The Life And Ministry Of Matthew Anderson
Gospel Standard 1866:
Death. On Aug. 17th, 1866, Matthew Anderson, a deacon of the Particular Baptist church, South Hetton, in the county of Durham.
Matthew Anderson was a collier, and, like all Adam’s posterity, a carnal person, an enemy to God and all his ways and word. He was a card-player, a gambler, and addicted to all manner of open sin, when it pleased God to convince him that he was a sinner. He then sought to escape the consequences of his sins by joining the Wesleyan Methodists, amongst whom he remained for forty years; and whilst he felt himself a great sinner, and sin a heavy burden, he used to wander in the fields and the woods, seeking of the Lord to grant him perfection in the flesh; but was still truly miserable; and although he used to lay the Bible open and on his knees cry for the Lord to teach him, yet he vainly expected the Lord would teach him the same as the Wesleyan ministers, but, alas! alas! while the blessed Spirit taught him, he found his flesh base and vile indeed; and instead of finding, as the Wesleyans teach, that his flesh might be made better, he found that which Paul learned and the Holy Ghost teaches still: “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” It was this felt burden that made him seek to the Lord for light and rest; and I am myself a living witness that to get out of the meshes of Satan in Wesleyanism is almost as bad as to get out of Popery; for Popery has no good hymns, nor does it allow the liberty of reading good men’s works. But God will take a special care of his own elect, and bring them to his own living truth, of which Matthew Anderson was a witness. Still, forty years’ mire of Arminianism is not to be washed off with the soft soap of doctrinal Calvinism, but with the fire of God’s blessed word; therefore Matthew had it from God’s own word. In Gen. 12:3 he read the precious separation and blessing of God’s people, and saw Jesus, the promised seed, and him in whom all the families of the earth are blessed with election, predestination, redemption, regeneration, and everlasting salvation; yea, a precious Jesus, All in All. Here, then, he found the true Sanctincation, the true Wisdom, and the true Rest for his poor, sin-plagued soul.
Jesus now became precious to him, and he became a follower of the dear Lord in the despised ordinance of believers’ baptism. The minister he was in church fellowship with prized him highly, as he was a very regular attendant upon the means, and outstripped many who had been much longer in the way than he. Indeed, his zeal for the honour of God and the Lord’s cause was a rebuke to those who are so cold and lukewarm that they can stay away from God’s house one part of the Lord’s day; but if they were forced to stay away from their worldly business half a day, you would most likely hear of it.
Matthew had a large family. He was attacked with a disease which occasioned his end, for which he appeared fully prepared.
T. C.
Matthew Anderson (?-1866) was a Strict and Particular Baptist believer. He served as a deacon for the church meeting at South Hetton, in the county of Durham.
