The Life And Testimony Of Isaac Cooper

Gospel Standard 1863:

Isaac Cooper, Of South Witham, Lincolnshire 

Isaac Cooper was born in 1796. He was by trade a tailor, and at the early age of 14 went to Grantham as a journeyman, in (as he has told me) a shop, where he had companions of the worst description possible; and, influenced by their conversation and example, he very soon became addicted to every vice that one of his age and in his position could practise. At the death of his father, he returned to his native place, to gain his livelihood by following his calling there; and was soon known in the neighbourhood as a notorious character for card-playing, cock-fighting, drunkenness, fighting, revelling, and such like, with other practices not fit to mention.

Such was Isaac Cooper in the flesh; and he was so notorious a profligate that when the Lord called him by his grace, and stopped him in his mad career, a man who well knew him remarked that if his religion stood, he should think something of Calvinism indeed.

I now give, in his own words, some account of the Lord’s work on his soul. In a letter to Mr. Tiptaft, he thus writes:

“I shall pass over many convictions, and begin from the time the Lord was pleased to show me my dismal state as a wicked sinner. In the year 1830, I was at a public-house. The landlord was taking texts out of the Bible, and, in his way, making it a book of fables; and we got to such lengths that a carnal man in the company declared that if we did not give up such discourse, he would instantly quit the house, as the hair of his head stood up to hear us go on. I had three miles to go home in the night; and on the road I had wonderful convictions of conscience, and it was clearly brought to my mind that there must be a Supreme Being. This lasted upon my mind for several days; but as I was to go through great troubles in providence, it pleased the Lord from this time to reduce me to the lowest degree of life, as whatever I took in hand, nothing prospered. But to come to spiritual concerns. At various times, and once in particular at a public-house, when playing at cards, I was seized with such convictions of soul that I was obliged to go home, and they were very strong upon me for months. But they all passed away; and I shall therefore pass on to the time when you came to preach at Colsterworth, in 1834. I was at a public-house, and the discourse was that the man who was sending all the people to hell was going to preach in a barn the next day, and several of the company agreed to go; I amongst the rest. In the course of your preaching, as you were calling in the outcasts of Israel, you spoke these words, which came like a two-edged sword into my soul: ‘The lame, the blind, the halt, and all that were in debt, for David’s band was such.’ My soul was stung within me, my companions were mocking by my side, but I was cut up root and branch; and when the preaching was over, I returned home, leaving my company, and joined another party, who were praising the sermon very much; and amongst them the clerk of the parish, who said he was determined to be a hearer of yours, if he lost his place; but I have never seen him there since. I was under soul trouble all night, and as you were to preach at Stamford next day, I determined to see you pass by, going into a little public-house on the road for that purpose, but taking care that no one knew my business. There I fell in with part of the company I had been with the night before, when one of them got on a chair to mimic the preaching we had heard. This I could not endure, so went into a stable till it was over, and when you had passed I intended returning home; but Satan prevailed, and I got very much intoxicated. Two companions and myself started home; but I wanted to be alone, and I stopped upon the road behind. Here Satan began with me, telling me I was not fit to live, and that I had better destroy myself. He worked me up to such a pitch that, if the Lord had not interfered, I should have then and there committed suicide. I continued in soul trouble for a long time, but this was not the appointed season for my deliverance from my carnal lusts, for the Lord permitted me still to go on with my gambling courses; but I continued to ask the Lord’s pardon every time that I knew I had offended, and thought that I got on pretty well, as Satan always contrived to send me a companion, when there was a cock-fight or card-party within ten miles of the place; and when it was over I continued to go to church or read a chapter, and thought all was well again. But I was not without some strong convictions even in these diabolical gaming-places, for I could not do as I had done, and seemed to be an outcast in the place. Still I went on sinning and repenting, in my way, not knowing but that I was become reconciled to the God of my salvation; yet Satan would many times persuade me to destroy myself, as he told me I was a disgrace to all men; and I was sure that it was the truth, for though the devil does not often speak truth, he happened on it that time.

“But I shall pass on now to the time the Lord began to work on me in good earnest. I was standing in the street of our village, and a carrier’s cart was returning from Oakham, with some of your hearers, and a man that stood by me exclaimed that he wished the cart would break down and break their necks. I felt shocked at the expression, and a voice within me said, ‘You shall be with them.’ I felt terribly convicted, went home, and studied what could be the meaning of it. But the next time that you came to Oakham, on the Lord’s day, I felt I must go, though I was ashamed any one should know it. I heard the sermon morning and evening, and the Lord blessed them to my soul. I went the next Lord’s day, and also received comfort. Now I was made to know that the Lord worketh all things according to his own pleasure, and I here began to love the sermon, but quite to adore the preacher. I went to hear again on the Tuesday night, and, to my utter disappointment, you cut me up root and branch. I think that no man was ever in such trouble as I was that night. I came home, and had no sleep, for it was quite gone from my eyes. But as always, from my hearing you at Oakham the fortnight before, I used to go and try to thank God, in the morning I went to prayer for this, and for the first time in my life was I allowed to make my supplication acceptably to the Searcher of hearts, for the Lord was graciously pleased to hearken to my voice, and make me know that I had been giving the praise to the creature instead of my Creator. It was at this time that I was first brought to the Lord Jesus Christ. My eyes, from a child, never knew what it was to be wet with tears. I had buried my father and mother, but not one tear could be produced from my hard heart; but not so now, as floods of tears fell from my eyes. [Relating this to a friend, some years afterwards, he said that when he arose from his knees, after a view of Christ by faith, there was quite a pool of wet under him, from the tears which had fallen from his eyes.] I now became quite a lover of all the professors of religion, and would have talked with them, but they were all very shy of me, and would have no discourse with me, aa they knew my character too well, and expected that my talking with them was only for ridicule; so I could get no comfort, though at this time my very soul admired any person that I thought would instruct me. I happened of your sermon which was preached at Abingdon, and with that and my Bible I was quite delighted, and so I passed my days; but thought it very strange, so much as I loved the people of God, as I believed they were, they would have nothing to do with me. As I heard that a Mr. B. was going to preach at Stamford, I longed for the time to come, and went to hear him. Now I began to know the moaning of the preacher walking in the footsteps of the flock, for my heart went with him, and I received comfort, and I thought I could have sat all night to hear the sermon. As Mr. Smart was next to preach at Oakham, I went there, and, to my utter astonishment, he travelled through all the experience I had. I went home delighted, and, as he was to preach again on the Sunday, I told all the hearers that there was a wonderful man come to Oakham, and hoped they would all go, as I believed there was not such a man in the world. The people smiled at me. ‘When I was a child, I spake as a child.’ Now I began to find out that there was a wicked heart in my breast, for I felt so wicked in myself that sometimes I thought I was more like a monster than a Christian. Satan also would tell me I was nothing else but a hypocrite, and I could not deny it, for I thought I was. Still, in my prayers to the Lord, I begged he would not build me up as a hypocrite, but rather than that would send me to hell as I was, for I knew I deserved it. Sometimes, however, I found relief in prayer; but the wicked thoughts in my heart would make me ready many times to give up all. Yet I felt something within me that I could not do so. But the people of the town jeering me, others mocking, and the whole-hearted Arminians laughing, expecting me to fall with a tremendous crash, I was altogether in a strange strait. As, however, I was at work one day, the blessed Spirit began to teach me in a wonderful manner. I was at another person’s house, and had I not been in a room by myself, I must have gone home, for I was in such a glorious frame; the Spirit was teaching me the meaning of the Scriptures, and my eyes were full of tears. I was in that blessed frame for two days, and in it I was taught to see the small quantity of professing Israelites that were really and truly of the Lord.” 

[Here, his account of his experience abruptly breaks off.] 

But Isaac Cooper had a path to tread of which he at present knew but little. He had felt convictions of sin, knew his lost and ruined condition, and had been favoured with some believing views of the Lord Jesus; but the law had not yet been fully applied in its curse and condemnation to his conscience. The time when he was brought, as he used to say, “through the law to the gospel” was in the year 1835. The state of his soul before he obtained a full sense of mercy and salvation through the Lord Jesus, he thus describes, in a letter to a friend, in tracing out the experience of a child of God as his own: “The poor soul goes on from sin to sin, until he is swallowed up in wretched, self-desponding, self-pitying, self-despairing, self-agony. ‘ O that I had never been born!’ he cries. The most unsavoury beast that is in the world, the most despised animal will have its whole trouble here; but my soul must give an account for the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil; and I cannot see anything that God can have mercy upon me for. O how I have broken his Sabbaths! O how I have broken all the commandments! Nothing remains for me but the condemnation, ‘Go, ye cursed,’ from the mouth of the just Judge. O how awful! Was it but a thousand years, and then a chance again of living a better life; but it is all over. O, eternity! eternity! never-ending eternity! Lost for ever, sinking into black despair; all lost!’ The enemy of souls is here hurling his infernal darts. O my soul, thou rememberest the wormwood and the gall! But suddenly a voice of mercy is heard: ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.’ No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Spirit; no man can declare to another the trouble felt on account of sin, neither can he open to another the love, joy, and peace, as felt by him at this time of love. The Bible is his daily companion; he knows nothing but Jesus Christ, and him crucified; he has got into a new world, expects that the war is over, and that he shall have no more trouble. The old man seems to be gone; the new man has got all his affections, and he enjoys that peace of mind which passeth all understanding.”

This experience of the curse and condemnation of the law, and of a clear deliverance from it by the manifestation of pardoning love gave him very clear views of both law and gospel, which ever after appeared in his conversation, and made him a strong opponent of all legal preaching, and a jealous contender for free, sovereign, superabounding grace.

After the Lord thus blessed and delivered his soul, he has told me many times that for nine months there was not a happier man alive. “My earthly poverty,” he said, “was no trouble to me now. The Lord just fed me week by week; we had enough, and none to spare.” In addition to his calling as a tailor, he carried on a grocery business, by borrowing a little money to buy some at one village, and taking it on a donkey to sell out again, having to pay again the little sum every Monday, and borrow it again for the same purpose the next Saturday. He has told me what sweet times of communion, blessing and praising his God, he has had coming along the lanes, with his little store. Once he was without a loaf of bread, and did not like to get another on credit. He says, “I told my wife that we would wait until we could pay for it. Poor thing, she had never been used to know want in all her life before. I felt the wound for her. Having sent my little boy to school, he came running back, and told us he had found a shilling.” So came his bread. What a time, he has told me, had his soul over that shilling. Once he was fearful that he should not be able to come to chapel, as it was winter, and he had nothing but a light jean frock-coat; and he dare not buy a great coat, fearing he should never be able to pay for it, and was cast down to the uttermost. “One Saturday,” he said, “a woman came to my shop, with a mourning coat in her hand, of the parson’s, which he had given her, to ask me where I thought she could sell it. She wanted 4s. for it. I gave her the money, and praised the Lord.”

But the time drew on that Isaac was to be no longer on the mount. He has told me that the first grievous departure of his heart from the Lord was in this way: He was coming, as usual, along the lanes with his grocery when an old companion met him, and asked him as a favour that, as they were going to have some cock-fighting, he would join them to handle their cocks. Though he did not and would not go, yet he felt, he said, his heart was willing, and in a moment his sweet feelings were gone, and darkness and trouble came on.

Some time shortly after this, to use his own words, he was beset with a tremendous spirit of the world and had a determination in his mind to get money, if possible, to restore his fallen credit, as in the temporal troubles spoken of in his early experience, he had not been able to pay the just demands against him; so by some means, I suppose a little borrowed capital and what credit he could get, he plunged into business far beyond his means and business capability, and brought upon himself a burden of body and soul that he had to carry to the gates of the grave. How many times have I heard him lament this step, saying, “O that I could have trusted him that had fed me and clothed me;” but he followed the counsel of his own heart, and had to reap the bitter cup. “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.” When his friends recommended him to lessen his business, he would say, “Ah, I have got in and I cannot get out.” Well if this might be a warning to some who are going on frowardly in the way of their own hearts, who are determined to have the will and way of the flesh, whatever it may cost them. We know the Lord keepeth the feet of his saints, and that all shall work together for good to them that fear the Lord; but there is a path, such as, “Ephraim is gone after idols; let him alone.”

When the church was formed at Providence Chapel, Oakham, in March, 1843, Isaac Cooper was one of the first who were baptized and joined it; and he continued an honoured member of it until his death, a period of 20 years. He was naturally somewhat warm tempered and easily roused, especially against any appearance of error, legality, or free-will, having had to buy truth in the furnace. But no man could be more tender where he saw the real grace of God, or more broken in his confessions of sin before the Lord. Living nine or ten miles from the chapel, many hundreds of miles has he walked during his earlier days, though being a stout, heavy man, and from his calling confined to his shop all the week, he had weak feet. Latterly he drove a little cart, but no weather kept him from the house of prayer as long as he was able to attend; and no more attentive hearer, nor one who more weighed every word, sat in the place. We shall all, as a church, greatly miss him, for, from his long and consistent membership, he had become a father amongst us, and we were much united to him and he to us in the bonds of affection and love. His favourite ministers were, Mr. Tiptaft, (whom he called his father,) Mr. Gadsby, Mr. Warburton, Mr. Philpot, Mr. Smart, and Mr. Godwin. Of his own dear minister, he has told me what a blessing he has been to his soul. He said, “He has watered my soul scores of times. Sometimes he has said a word or something which has not suited me, and I have been boiling up against him at times during the whole fortnight. I have come to chapel, he has gone through the travail of my soul, and I have loved him as much as ever. All was right again. Then I could see what the devil had been doing with me.”

March 8th was the last time he heard the preached word, being very ill in body and very dark in soul. He said, “I have not heard a word of comfort. Here I am, death staring me in the face, and as dark as midnight.” In about a week after this he was laid upon the bed of death, his disease being an affection of the heart, terminating in water on the chest. He told me when I saw him what a conflict he had had with the enemy of his soul, how he had tried to drive him from all his strongholds, meaning the bright places in his experience; but the Lord blessedly delivered him with these words, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” And also, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” He had at first a little hope that he might be raised up again, and a desire in his heart that it might be so, to put his earthly affairs in a better way, if possible. Here he had a conflict in his soul. But one day, when visited by the Barrow friends, he told them the Lord had worked blessed resignation to his will, that he had given up all into the hands of the Lord, and felt in his soul that he had done with the world, and said, “O if I should have to return, what a trial it will be to me to prove this unreal. How it will try my faith.” He was in a blessed frame that day. He said to the friends, “Give my love to all that fear God. This is all the qualification I want. No partiality now all that fear God.”

I shall now give some broken words as they fell from his lips during his last four or five days on earth:

April 21st.—“Glory be to thee, O God! How good it is, thou good and gracious God, living with faith in exercise. Thou Lord, thou Lord! only Source, O Lord!” On being asked if he were happy, he said, “Yes, bless the Lord.”

April 22nd. “Farewell. I am going to glory.” I said, “Are you going to leave us?” “Yes, going.” He fell asleep again. When he awoke, he said, “I thought the Lord had taken me away. Always one trying against another; but I am come again. Tell them, tell them, that of all the mysteries the Lord has shown me, there was none like this. It is beautiful to behold the Lord in his beauty and fulness. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless and praise his holy name!” and he fell asleep again. When he awoke, he said, “Lord, I do believe thou art a holy and just God. I have praised thee, and I will praise thee for ever. I must return to dust, from whence I came; but, dear Lord, show me whether it is delusion or not. It is enough! it is enough! Three times hast thou shown me heaven in its beauty. I will praise thee; I will praise thy holy name.”

April 23rd. “O Father, whom I call Supreme! Lord, what am I, and what is my father’s house? Thou, God, knowest all things. O Lord Jesus, quickly come, and let me depart, if it be thy will and glory. O blessed Lord, set me at liberty. Lord, bless what is truth in me. O my Lord, let not the enemy take possession of my soul; look upon thy dust and ashes. Thou upholdest thy poor disciples; O do thou uphold thy poor worm! I am poor and needy. Lord, give a blessing. Do, Lord, for thy great name’s sake. ‘O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you?’ O Lord, hast thou forsaken me? Do, Lord, have mercy on me. Thou hast sanctified me already. Thou great and glorious Lord God, I do bless thee, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Do, dear Lord, make me free from the world, and I shall be free indeed. O how can my soul live to see such havoc made of the church! I lie here, and all I can say is, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner; and, blessed Lord, forgive all my manifold sins I have committed, for thy own name’s sake, and thou shalt have all the praise, honour, and glory. Lord, I am resigned to thy blessed will. If it be thy blessed will to set me at liberty, release my spirit. O Lord, I feel a hard heart; at other times, as if in jeopardy. Do, Lord, appear to my poor soul.”

April 24th. “O, dear Lord, do take me to thyself, if it be thy blessed will; do, dear Lord, thou ever-blessed and ever-living God, in thy covenant of love. What a blessing to have thee. O how great is thy salvation, O Lord! Yes, yes.”

After this, he was scarcely able to speak at all. On the 26th of April, just after he was a little raised in bed, without a word, he waved his hand three times, and his sorrows were ended for ever. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.”

R. H. Jun.