The Life And Testimony Of Ann Roff

Gospel Standard 1865:

Death. On Nov. 8th, 1864, Aged 66, Ann Roff, widow of the late Robert Roff, pastor of the church meeting in Ebenezer Chapel, Stow, Gloucestershire.

She was one who was separated, with her husband, from the General Baptist connexion, about 1829; but though separated at that time, with him and others, she was bitter against the truths her husband loved and preached, for which he was separated, and continued a great persecutor of him for some time. He told me a little of what he suffered from her; but the Lord was pleased, in his own time, to slay the enmity of her heart, and bring her down at his feet, a poor, broken-hearted sinner, crying for mercy, her sins, of a dreadful nature, standing before her in many forms, as she told me, and the law condemning her for what she had done both before making a profession and after. All were opened up to her in such a way as to cause her to feel there could be no mercy for her, and that she surely had committed the unpardonable sin.

While in this state she wished to see me. When I saw her, she wept bitterly. Afterwards she told me a little of the state of her mind, and said, “Surely I have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, and I am appointed to eternal death.” I said, “No, never. You have not committed that sin. You are in the same state of feeling I once was, when tempted to think I had committed that sin; but the Lord showed me I had not; for the sin against the Holy Ghost was accusing Jesus Christ of casting out devils by a devil; and the Lord showed me this by his own word: ‘Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.’ (Mark 3:30.) When the word dropped with power into my soul, I said, ‘Lord, I never believed thou hadst a devil;’ and then the Lord was pleased to break the snare, and give me to feel I did not count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing. Now, a person to commit that sin,” I said, “must have the light of Peter, and no more than light, and the enmity of Judas at the same time.” After speaking to her in this way, her countenance changed, and she said, “Then after all I have not committed that sin; for I do long for and desire his precious Person, love, and blood to feel and know for myself as being interested therein.”

Some time after this the Lord was pleased to speak, as she told me, to her heart words of comfort, peace, and salvation, which moved her willing feet to the room to hear her husband and others preach that gospel which before she despised. She told me one scripture in Isaiah,(1:25,) “I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin,” she could never forget; and when in darkness and sorrow she ofttimes said, “The Lord surely is fulfilling his word in these trying things to purge away my dross and tin.”

Towards the close of her life she was in much darkness of soul, and much harassed by the power and force of the enemy, so much so that she feared after all that her former comforts were not of the Lord. In this state she continued for some time; but at last the Lord appeared to her with words of consolation, to enable her to say, “I do love him; he is mine and I am his. I am upon the Rock.”

I understand her last words were: “I long to be gone. Do take me away. Do come, Lord, and fetch me home!” 

G. Gorton

Lines Upon The Death Of Our Dear Friend Mrs. Roff

FAREWELL, dearest Friend, thou art now safely landed; 

The storms and the tempests for ever are o’er;

Though thy bark for a season, so lonely, seem’d stranded, 

The breezes have wafted thee safe to the shore.

The Jordan is pass’d,

Thou art happy at last,

In the long-desired haven of heavenly rest;

Where thy partner, so dear,

With the ransom’d appear,

To join in the anthems as sung by the blest.

Ah! Could we but rend the dark curtain asunder, 

Revealing the bright spirit world to our view; 

Could we see the surprise and the ecstatic wonder 

Which bursts on the soul in its vision so new,

As, fill’d with amaze,

It fixes its gaze

On the Lamb who appears in the midst of the throne; 

Then falls at his feet,

In an ecstacy sweet,

And feels all the glories of heaven its own.

But ah! Our poor bodies could not bear the glory,

The swift-winged lightning which darts from his eye; (Dan. 10:6; Rev. 1:14) 

Like the prophets we read of in sacred story, (Dan. 10:8; Rev. 1:17)

Our mortal would languish, just ready to die.

O! We could not endure

That vision so pure,

For sin has so weaken’d the powers of our mind,

We must drop this vile clod

Ere we gaze upon God,

And our home in the land of the glorified find.

Our sister has gain’d this sublime destination;

No more with the toils of the desert oppress’d,

She drinks at the Fount of divine consolation,

And with her dear husband has enter’d her rest.

Their union, so dear,

Which existed while here,

Is cemented more closely at home where they dwell;

And nothing can sever,

For ever and ever,

Their union with Jesus. “All is right.” “All is well.”

C. Spire