Essay on Berridge's "Christian World Unmasked"
JOHN BERRIDGE the author of
this book, was, along with some others of his day, the salt of the Church of
England, and an instrument in God's hand of working revivals of religion within
her pale, worthy of record with those that his cornpeers Whitefield and Wesley
wrought without her. He was born in 1716, but not born again till he had
entered the ministry. His studies were carried on at Cambridge, where he gave
early proof of his native energy, and that what he did, as was said by an old
woman of Dr. Chalmers, he did
with all his heart. At that seat of learning, where he gained the honours and
emoluments of a Fellowship, he passed for many years fifteen hours a day in
hard study, ranging over all the fields of knowledge, and a strengthening by
such vigorous exercise faculties of no ordinary power. Clare College at length
presented him to the charge of Everton in Bedfordshire, where he laboured as
few men have done, till his death, in 1793. In a short but most graphic sketch
of our author, Dr. Hamilton of London thus relates the very quiet but
remarkable way in which the Holy Spirit brought him to a saving knowledge of
the truth: "His success was small - so small that he began to suspect his mode
was wrong. After prayer for light, it was one day borne in upon his mind -
Cease from thine own works,only believe; and, consulting his concordance, he
was surprised to see how many columns were required for the words Faith and
Believe. Through this quaint inlet he found his way into the knowledge of the
Gospel, and the consequent love of the Saviour; and though hampered with
academic standing, and past the prime of life, he did not hesitate for a moment
to reverse his former preaching, and the efficiency of the cross was soon seen
in his altered parish."
Nor were his labours confined to his parish now. He
was not content with his own preserve. Not the man to stand by and see others
beyond the parochial boundary perishing for lack, of knowledge, he flung
himself, heart and soul, into the very thick of the movement then being made by
Lady Huntingdon, Venn, Grimshawe, Wesley, Whitefield, and others, to awaken
England from its sleep of death; and never but on one occasion did he allow
consequences, personal, pecuniary, or ecclesiastical, to turn him a hairbreadth
from the path of duty. We record it as an example of how God may ordain
strength out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, and by the weak things of
the .church confound the strong: "One day, dining the period of his itinerancy,
he had occasion to pass through a town where he had often met the scoffs and
taunts of the ungodly; but instead of riding through the main street, he turned
through a bye-way to avoid the profane people who were in the streets. Here he
was met by a pig-driver, who immediately addressed him,and said - "You,
cowardly John Berridge, you are ashamed of your Master, and therefore you skulk
along here to avoid the cross". This incident, he said, was of incalculable
benefit to him; it spoke with effect to his heart, and he became more and more
determined not to be moved in bold confession of Christ. That solitary occasion
which found Berridge skulking down a bye lane to escape the insolence of the
mob, but stands as a foil to the bravery with i which he faced his bishop,
armed with all the powers of the church to crush him. Fortunately Berridge has
left this scene painted by his own hand : - Soon after I began to preach the
Gospel at Everton (says Mr. Berridge) the churches in the neighbourhood were
deserted, and mine so overcrowded, that the squire, who did not like strangers,
he said, and hated to be incommoded, joined with the offended parsons, and soon
after, a complaint having been made against me, I was summoned before the
bishop. Well, Berridge (said his lordship), did I institute you to Eaton
or Potten? Why do you go preaching out of your own parish? My lord (said
I), I make no claim to the livings of those parishes. T is true I was
once at Eaton, and, finding a few poor people assembled, I admonished them to
repent of their sins, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for the salvation
of their souls. At that very moment, my lord, there were five or six clergymen
out of their own parishes, and enjoying themselves on the Eaton bowling-green.
I tell you (retorted his lordship), that if. you continue preaching where
you have no right, you will very likely be sent to Huntingdon gaol. I
have no more regard, my lord, for a gaol than other folks (rejoined I), but I
had rather go there with agood conscience, than be at liberty without one. His
lordship looked very hard at me. Poor fellow! (said he), you are beside
yourself, and in a few months you will either be better or worse. Then,
my lord (said I), you may make yourself quite happy in this business; for if I
should be better, you suppose I shall desist of my own accord, and if worse,
you need not send me to Huntingdon gaol, for I shall be better accommodated in
Bedlam. His lordship then pathetically entreated me, as one who had been and
wished to continue my friend, not to embitter the remaining portion of his days
by any squabbles with my brother clergymen, but to go home to my parish, and so
long as I kept within it I should be at liberty to do what I liked there.
As to your conscience (said his lordship), you know that preaching out of
your parish is contrary to the canons of the Church. There is one canon,
my lord (said I), which I dare not disobey, and that says, Go preach the Goepel
to EVERY CREATURE."
It is worthy of notice that God raised up friends in
unexpected quarters to shield this faithful servant. The great Lord Chatham
came from the helm of the nation to stand between him and ruin; while the Lord
Chancellor of England also was moved by Lady Huntingdon to leave the Woolsack
and come to the rescue of the Vicar of Everton. In allusion to that
circumstance, Grimshawe thus pithily and pathetically writes: "May the Lord
eternally bless that dear, good, honourable Lady Huntingdon, who would defend a
persecuted minister of Christ to the last gown on her back, and the last
shilling in her pocket."
For the trials and opposition which Berridge had
to meet from many quarters, he had an ample recompense in the extraordinary
success with which God blessed his ministry both in his parish and beyond it.
He suffered much and he laboured hard; putting most men to shame. For no less
than four and twenty years he preached on an average ten or twelve sermons, and
travelled a hundred miles per week. There were indeed giants on the earth in
those days. He did not labour in vain in the Lord. Shining a star of the first
magnitude in the constellation of England, he was held in the highest esteem
and the warmest affection by the worthies of his day. Whitefield pronounced him
to be an angel of the church. Venn, defending him from opprobrium, says, that
he was "as familiar with the learned languages as with his mother tongue;" and
that he could be under no temptation to court respect by itinerant preaching,
for he merited and enjoyed that in a high degree among all ranks of the
literary professors at the University. Wesley pronounces on him this high
eulogium: "Mr. Berridge appears to be one of the most simple as well as most
sensible men of all whom it pleased God to employ in reviving primitive
Christianity. I designed to have spent but one night with him; but Mr.
Gilbert's mistake (who sent him word I would be at Everton on Friday) obliged
me to stay there another day, or multitudes of people would have been
disappointed. They come now twelve or fourteen miles to hear him; and very few
come in vain. His word is with power: he speaks as plain and home as John
Nelson, but with all the propriety of Mr. Romaine and the tenderness of Mr.
Hervey." But the noblest testimony and best reward which Berridge received was
seen in the eager, moved, and melted thousands who crowded to hear him preach,
and many of whom now shine as jewels in one of the brightest crowns that is
worn in heaven. An eye-witness describes the church at Everton as crowded with
persons from all the country round, "the windows being filled within and
without, and even the outside of the pulpit to the very top, so that Mr.
Berridge seemed almost stifled." At Stafleford, Grandchester, at Driflow,
Orwell, and indeed wherever he went, he was a centre round which thousands and
tens of thousands gathered. All eyes fixed on him, the tears rolling over their
cheeks, and many, unable to keep down the swell of their emotions, crying out,
"Lord what shall we do to be saved?" Even when nearly worn out by his gigantic
labours and ardent spirit, he rose on one occasion to preach at Harlston,
dejected and depressed, saying - " I am now so weak, I must leave off
field-preaching;" yet there, the usual effects accompanying the word, he
delivered himself with amazing energy to three thousand people. And so, from
Everton as his centre, the truth radiated out to London and all the provinces
round about. He sounded the Gospel abroad over all the country, and in many
instances, revivals, like those of Kilsyth and Cambuslang in Scotland,
distinguished, and blessed, and crowned his ministry.
Not that Berridge
neglected his own parish, or had occasion to say, "they made me keeper of
vineyards, and mine own vineyard have I not kept." In proof of this, and as
illustrating the wit and eccentricity in which he indulged when the pen was in
his hand, we may insert a letter of his to his friend and coadjutor, Lady
Huntingdon. She had asked him to supply some of her chapels. His reply, in
which he alludes to a minister of the name of Dyer, who with some sectaries had
been sowing dissension and their peculiar views among his people, as well as
among her ladyship's followers, will be found in the following letter : - " As
to myself (he says), I am now determined not to quit my charge again in a
hurry. Never do I leave my bees, though for a short space only, but at my
return I find them either casting and colting, or fighting and robbing each
other; not gathering honey from every flower in God's garden, but filling the
air with their buzzings, and darting out the venom of their little hearts in
their fiery stings. Nay, so inflamed they often are - and a mighty little thing
disturbs them - that three months tinkling afterwards with a warming-pan will
scarce hive them at last, and make them settle to work again. They are now in a
mighty ferment, occasioned by the sounding brass of a Welch DYER,* who has done
me the same kind office at Everton that he has done my friend at Tottenham.
Tis pity he should have the charge of anything but wasps; these he might
allure into the treacle pot and step in before them himself, but he will never
fill a hive with honey."
In illustration of his powers as a Barnabas, we
insert the following letter written to the same lady on the death of her
daughter. Although marked indeed by Berridge's peculiarities, it is full of
lofty thought, and pregnant with consolalion : - ~ My Lady - I received your
letter from Brighthelmstone, and hope you will soon learn to bless your
Redeemer for snatching away your daughter so speedily. Methinks I see great
mercy in the suddenness of her removal, and when your bowels have done yearning
for her you will see it too. 0! what is she snatched from? Why, truly, from the
plague of an evil heart, a wicked world, and a crafty devil - snatched from all
such bitter grief as now overwhelms you - snatched from every thing that might
wound her ear, afflict her eye, or pain her heart. And what is she snatched to?
To a land of everlasting peace, where the voice of the turtle is ever heard,
where every inhabitant can say, I am no more sick! no more whim in the
head, no more plague in the heart, but all full of love and full of praise;
ever seeing with enraptured eyes, ever blessing with adoring hearts, that dear
Lamb who has washed them in his blood, and has now made them kings and priests
unto God for ever and ever. Amen. Oh, madam! What would you have? Is it not
better singing in heaven, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, &c. than
crying at Oathall, 0 wretched woman that I am? Is it not better for her
to go before, than to stay after you? and then to be lamenting, Ah my
mother! as you now lament, Ah my daughter! Is it not better to have your
Selina taken to heaven, than to have your heart divided between Christ and
Selina? If she was a silver idol before, might she not prove a golden one
afterwards? She is gone to pay a most blessed visit, and will see you again by
and by, never to part more. Had she crossed the sea and gone to Ireland, you
could have borne it; but now she is gone to heaven tis almost
intolerable. Wonderful strange Love this. Such behaviour in others would not
surprise me, but I could almost beat you for it; and I am sure Selina would
beat you too, if she was called back but one moment from heaven, to gratify
your fond desires. I cannot soothe you, and I must not flatter you. I am glad
the dear creature is gone to heaven before you. Lament, if . you please; but
glory, glory, glory be to God, says JOHN BERRIDGE."
We cannot throw
together these fragments of Berridge's life and character without mentioning,
that in addition to his own labours, which have had no counterpart in our day
save in the lives of James Haldane and some few such men, he employed many
other labourers in the same field. He hired barns, he paid preachers, and on
these and works of charity, he expended the whole proceeds of his vicarage and
Fellowship, the price of his family plate, and the whole of a large patrimonial
fortune. He kept nothing back - he did nothing by halves - although sometimes
indeed he brought himself thereby into difficulties, which however, were borne
without repining, and from which, like a bee that finds honey even in bitter
flowers, he drew good lessons as the following extract proves "Friday, July 7.
- I have become acquainted with the Rev. Mr. R - of Wakefield, and find him a
sensible, pious, and experienced man. He was long intimate with Mr. Berridge of
Everton, whom he represents as a deeply devoted, spiritual, and humble man;
possessing a vein of great natural humour, but of very serious manners. He gave
in fact all his goods to feed the poor; and at one period, after a long
illness, was in actual distress, not knowing where to turn for support. Whilst
musing on his state, he heard a rap at the door - the postman was immediately
announced with a letter, on which was charged a shilling. Mr. Berridge had not
a shilling to pay for it, and would not take; but requested the postman to take
it back to the office, as he said he never wished to have any thing in his
house that was not paid for; but the postman said he would call on the morrow,
and insisted on leaving it. When he opened it, he found to his great surprise a
bank- note for thirty pounds from John Thornton. Who, said he, can
doubt after this the existence of a particular Providence? " if our author did
not always, in correspondence or conversation, restrain the over-flowings of
his humour, he never kept back his money in the cause of Christ; if he said
some odd, he never said mean, and he always did noble things; and offeiuing
himself - to God a living sacrifice on the altar of our faith, and with himself
all that he had, he went through the world and lived in the church of which he
was one of the best ministers ,and brightest ornaments, realizing the lofty
wish of Brainerd : - " 0! that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God!"
So much for the author. As to the book itself we may remark, that
The
"Christian World Unmasked" is a work which none but John Berridge could have
written - the work of an extraordinary man; like a child who is the living
image of his father, it proclaims its parentage. Here, as elsewhere, he
preserves his own character; he always did so, whether he penned letters to
noble ladies, or addressed a congregation of ten thousand peasants, or stood
before the dignitaries of the church like a lion at bay, trampling the
canon-law beneath his feet, and claiming on the strength of a higher authority
his right to preach the gospel to every creature. The book which we introduce
anew to the public, has survived the test of years - - and still stands
towering above things of inferior growth like a cedar of Lebanon. Its subject
is all important; in doctrine it is sound to the core; it glows with fervent
piety; it exhibits a most skilful and unsparing dissection of the dead
professor; while its style is so remarkable that he who could preach as
Berridge has written, would hold any congregation by the ears. No doubt a very
fastidious taste- may find expressions here and there to jar on its delicate
nerves, which some may think it were better to have smoothed and softened. We
once witnessed a scene which reconciles us to leaving these as Berridge left
them, and assures us that, with the great mass of readers, these spots, if such
they be, will be Lost like those of the sun, in a blaze of Light. Seated in the
front pew of a side gallery, where we had a commanding view of the audience, it
was our privilege on the occasion alluded to, to hear no common preacher. His
grammar was uncommonly bad; not seldom he violated the simplest idioms of our
language; and no pronunciation certainly could be more uncouth than his - yet
the congregation hung upon the speaker's lips. Every eye was fixed upon him;
and, apparently insensible to the existence of any defect, they sat enchained
by a piety which beamed in his looks, and often moulded his tones into the
finest oratory; and they looked perfect delight as ever and anon from the
depths of his sanctified genius there rose thoughts so heavenly and sublime, as
to appear amid the darkness of his reasoning like rockets blazing up to heaven,
bursting in the upper skies and descending on earth in a shower of
fire-balls.
Our author, as the work will prove, was in many respects a very
different man from the preacher I have described. Berridge laid the hand of a
giant on his subject. He brought to his discourse the reasoning powers of a
strong intellect, and added the accomplishments of a great scholar to the piety
of a Christian and the pathos of an orator; and indeed we are inclined to think
that naturally as it came to him, that occasionally out-of-the-way style of
exhibiting truth, which might offend a very fastidious taste, rather helped
than hindered the grand object for which he prayed and preached. He could not
help doing what Richard Cecil did of design on one occasion, when he found that
although he had brought a carefully prepared and polished sermon to the pulpit,
his audience refused him their attention. That great preacher flung it at once
aside, and after a protracted pause, astonished the still and wondering
assembly by crying aloud "A man was hanged at Tyburn this morning" - Now all
were awake. With that nail he fixed every ear to the pulpit, and starting from
the scaffold he struck out on a path altogether new, and delivered to
unflagging attention a sermon. of extraordinary power. We do not love Berridge
the less, but rather the more for his peculiarities - not -that we would have
any man imitate them - for as even beauty becomes ridiculous when a jackdaw has
dressed itself in peacock's feathers, an aping of others is always offensive.
Their peculiarities are like a suit of clothes which hang not well on any but
the man who was measured for them; not to say that the misfortune of imitators
often lies in this, that in copying the lisp, the burr, the shrug, the broad
accent, the ungainly and ungraceful attitude, they forget that their idol is
not great by these, but in spite of them. If striking peculiarities of thought
and expression however, be originalities - things not borrowed but born, as
they were in Berridge - then, with God's blessing, they prove not weakness but
strength, as was seen in the thousands who crowded to hear him preach, and the
multitudes who fell before his bow, which, like that of Ulysses, none but
himself could bend.
For while to its inhabitants heaven's beauties are ever
new, and familiarity breeds no indifference in them, how often is that its
effect in our present imperfect state? It is with spiritual objects as with the
most attractive or sublime scenes of nature. The glowing sunrise, the gleaming
river, the sea roused by the storm into majesty, summer walking the earth
decked in a robe of flowers, the brow of night sparkling with its countless
gems - many regard these with the eyes . of a brute; they stir no thought; they
excite no reflection; nor call forth such exclamation as the Psalmist's - "
How manifold are thy works, Lord God Almighty - in wisdom thou hast made
them all !" Even so, the surpassing glories of the Gospel, the cross of
Calvary, the crown of heaven, are lost on eyes which have become familiar with
them from the cradle and a mother's knee; and to the terrors of the law men
grow as insensible as the inhabitants of the tropics to the play of lightnings,
or the tenant of a cottage within the spray of Niagara to the roar of its
thousand thunders. These, although they may shake the air, and stun the ears of
strangers, are unheeded or unheard by him. If among many striking, Berridge
says some strange things; if always original, he is occasionally odd; if in
this book there are a few instances of the picturesque approaching the
grotesque, the reader will readily excuse these for the sake of the noble piety
with which the book is pervaded, the golden truths that lie imbedded in its
pages, and a style and manner pre- eminently calculated to rouse the dullest
attention, and break through that indifference with which familiarity encrusts
the most solemn and momentous subjects. Infinitely better such a book, than
faultless dulness, unobjectionable common-places, an essay from press or pulpit
which is bare of beauties as of blemishes, and in which, if men find no faults,
they feel, as sleepers prove, none of the interest that carries the reader over
the pages of the "Christian World Unmasked."
T. G. EDINBURGH, November
1852.
* Rev. G. Dyer, Lecturer of St. George the Martyr