27.) For some time he could not perceive the meaning of the words; but after much prayer, exercise of mind, and waiting upon the Lord, it was made plain to him by the Holy Spirit that he was to preach publicly to others what God had taught him in secret.

He suffered much in the early part of his ministry, having great misgivings, darkness, and bondage, fearing he was not sent of God; so much so that he felt determined to open his mouth no more in the name of the Lord; but the Lord helped him onward and forward, and he continued to preach until the last year of his life. His labours were chiefly confined to Braintree, Halstead, and Coggeshall, occasionally visiting the neighbouring churches of truth; and he was highly esteemed for his work’s sake.

His health becoming impaired, he was compelled to cease from his labours nearly twelve months before his death; but the final attack lasted about eight weeks, during which time he was confined to his bed, the cause of his death being a complication of diseases.

His son, who furnished me with these particulars, says, “I will give you my father’s words as nearly as possible in the form in which they were spoken. During his last illness his mind was generally calm and confident, happy and joyous, looking forward to an inheritance above, of which he had received an earnest already, although once or twice he said, “The devil has been trying to peep in, but that was all he could do.” One morning he said, “I dread no more to die than I should fear to be carried into the next room. The sting of death is taken away;” adding, 

“If sin be pardoned, I’m secure; 

Death has no sting beside;

The law gives sin its damning power, 

But Christ my ransom died!”

At another time he said, “I feel sure if there is such a place as heaven, and any one ever went there, I shall go. I cannot feel otherwise. I cannot doubt him, who has been such a friend to me so many years past; yea, for 48 years he has been my friend and helper through all the many trials and difficulties that have fallen to my lot.” At another time, he said, “I shall soon be gone, I have only to cross Jordan’s streams; but I shall not be alone, for Christ is with me. I cannot doubt it; for as sure as Moses was hidden in the Rock, so sure am I there also ; and although Satan has many times shaken me in it, he has never been able to shake me oft it.” When suffering greatly, he would often call out, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Give me patience to do thy will until the appointed time shall come! Never suffer me to rebel. Help me to pour my complaints into thy ear, O Lord!” Repeatedly he was heard to say, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Adding, “Yes, the mansion is prepared for me, and I for the mansion.” Once he said, “I have no particular ecstasies, but a solid resting upon the finished work of Jesus.”

The remembrance of his early life of sin and folly made him grieve while he extolled the sovereign grace of God in calling him, stripping him, teaching him out of his law, and bringing him a poor, lost, ruined, undone, hell-deserving sinner to know the Gospel’s joyful sound, and revealing Christ in his soul, the hope of glory; observing, at the same time, “I don’t know one of my companions in sin that ever gave any satisfactory evidence of real regeneration; and why me, left, as it were, as I was, in the world without any restraint?” Once he said, “When John was in the Isle of Patmos, he saw Christ crowned with many crowns, and he shall have mine, too.” With much feeling he repeated the following verse: “While I draw this fleeting breath,” &c. Also Hymn 1022, Gadsby’s Selection, was of great comfort to his mind. One hymn, he said, he could truly call his own, and which he particularly requested might be sung at his funeral service: “There is a fountain filled with blood,” &c.

On one occasion he observed earnestly and solemnly, “What a mercy for me that Jesus came into the world to save sinners; and I know I am the chief of sinners: therefore, he is just such a Saviour as I need. I have no merits of my own, nor do I see there is any other way by which to be saved, nor do I desire any other.” At other times he repeated those verses beginning: “The terrors of law and of God,” &c. “Other refuge have I none,” &c. “By faith I see the land,” &c.

Once he said, “David did not disturb himself much when he was about to die, for he declared, ‘I go the way of all the earth;’ and David had not a better God than I have, nor a better hiding-place.” He, with great emotion, said, “And after all the mercies past, Will he let me sink at last?’ “No, no!” Indeed, he generally expressed himself in hymns, that being his happiest mode of uttering his feelings. Speaking of his death on one occasion, he said, “Boasting; grave, where is thy victory? Thou has boasted over millions, but I don’t think thou wilt ever boast over me, for Christ has conquered thee, and has made me more than conqueror through his precious blood.”

Thinking we should grieve at his loss, he said, “Don’t make yourselves uncomfortable about me when I am gone, for you will have the sweet thought that I am in heaven; adding, “‘Death of death, and hell’s destruction, Land me safe on Canaan’s shore.’ I shall soon be there, I only just want a lift over Jordan. ‘Happy songsters! When shall I your chorus join?”

In reply to a question as to whether he had any desire to live to see the new year, he replied, with much feeling, “No! no! If it were the will of God I should like to be gone; but “’I wish to wait the time decreed, And then meet death with joy.'”

His sufferings being very severe, he said, “My sufferings are great, but I have only to taste the cup, for Christ has drunk up all the dregs.” He quoted the following verse, and desired that the hymn might be one sung at his funeral service: “Corruption, earth, and worms Can but refine this flesh. Till my triumphant spirit comes To put it on afresh.”

To one of his sons he said, “My hope is no fiction; it is established on firm ground, upon the promise of him who cannot lie;” adding, “‘There is a day fast hastening on, When Zion’s God will purge his floor; His own elect will then be known, For he will count those jewels o’er.'”

When asked if he had any doubt about his safety, he replied, very earnestly, “I cannot, I dare not have.”

One of his sons, on entering the room, said he thought his father was asleep; but the good man looked up and said, “What a blessed thing it would have been if you had found me in an eternal sleep, a sleep in Jesus.”

He became very weak, and was not able to converse much; but on one occasion he said, “How I love to think of the name of the Lord; and we read in the Scriptures that a book of remembrance is written before the Lord, for them that feared him and thought upon his name. I have thought upon him many times, and in many ways.” At another time he said, “I have been in such a beautiful sleep. Everything was so quiet and serene. How sweet it is to drink of the fulness of this fountain. I have tasted and drunk of its fulness many times before, but never to such a ravishing extent as this. Surely, I must have been in heaven. How sweet to have such blissful foretastes! Heaven cannot be complete without me. I must be there.” His countenance beamed with delight while he spoke. A short time afterwards, suffering much pain, these lines dropped from his lips: “Not all the pains that e’er I bore, Shall spoil my future peace, For death and hell can do no more, Than what my Father please.'”

In anticipation of his dismissal from, a body of sin and death, he repeated the following lines: “‘Soon I shall pass the gloomy vale, Soon all my mortal powers must fail; O may my last expiring breath, His loving-kindness sing in death.'”

He was taken with haemorrhage, which, through the great loss of blood, rendered him extremely weak. In the afternoon of the same day, having recovered a little, he was asked if all was right. He replied, with all his remaining strength, “Can’t be more so; can’t be more so.” One of his sons said to him, “You don’t wish to come back, do you, father?” He instantly replied,”No! No! No!Comeback? No, no!”

He afterwards awoke out of a comfortable sleep, exclaiming, ”Victory! victory! victory! through the blood of the Lamb! No merit of mine; all a free gift. O the love of Christ, to condescend to save me, one of the vilest! Tell it unto sinners, tell I am a sinner, saved wholly and entirely by free and sovereign grace. Jesus is my only Saviour.” His countenance, for upwards of half an hour, was quite animated, and beamed with celestial bliss. He exclaimed, “Call this dying! call this dying!” His feeling happiness was so great that he appeared to be unconscious of his weakness and suffering, and he shouted out, “I have never tasted such sweetness, nor have had such an earnest before. I am only just out of heaven.”

While this frame of mind lasted, he very lovingly and earnestly admonished his family, and commended them into the Lord’s hand, assuring them that nothing but a broken heart would stand the solemn test. “You have heard my religion often spoken against,” said he; “but now you see its necessity and importance. Natural ties must be broken. This will be a great loss to you all. You will lose a praying husband and praying father. All I can do now is what I have often done before, to ask the Lord to bless you. O that we may be all bound up together in Christ; that would be a blessed reunion indeed.” He said much more under a blessed state of mind, or preached, as he called it; “for,” said he, “I never preached like this before.”

He afterwards began to sink, and was not sufficiently collected to converse upon any subject, although generally sufficiently sensible to reply in a concise manner to any question that was put to him.

The night previous to his death he was very restless; but about half an hour before he died, he became quiet; and at half-past 6 o’clock a.m., without a struggle, he exchanged earth for heaven, Jan. 30th, 1867, aged 68.

He desired his funeral sermon might be preached from 2 Tim. 4:7, 8.

Hastings, March 12th, 1867

John Forster