The Life And Ministry Of William Brown
Earthen Vessel 1887:
Mr. William Brown, of Friston.
Mr. William Brown, Pastor of the Strict Baptist Church at Friston, Suffolk, is well known and highly respected as a faithful brother in Christ by friends accustomed to visit the annual Meetings of the Suffolk and Norfolk Strict Baptist Association. We should suppose that he has attended more Association anniversaries than any other living person, as he is its oldest minister. When the Association met at Rattlesden, fifty-five years ago, a “Mr. Brown” is named in the annual report of Churches of that period as preaching at Bardwell. We have no doubt he was our now venerable brother.
About the year 1833, Mr. Brown became pastor of the church at Friston, which is a small rural village three miles (S. E.) from Saxmundham. This important office he has, by the grace of God, honorably sustained to the present time. It cannot but be considered that, for a pastor to hold his position over over Church successfully, as Mr. Brown had done, for fifty-four years, during such a period of literary, scientific, and national progress, and such as had never before been known, he must indeed be no ordinary man. From our personal knowledge of Mr. Brown, we regard him as a godly and intelligent preacher of the precious Gospel of Christ; and it has done us good when we have heard him, in tremulous tones, deliver addresses at the annual gatherings of the Associated Churches. The last public speech we heard him deliver was at Halesworth, when he warmly congratulated the Church there upon having seen another Association meeting, after an interval of half a century. Mr. Brown offered the closing prayer at the Association gatherings last year at Grundisburgh. The last time we heard of our aged brother was in a letter from his beloved wife, dated April 19th, 1887. Mrs. Brown says:—“I am sorry to tell you that he (Mr. Brown) cannot answer your kind letter. He was taken ill on the first Lord’s-day in this month, in the afternoon, when engaged in prayer, with an attack on the brain. He did not lose consciousness, but was prostrate. He is now much better, but will be laid aside for a time.” We hope by this time our brother’s health has improved sufficiently to enable him to resume his ministerial duties within the sanctuary where his voice has been heard in the praise of Jesus and the joy of precious souls so many years. An abstract of the report of the Church at Friston, read at the Association meeting last year, is as follows:—“Our esteemed aged pastor, Mr. W. Brown, though feeling the weight of fourscore years, has been spared with almost unabated vigor to declare in the demonstration of the Spirit, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. A goodly number of our congregation are present on the Lord’s-day afternoon, but we often feel that those absent in the morning have lost the best of the blessing. Some meet with us whom we would address as ‘blessed of the Lord,’ and say, ‘Come in wherefore stand ye without? Our school is encouraging; the teachers evince a lively interest in their work.” We sincerely hope that our dear brother Brown will be spared to his loving and united Church and congregation a while longer, until his strength for preaching is fully spent: then that he will hear his Master’s welcome voice, “Come up hither,” and be swallowed up in glory.
William Brown (1806-1888) was a Strict and Particular Baptist preacher. In 1832, he was appointed pastor of the church meeting at Friston, Suffolk, a position he held for fifty-five years ending with his death.
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