The Life And Ministry Of John Warburton Jr.

Earthen Vessel 1892:

Death Of Mr. John Warburton

Dear Brother Winters,—Mr. John Warburton, Baptist minister, Southill, Beds, finished his course at Southill, Beds, on Tuesday morning, Jan. 19th. Influenza, followed by bronchitis, terminated his honourable life and 50 years’ ministry of the Gospel. He was held in high esteem in these parts as a worthy man and minister of Christ’s Gospel. Numbers from surrounding districts usually attended his ministrations—some driving 10 and 16 miles every Lord’s-day. “A prince and a great man is fallen in Israel.”

J. Bonney

London-road, Biggleswade, Beds, Jan. 21, 1892.

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[The appearance of the portrait of the late Mr. John Warburton, of Southill, in our Magazine, is due to the courtesy and kindness of Mr. John Warburton, Solicitor, West-street, Finsbury, London, E.C.]

The Late Mr. John Warburton, Minister Of The Gospel, Southill, Beds.

“God hath His mysteries of grace; ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep as the sacred sleep of him He loved so well.”

The death of Mr. John Warburton removes from our midst one of the most faithful and laborious Strict and Particular Baptist ministers of this country and of this age. The cause at Southill and the pulpits for many miles round have lost a familiar character. Mr. Warburton was no ordinary man. In the pulpit he was bold, lively, cheerful, and intrepid; his style was easy, methodical, and original. He was always himself, and never sought to imitate any but Christ and His apostles, and never hesitated to utter what he believed to be consistent with truth and his own conscience. The lines of Cowper, descriptive of a true God-sent minister, point to such a man as Mr. Warburton when in full health and vigour of mind and body:—

“There stands the messenger of truth: there stands 

The legate of the skies!—His theme divine,

His office sacred, his credentials clear.

By him the violated law speaks out

Its thunders; and by him, in strains sweeter 

Then angels use, the Gospel whispers peace.”

He had presided over the happy and united Church at Southill for nearly fifty years, and was, as a preacher, even more successful, both at home and abroad, during the closing days of his life’s work than at the beginning. This is to be attributed mainly to the sovereign operations of God, the Holy Ghost, through his ministrations, his close study of the sacred Scriptures, the mellowness of his experience, and the secret fellowship he was privileged to hold daily with his beloved Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

Mr. Warburton was born of humble, but very godly parents, August 18th, 1815. He was the youngest of ten children of Mr. John Warburton, Strict Baptist Minister at Trowbridge, a native of Stand, near Manchester, and author of “Mercies of a Covenant God,” &c. He was a most effective preacher, and exercised a great command over his congregations. In the above-named work is described in striking language his experiences of 40 years.

The runaway lad, the subject of our memoir was apprenticed to a tailor at Trowbridge, Wiltshire; but in 1832, at the age of 16, ran away. His father followed, found him at Portsmouth, and took him back home. Four times after this did he run away from good situations to tramp the country. The last time he went to his uncle’s in the north of England, and did well; but being fully bent upon rambling the country, left him, and after wandering about for some time, enlisted as a soldier at Plymouth. As soon as his father was able he procured his discharge, and in a short time (to use his father’s words) “God visited him with peace and pardon.”

The story of the running away of “young John” for the first time is touchingly told by his father in “Mercies of a Covenant God.” He says:—“I shall now relate another sore trial that I passed through, which was one of the keenest I ever bad in all my life. It was respecting my youngest son, who is the youngest of ten children now living. I agreed with a person at Trowbridge, who was a tailor, to teach him the business, to whom he went for a few years. I expected he would learn the business, and do well. But one day, on a Tuesday, which was preaching night at chapel, he did not come home to dinner as usual, when I began to fear that something was the matter; and, though our people said that no doubt he was at his sister’s, I felt such fears that all was not right that I sent to inquire if he had been at his work. The answer returned was, No; he had not been there. O what a shaking and trembling came upon me. I sent messengers up and down the town, but could get no tidings of him.

“How I got through the preaching the Lord knows, for I don’t. I cannot recollect that ever he had up to that time slept a night from home in his life. If I recollect right, he was than in the sixteenth year of his age, and, being the youngest, I was over careful of him. We stopped up until one or two o’clock in the morning, but there were no tidings of the lad; and, indeed, we might as well have stopped up all night for what sleep we got. The day after we searched in every place, but could not hear of anybody that had seen or knew anything about him. Here we were till Friday, when a person came to our house to tell me that he had been seen at Salisbury either on Wednesday or Thursday. The moment I heard this intelligence, I sent for my son-in-law, hired a horse and gig, and borrowed ten pounds, and off we set for Salisbury, and I felt that I could have followed if it had been across the seas. My very soul was wrapped up in the lad…On we went till we got to the Halfway House, where we stopped to feed the horse, and just as we were getting up in the gig to start off again, a man stepped out of his house, and said, ‘I saw your son John yesterday going on his road to Winchester.’ He told me he knew him as well as he knew me, as he was a Trowbridge man that had been to Winchester to work. On we went again…We arrived safe in Salisbury, where we stopped all night and early on Saturday morning set off for Winchester. We found he had slept there on Thursday night, and had left for Southampton on Friday. After a little refreshment we set off for Southampton, and found out the house of call, where I went in, and inquired of the landlady if a young man had been there last night. But before I had time to say more, she answered, ‘Yes, and I see he is your son; he comes from Trowbridge, in Wilts.’ My bowels were so overcome that I could not contain my feelings, and I wept aloud. She told me that he had something to eat, ‘and I asked him,’ she said, ‘if he had not run away from a good home;’ to which he said that he had, and wished he was at home again; but his father had a friend at Portsmouth, and he would start for that place in the morning. I went straight to the inn where we had put up the horse, and found the Bath coach going to Portsmouth. So we left the horse and gig, and took coach for Portsmouth…And what a blessed, sweet, outpouring of my soul I had from Southampton to Portsmouth. . The coach stopped…I asked the coachman how far we were from Portsmouth; he told me between two and three miles. I asked him if he knew a person of the name of Doudney, a tallow chandler, that lived at Mile End, Portsea, and he replied that he knew him very well; so I told him to set me down there…O how my soul and body trembled when the coach stopped at my friend Doudney’s door, for fear the dear lad was not there. In I went, without any ceremony, and cried out, ‘Have you seen my child? Is my child here?’ They did not answer my question, but seemed quite surprised at seeing me, and asked me to sit down. But I cried out, ‘Is my child here? If he is not here I must be off again, for I cannot rest till I find him!’ They smiled, and told me to look behind me in the corner. I turned round to look, and there was my beloved child. O I thought my very soul would have burst through my body. O I had hard work to keep from taking him up in my arms, and I could not help blessing God that He had led me the right way. I suppose we had travelled betwixt eighty and ninety miles, and I do not know that we had gone a hundred yards from the way the lad had trod with his feet, save about ten of the last miles to Portsmouth.”

The following day being Sunday, Mr. Warburton was asked by Mr. Doudney to preach in the neighbourhood; but he suddenly remembered that his people at Trowbridge were destitute of a preacher that day. However, he preached in the evening in a chapel procured for the occasion, and the next day he heard that a poor woman had been brought into spiritual liberty through his discourse. The text preached from was Psalm 147:2.

“Young John,” as he was then called, ran away from home five distinct times, and, says his father, “The fifth time, I think, exceeded all.” The last time he wandered away, he wrote (after a fortnight’s absence) to his father from Plymouth barracks, stating “that he was in the very hands of hell night and day.” He had enlisted as a soldier, and was at his duty when the Lord met him and convinced him of sin. Mr. Arthur Triggs. Iiving at the time at Plymouth, found him out, and invited him to his house, and tried to comfort him in his soul trouble. Mr. Triggs also wrote to his father, and acquainted him of his position. The father recorded the happy return of his dear boy thus:—“As soon as we could we procured his discharge, and the prodigal returned home, and a hearty welcome he had; and I soon found the work was of God, and that the lion could lie down with the lamb, and a little child could lead them…O how my soul did rejoice when I heard that God had visited him with peace and pardon. He walked for a short time at large, and on the 29th of April I baptized him with some others and truly I felt it an affecting time, and so did many others. I believe amongst about nine hundred people there were few with a dry cheek; and to this day I am fully satisfied the work is of God.” 

The Late Mrs. Warburton Of Southill

Mr. Warburton survived his beloved wife only a few months. He must have felt his loss very keenly, as they had lived together in love and peace so long. His sad bereavement reminds us of the quaint couplet written on the death of one of the Pilgrim Fathers of America, who died almost immediately after his fond wife:—

“He tried to live without her— 

Liked it not, and died.”

Mr. Warburton wrote a touching memoir of his beloved wife, and which appeared in the Gospel Standard for December, 1891. This memoir was penned at Southill, and bears date Oct. 2nd, 1891. The following extracts from it will, we are sure, be read with interest:—

“Mrs. Warburton.—On July 17th, 1891, aged 73 years, the beloved wife of Mr. J. Warburton, of Southill. My dear wife was born March 4th, 1818, at Trowbridge. The first time I saw her was at her brother’s. She was a stranger to me at that time. It was some time in the spring of 1838. What God purposes must come to pass. I said to myself, ‘If ever I marry, that is my wife;’ and she told me, after we were married, that she was similarly impressed. So it came to pass that we were married July 19th, 1838, at the Parish Church at Trowbridge.

“Our future prospect as to Providence was very dark to human appearance. The probability was that I should shortly be in my grave. One woman said to another, ‘Poor thing, she will not have a husband long!’ And as to circumstances, they were low, very low. All the money I had was only enough to pay the marriage fee. I borrowed a sovereign of my wife’s sister to provide something for dinner. My brother-in-law told me some years after that he said to his wife, ‘Your brother John is just married, and, he added, ‘never a couple more likely to come to the Union.’ Thus it was that we started together; in circumstances poor, and poverty before us. But if poor, we were content; indeed, we felt happy together; we lived in peace…We have mourned together; we have feared together; we have wept together; we have prayed together; praised the Lord together; we rejoiced together. We lived together in love and affection for 53 years, excepting two days.

“We came to Southill at Michaelmas, 1844 (old style), with the intention of supplying the Church for six weeks, it being without a stated minister. My feeble testimony was blessed of God. People came from far. The Church gave me invitation after invitation, until Oct. fith, 1846, when I accepted the pastorate. Having obtained help of God, I have continued with them to the present time. My wife came before the Church Nov. 27th, 1846, when she was enabled to give a blessed reason of the hope which God had raised up in her soul; and on Dec. 6th I baptized her with three others.”

After giving an affecting account of his wife’s illness and last days, he concludes: “Now let me raise my Ebenezer to the glory of the dear Lord. Bless His precious name! Hitherto hath He helped me. I have observed that when I married I borrowed a sovereign; but such was the goodness and kindness of my blessed Lord, the expenses attending the funeral, though heavy, were met without borrowing. While writing the above, tears of gratitude have flowed so freely that in spirit I washed the feet of the blessed Lord. Praise ye the Lord.”

Mr. Warburton’s Happy Death

Our beloved brother John Waters Banks has kindly forwarded us the annexed interesting particulars of the happy death of Mr. Warburton, by Mrs. R. Fane, of Southill:—

“Dear Sir,—I herewith forward you a few particulars of the last days of my late dear father…Thanking you very much for your kind sympathy in this our hour of trial and bereavement. It is indeed a great loss to us, and none but the blessed Lord can give support in such an affliction as this.

“Our dear father had been remarkably well in health the last few months of his life, and his preaching had been blessed to the people of late, as many have testified, and some of our dear friends said they thought the Lord was about to take him home before long.

“On Jan. 5th he was taken ill with bronchitis and influenza, and lasted only just a fortnight. From the beginning of his illness up to the time of his death he was quite passive in the Lord’s hands; and whenever we asked him if he thought he should get better, he would always answer, either, ‘I don’t know,’ ‘I have nothing to do with it,’ or ‘Just as the Lord will.’ These and many other precious things he said during his trying affliction.

“On Monday, Jan. 18th, he did not seem so well, and I asked him if he thought he should get better. He said, ‘I don’t know.’ I then said, ‘Is the Lord good to you in your affliction?’ He answered, ‘Precious! precious!’ Soon after this he repeated the following verse:—”‘Weary of earth, myself, and sin.’ Altering the third line, he said:—’”Oh! come, Lord Jesus, and take me in, For there I long to be.’ Later in the evening he said, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul! Bless the Lord, O my soul! Blessed Jesus! Blessed Jesus!’ After this he said to my youngest sister four times, ‘Oh, my dear child, the Lord bless you.’ And later in the evening, only a few hours before he died, he said, ‘The blessing of the Lord maketh rich, and addeth no sorrow.’ I said, ‘You have that blessing, father!’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and added, “‘I have no sorrow.”These were his last words, and very soon after they were spoken he quietly, peacefully, and sweetly passed away in the presence of several of his children, at 2.35 a.m., Jan. 19th, 1892. Yours, &c., R. FANE, Chapel-house, Southill, near Biggleswade, Beds., Feb. 2nd, 1892.”

Mr. Warburton, we understand, preached on the first Lord’s-day in January, 1892, and administered the Lord’s Supper, being then in his usual health. On the second Sabbath, however, he was too ill to preach, and gradually fell asleep in Jesus as above stated. The Memorial Card contains the following inscription:—“In loving remembrance of John Warburton, pastor of the Church at Southill for 48 years, who departed this life Jan. 19th, 1892, aged 76 years. ‘And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them’ (Rev. 14:13).”

The Funeral

On Monday afternoon, Jan. 25th, the funeral took place, and was attended by hundreds of persons from surrounding towns and villages. The roads leading to Southill were thronged with vehicles and foot passengers.

The time fixed for the service to commence was two o’clock, but before that time the chapel was filled to overflowing with a sympathetic audience, quite 800 people being present. The pulpit was hung around with black cloth. It being impossible to take the coffin into the chapel, by reason of the narrowness of the aisle and the low ceilings, it was placed in the porch while the solemn and impressive service was proceeding. The coffin bore the following inscription:—

JOHN WARBURTON,

Born Aug. 18, 1816—Died Jan. 19, 1892,

and was of polished oak, with brass fittings. No wreath or floral tribute was permitted to be placed on the coffin or grave.

The chief mourners formed a slow procession down the left aisle, and included Mr. John Warburton and Mrs. Fane; Mr. W. Ebenezer Warburton and Miss Warburton; Mrs. John Hitchcock and Mrs. Gudgin; Mr. R. G. Hitchcock and Miss A. Warburton; Mr. G. Hitchcock and Miss N. Warburton; Mr. J. Warburton, jnr., and Miss Hitchcock; and Miss Fane and Miss Turner. Among the many friends and sorrowing congregation were Mr. and Mrs. Tompkins, Miss E. A. and Master N. Tompkins (Shefford), Miss Pycroft (Shefford), Mr., Mrs., and the Misses Randair (Stotfold Mill), Mr. and Mrs. T. Smith (Shefford), Mr. A. Whiteman Mr. Day and Mr. Whittome (Deacons), Mr. E. Wren, Mr. Wren Mr. C. Remington (Devizes), Mr. E. Casey (Cheshunt), Mr. Isaiah Smith (Patton), Mr. Goodman (Flitwick), Mr. Northey, Mr. Frohock, Mr. Lansberry, Sergeant McLean, Mr. Fane (Bedford), Mr. W. Coasins (Northampton), Mr. A. Peet (Sharnbrook), Mr. Ell (Arlesey), Mr. Smith (Gloucester House, Ampthill), Mr. W. Wilson, Shefford), Mr. F. Jeeves (Hitchin), Mr. Harrison, Mr. Jeakings, Mr. Kaysell, Mr. Morris (Warden), Mr. Oldfield, Mr. W .F. Morris (Ritchin) Mr. Harris (Renhold), Mr. J. Bonney (Biggleswade), Mr. A. Ashhy (Clifton), Mr. J. P Wiles (Cambridge), Mr. C. Camp (Walkern), Mr. T. Emery (Stotfold), Mr. F. Fountain (Sharnbrook), Mr. G. Haddow (Biggleswade), and many others from surrounding towns and villages.

MR. C. Hemington of Devizes, was the officiating minister, assisted by Mr. Oldfield, of Godmanchester. “Fountain of life who givest me breath ” (to be sung at the interment of a believer), was given out as a commencement of the solemn service. When Mr. Hemington stood up to read the 15th chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, he said his dear brother’s death, and the last two lines of the hymn, were almost too much for his feelings, and that he needed God’s help to enable him to keep nature under its proper restraint.

After the singing of another hymn for the burial of a believer, Mr. Hemington delivered a weighty and suitable discourse. The hymn, “Sons of God by blest adoption, View the dead with steady eyes,” having been sung, and prayer offered, the mourners proceeded to the grave. The coffin was deposited in a brick grave close to the right wall of the chapel porch. Mr. Oldfield then gave a brief address, and Mr. Hemington concluded the solemn service.

The funeral arrangements were admirably carried out by Mr. Redhouse, undertaker, Stotfold, who also provided the bearers.

From our earliest connection with the Church of Christ we have loved and cherished the memory of good old John Warburton, of Trowbridge, father of the late Mr. Warburton, of Southill; and never shall we forget reading for the first time an account of the personal interview he had in his early days with William Huntington, whose writings we then so eagerly read. Mr. Warburton says:—“Many years before I began to preach, a person offered to lend me a book, the title of which he said was ‘The Kingdom of Heaven Taken by Prayer,’ written, he added, by one Huntington, a coalheaver. No! says I; I thank you; it is nothing but some Arminian rubbish, for the title of the book satisfies me what it is. But he said that it was exactly my experience. So I took it, and O what a night I had in reading that blessed book! Sometimes I was crying, sometimes laughing; sometimes blessing and praising God till my very soul was so overpowered that I hardly knew whether I was in the body or out of it! And O what a union of soul did I feel to that dear man of God!

“I made a solemn vow to God that if ever He brought me in His providence anywhere near to him, I would go and tell him the blessing which I had received from reading his book. The very year before he died I was the unworthy pastor of the Baptist Church meeting at Hope Chapel, Rochdale; and being considerably in debt for the chapel, the Church wished me to go out a begging as two hundred pounds were wanted, and we were threatened with law if we did not get it. So off I set round the different counties till I got to London, and then the text came with power to my mind: ‘Pay thy vows unto the Lord…’I said to my friend where I made my home,’ Come, you must go and show me where Mr. Huntington lives, for I must “pay my vows unto the Lord…”‘ So off we went, and he brought me to the gates of the house which was situated at Hermes Hill, Pentonville. I rang the bell, when the footman came to the door. I requested an interview with Mr. Huntington, if agreeable. He asked me my name, and where I came from, and bade me follow him to the front door…O what fear and shaking I had when I entered in. The good old man was sitting at his table with his cap on, and his Bible open before him, and he looked just like the old prophet Elijah in my eyes. But I was so shaken that I could hardly tell what to stammer out, nor did I know for a few moments what to say. At last, however, I said I had read his book, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven Taken by Prayer,’ many years ago, and it had been made a great blessing to my soul, &c. But the dear old man never spoke a word, nor lifted up his head, and I sat so confused and shut up that I could not tell what to say, and for a minute or two not one word was uttered. At last I spoke, and said, ‘It’s a mercy that we are poor sinners.’ The old man lifted up his head and said, ‘There are many poor sinners that know nothing of the matter.’ ‘Yes,’ I tremblingly said, ‘I believe there are;’ and then I hobbled out somehow or another, ‘but it is a mercy if the Lord has brought us to know that we are poor lost sinners.’ The dear old man, lifted up his head again, and looked “me right in the face, and I felt as if his look would have knocked me right off the chair I sat on; and he said again, ‘There are many poor lost sinners that know nothing of the matter;’ and down he dropped his head again. Poor, ignorant, blind fool, I sat sweating and trembling, and did not know what to say; but the dear Comforter shone into my heart and brought what was needful to my remembrance; and I answered the good old man, ‘It was true there were thousands of poor lost sinners that knew nothing of the matter, but I believed in my very heart that when God the Holy Ghost quickened a dead sinner, opened his blind eyes, and brought him to see and feel that he was a poor lost sinner, He never left him, &c.’ The old man looked up and said, ‘What dost thou know of the love of God? What is it? And what the effects of it when known and felt in the soul?’ and dropped down his head again. I said to him, ‘I hoped that the dear Spirit would enable me to give a reason of the hope that was in me with meekness and fear. I told him where the Lord had first met with me whilst in the gall of bitterness, &c. ‘O what a change this produced in the dear man’s countenance. He looked up with tears running down his cheek and blessed God for what He had taught me…and we both wept together. I told him why I was in London, and that I was the unworthy pastor of a little Baptist Chapel at Rochdale; that we had built a new chapel, and being a very poor people I had been through some parts of the country to get some assistance towards it, but told him I had no view of coming to him to beg. The dear old man told me he could not encourage me to beg amongst his people for they had built their own chapel themselves, and it had cost them a great deal of money. But he opened his table drawer, and scraped up all the silver he had in it, and poured it into my hands, and said, ‘I give you this for your family.’ I thanked him and blessed God, and was just going to put out my hand to shake his hand at parting, when I thought he might think me too bold, and was going out; but he stopped me by saying, ‘Let us shake hands at parting,’ and added, ‘May the Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, bless thee and go with thee…’ And the Lord did go with me, for I got £200 in my journey and went home to Rochdale with joy and peace.”

John Warburton And His Friends Mr. Tiptaft And Mr. Philpot

Mr. W. Tiptaft, a worthy man of God and minister of the Gospel, who had seceded from the Church of England for conscience sake, was, says the late Mr. J. C. Philpot, “led to build a chapel at Abingdon entirely at his own expense,” and which was opened March 25, 1832. The opening sermons were preached by Mr. Warburton, of Trowbridge, and Mr. Hitchcock, of Devizes. Both Mr. Tiptaff and Mr. Philpot very highly esteemed Mr. Warburton, as may be gathered from Mr. Tiptaft’s life, by Mr. J. C. Philpot (page 74). Mr. Tiptaft, in a letter dated “Abingdon, May 4th, 1832,” says, “The Lord has decidedly blessed my preaching lately, I am rejoiced to say. I am not much of a favourite amongst the clergy. Philpot has paid me a visit this week, and heard Warburton in my chapel.” To this passage Mr. Philpot adds the following very interesting note: “This was the beginning of my acquaintance and, I believe I may add, friendship with Mr. Warburton. I met him at my friend’s house, and of the interview which we then had Mr. W. used often to speak. We were, in fact, both of us, before we met, much afraid of one another—he of my learning, I of his grace. He feared lest I should see his ignorance of human learning, and I lest he should discover my ignorance of Divine teaching. But before we parted our mutual fears were completely dispelled. He would make me pray with him and W. T. before we parted; and, according to his account, my simple petitions, not those of a learned man but of a poor sinner saved by grace, touched his heart, and created a union of soul which was never broken; for I can truly say we never from that day had the least jar, but walked in peace and union to the day of his death.”

Warburton mentions the opening of Tiptaft’s chapel in “Mercies of a Covenant God.” If I recollect right, the week after, which was the spring of 1832, I had to go to Abingdon, in Berkshire, to preach at the opening of the new chapel which my much-esteemed brother and friend Mr. Tiptaft had built. I recollect well I borrowed two pounds to go with. In the morning, before I left, dear Mr. Tiptaft put five pounds into my hand.”

Mr. Warburton was the faithful pastor of Zion, Trowbridge, about 42 years. His end was a glorious one; the last words he was heard to speak were ” Precious Jesus! precious Jesus! hallelujah!” 

“Fearless he entered Jordan’s flood,

At peace with heaven he closed his eyes,

His only trust was Jesus’ blood,

In sure and certain hope to rise.”

He sweetly fell on sleep April 2, 1857.

Mrs. Warburton, widow of the above and mother of the late Mr. Warburton, of Southill, died in the summer of 1862. A short time before her departure she expressed herself as being firm on the Rock of Ages, and said, “Crown Him! crown Him! I will crown Him through vast eternity.” Her last words were similar to those uttered by her beloved son just before he died, “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” Her end was peace.

“One gentle sigh each fetter breaks, 

We scarce can say ‘they’re gone,’

Before the willing spirit takes 

Her mansion near the throne.”

W. Winters, Editor

Waltham Abbey, Essex

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Tribute Of Esteem

Sketch of a Discourse delivered at Southill, Beds, January 25^th, 1892, at the funeral of Mr. John Warburton, by Mr. C. Hemington, of Devizes, Wits.

After the reading of the Scriptures, singing, and prayer, Mr. Hemington addressed the vast congregation. He said it was a most solemn and mournful event in God’s providence that had brought them together that afternoon. According to his natural feelings he should have been glad indeed to have sat in that chapel the day before and that afternoon, to have heard his dear departed brother proclaiming from that, his own pulpit, the exceeding riches of God’s grace. It was to him a most painful and poignant duty to discharge in being called to commit the body to the tomb. No human face ever wore a more cheerful expression when preaching the blessed Gospel than did their dear departed brother. When his soul was enlarged and all aglow with the life and liberty of the Gospel which he proclaimed., when the Spirit of the Lord rested upon him, as they well knew it often did, he was like the great Apostle, determined to know nothing amongst men but, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. Like other servants of God, he had his own peculiar complexion of mind, and it was only natural to him to manifest in the house of God, and in his own domestic circle, and in the homes of his friends a characteristic cheerfulness which sometimes rose to little flights of humourousness. But he could honestly declare that he had never heard any little humourous remarks from his lips, without their being immediately counteracted by deep, solemn utterances of God’s eternal truth. So that in giving them his real opinion of him as a minister, he would say he was an able minister of the New Testament, and an earnest, faithful servant of Jesus Christ.

He was no dull, heavy, gloomy preacher, but one of the most cheerful, animating, soul-stirring ministers they had in the denomination. There was always a freshness, and variety, and peculiar originality in his preaching. It was no moulding up of stale matter with him, nor a mere methodical spinning out of mere doctrinal truth in a dry, systematic way, but a preaching the Word of Life in the warmth of his heart, and as he had handled and tasted it for himself. But he was persuaded that were their deceased brother to bear him making such remarks about him, and could he, as now standing before the throne of God, drop a whisper into his bosom, it would be:—“Say not too much about me, but speak to the people for the good of their souls. Tell such among them as need to be told, that if they live and die without hope in Christ, they will perish for ever—that before they can follow me, to be where I am, they must be born again of the Spirit of God, as I was—that they can never stand as justified sinners before God, unless they be justified as I was freely by God’s grace.”

The theme of their departed brother’s ministry was the total ruin of mankind through the Fall, and the sinner’s salvation alone by God’s grace, and as he advanced in his ministry, with the advancing years of his life, deeper and deeper did he dive into the mystery of sin and iniquity of the Fall of man, and the mystery of God, and the Father, and of Christ. What thousands and thousands of poor, lost, ruined sinners had already, through the invincible power of God, been stopped in their mad career of sin, and had died in the faith of Christ, and gone to glory. But what multitudes there were in the world, and it was not for him to say how many there might be that afternoon in that chapel, that were not only born in sin, as all were, but still living in sin! What numbers lived and died in their sins! And what then? It was inconceivable to contemplate. No change could take place in a man after death: if not saved by God’s grace before death, there would be no salvation beyond it. As the tree falls, so it lies. It was an awful thing to stand before the eternal God—that God who knows all things, and hates all evil by a necessity of His holy nature. Fools made a mock of sin, but they would make no mock of sin when they stood face to face with God.

The sick chamber in the house of Royalty had just recently been the chamber of sorrow and mourning. The wasting body, the glancing eye of the dying Prince, the anxious watchings, and ebbings and flowings of hope and fear in the bosoms of beloved parents, had moved all Europe to the deepest emotion and concern. And yet this sad scene had been only a prelude to what God, in His inscrutable providence, had permitted to follow upon it. Death had come upon the Royal house, and he might say, in the words of King David, when Joab killed Abner, “Know ye not that there is a prince and a great man fallen this day in Israel.” God’s ministering servants are mortal men, and God had seen fit, in His unerring wisdom, to deprive that Church of His faithful servant and of their beloved pastor, who for nearly 50 years had laboured with so much earnest zeal amongst them. No one knew what death was. Scripture nowhere explains it according to its mysteriousness. It simply says, “Man dieth.” “For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.” But Scripture nowhere explains what death is. It was nothing but a figment of man’s brain, and hence a delusion to contend, as many were doing in the present day, that the wicked would be annihilated—be literally burnt up, and come to an end. They will live for ever and ever in hell, as our departed brother will live for ever and ever in heaven! They had come together that afternoon to pay their last tribute of esteem to the mortal remains of their dear minister. Many servants of God, and Christian friends, who did not belong to that Church, were there to join them in paying such tribute. God knew that he (the preacher) had loved him for the truth’s sake. They had had blessed meetings together. On one occasion, when his departed brother had been fiercely assailed by the devil before going into the pulpit at Devizes, the Lord helped him to preach one of the most Christ-exalting sermons which he (the preacher) had ever heard him deliver. He was quite broken down that morning, through the power of God upon his spirit, in hearing his dear brother preach from that great text, “Before Abraham was I Am.” His own Church had good reason to chronicle in their remembrance the blessed times they had had in hearing the Gospel when Mr. Warburton had visited them.

At the close of the discourse Mr. Hemington read a letter relative to the death of Mr. Warburton, which had been written out by one of the friends.