Fun link

I found this on Rhodri's new blog.The blog is here.

Le livre est arrivé!

So at last it's here. I had to read it through to see what it was like and if there were any mistakes. I spotted no typos but there are one or two minor 'continuity errors'. I hope it will be a help to young Christians and serioous unbelievers who want to explore the subject. What a privilege to be involved in such a project. Do check it out. I think it goes for around 7.99.

New Feature

Hope you like the new feature - blogs to see. It's for my own use as much as anything. I sometimes miss things. Do check out these links featured at the time of writing this: one serious (interview with Philip Eveson) and one for fun (Ben Thomas sglefrolio amser maith yn ol).

Hymn of the week 26

We haven't had this feature for a little while but I so enjoyed singing Joseph Hart's hymn yesterday that I wanted to put it here in case anyone doesn't know it. Previously it was in Grace Hymns and not in Christian Hymns. Chiefly for this reason my father-in-law would always choose it for the services on the weekend before the Aber conference, knowing he wasn't choosing something people would be singing again that week. In this way the hymn was brought to many people's attention and now features in the new Christian Hymns. They didn't like one or two things for some reason and have changed them. This is the original:

A Man there is, a real Man,
With Wounds still gaping wide,
From which streams of Blood once ran
In hands, and feet, and side.

'Tis no wild Fancy of our Brains,
No Metaphor we speak:
The same dear Man in Heav'n now reigns,
That suffer'd for our sake.

This wond'rous Man, of whom we tell,
Is true Almighty God.
He bought our souls from death and hell;
The price his own heart's blood.

That human heart he still retains,
Tho' thron'd in highest bliss;
And feels each tempted
Member's pains: for our affliction's his.

Come then, repenting sinner, come;
Approach with humble faith:
Owe what thou wilt, the total sum,
Is cancell'd by his death.

His blood can cleanse the blackest soul;
And wash our guilt away,
He shall present us sound and whole
In that tremendous day.

Baptism

This Lords' Day past was a red letter day for us in Childs Hill as there was a baptism in the evening. I preached in the morning from the next part of Mark's Gospel (on the sending out of the Twelve). I always like to have baptisms in the evening as things seem a little anti-climactic come the evening otherwise. It meant that one or two couldn't be there but most oncers made the effort to be there twice or switched services. Our usual small congregation (under 20) was swollen by friends and family to around 50 or so. I was baptising my eldest son's girlfriend, Sibyl. They met in school and talked endlessly about the Bible. She has no background in Christian things. She began to come to church but was beginning to lose heart but was booked in for last year's Aber Conference. She nearly pulled out but her family urged her to go as long as she didn't get converted. Well, she listened to the first part anyway. She is not the sort of person who revels in public speaking and so it was a special blessing to hear her testimony and then to baptise her. It always surprises me how quick the actual baptism itself is (about 30 seconds or so). Before that I preached from Ruth 2:11, 12 endeavouring to explain the great change that has happened to Sibyl and presenting an apologetic to the feminists in the audience. After the baptism we sang 'A man there is a real man' which Sibyl chose. That is a great hymn (even after the editors of Christian Hymns have tinkered with it).

I'll welcome Sibyl into membership next week. She is soon off overseas for her gap year. We have a tradition in Childs Hill of baptising people then saying goodbye to them. I have baptised no more than 20 people over the years, I believe. How I wish there had been more. Let's see what happens next. There are at least seven young people I am praying for.

More here.

Bloggy Special 28

Another three days

On Wednesday I was at Spring Court with the older folk in the morning. I also had a haircut on the Kilburn High Road. At night it was our usual midweek meeting for prayer and Bible study. In the afternoon headed into town to Tottenham Court Road, had a nose in the electrical shops and drunk a coffee then met up with another member of the Westminster Conference committee to look at The American Church. The buildings date from the fifties and obviously get a lot of use but will be adequate for our use next December. A very nice man with a penchant for irony helped us sort out what we were going to do. Various auditions appeared to be going on in the different rooms. One interesting room had some historical artifacts including a portrait of Whitefield that I'd never seem before. I'm not sure how old it is. The site is where Whitefield once had a church. Augustus Toplady is buried somewhere on the premises I understand.

I spoke this evening on Christ's intercession using something I found in Turretin. After the church meeting we had a short church members meeting where we heard a testimony in preparation for an intended baptism on Sunday. Eleri and Rhodri joined us for this. They had gone to the Hampstead School prizegiving. The speaker was a former pupil who is now a backing singer for Amy Winehouse (Eleri pointed him out to me when we saw a bit of Glastonbury while she was looking for footage of Cerys Matthews there - she now has a child in the same school as our youngest two). Rhodri's girlfriend got a biology prize. Guess what they gave here? Richard Dawkins' God delusion. It is a pretty humanist school I know but considering that is not a biology book and Sibyl is the one we are baptising it seemed a little odd.

Thursday went mostly on preparation for Sunday. Up in Golders Green Jews for Jesus were out in full force. It was nice to meet Stephen Pacht their UK director. I also got talking to a Jewish PR man called Nick who saw me reading the Calvinistic Methodist Fathers book and struck up a conversation with me. He took note of the book for further reference and recommended some Jewish reading for me.

On Friday we had a meet up over a Chinese meal (Green Cottage) to say farewell to a former member and assistant here who is off back to America on Monday after a six month stint in the UK. Mark Raines is about to become assistant to Mark Chanski in the Reformed Baptist in Holland, Michigan. Among his hearers will be Al Martin, now in retirement from Essex Fells. In the evening we had the clubs for children and young people. I was leading - on Jairus's daughter. We also got the baptistry prepared.

Saturday morning we had a bit of a clean up over at the church in preparation for the baptism. The rest of the day it was more preparation and more reading from Welsh Methodist history while listening to Thijs Van Leer.

Beware of sharks

Missing Teeth

Someone once asked why missing teeth look so charming on children and so horrible on adults. Perhaps it's to do with the fact that children's missing teeth will be replaced.

Stapleford, etc

On Monday we were meeting again at the Evangelical Library near Baker Street where we are still inching towards a sale of the property. Further developments look to be in the right direction. Watch this space!
Then I was out all day Tuesday. Bright and early Eleri took me to the London Gateway Services near the bottom of the M1 (did you know that the M1 has no Junction 3?) where I met up with Jeremy Walker (Maidenbower Baptist) to travel to Stapleford, just off the M1 between Derby and Nottingham. In a chapel there I was at my first full committee organising upcoming Westminster Conferences. It was good to be amongst august company. One of the EP directors was able to give me a first glimpse of my book on regeneration, which Jeremy told me he also had a copy of. I'm still yet to have one of my own.
The next Westminster Conference (2008) is all set. I have listed the subjects here. Speakers are to be Iain Murray (Lessons from the Puritans), John J Murray (Recovering the Reformed vision), Paul Brown (Kevan and law), American Professor Robert Godfrey (Tradition good and bad), Jonathan Watson of Banner (Thomas Brooks) and Faith Cook (Grimshaw).
The conference is becoming a little nomadic. Having begun in Westminster Chapel and been in the Friends House near Euston for a short while, this year's conference (December 9, 10) will be at the American Church in Tottenham Court Road.
As for 2009 (December 8, 9) things are shaping up well. We are hoping to have papers on Calvin (two of these), one on the 1859 Revival, one concerning Darwin and Darwinism, one on the Elizabethan settlement of 1559 and, to round off, one on the Moravians. It is shaping up to be a very good conference. Do come along.
The church kindly made us hot drinks and given us a light lunch. One of the ladies said that they had had a baptism last Sunday of the husband of a church member, a man they had been praying for, for some 32 years! Praise the Lord!

After the committee those who wished were kindly invited to have a meal at the nearby home of a former committee member now retired. We had a lovely time chatting and enjoying hospitality there, sharing news and anecdotes, etc. This man has preached some 700 sermons since he retired 10 years ago, which shows that life is hardly over just because you retire.
We then headed home. I was back by 9 pm but Jeremy took another 2 hours to get through London. It was my suggestion to head through the city I hope that wasn't what made him so late.

Great Tube Advert

I'm not a tennis fan but I am interested in popular culture and for Wimbledon fortnight the sponsor's HSBC have this brilliant ad on the tube. This version has been cropped so you can't see the Cliff Richard CD in the bottom left hand corner but most of the other references are observable if you click above. Do look out for Tim Henman. Let me know if you spot any really subtle ones. There should be more than ten! (If you count the Cliff Richard).

PS I can see the Cliff Richard CD after all - down on the right next to the Wimbledon mug!

Bloggy man 45

Fun products

Have you seen this?

(I found it on Mike de Jong's blog from a while back)

Other Holy Clubbers

The lives of the Wesleys and Whitefield are well known and we have endeavoured to say something about Ingham, Gambold, Broughton, Hervey and Clayton. As for the others mentioned we know little about

Charles Kinchin (1711-1742), except that he was born at Woodmancote, Hampshire. Educated from 1725 at Corpus Christi, he was elected fellow 1731, dean 1736. He led the Holy Club after the Wesleys left. He was ordained and appointed Rector of Dummer, Hampshire, 1735, being assisted by a succession of evangelical curates including Whitefield and Hervey. In his later years he was drawn towards the Moravians. He died in London of smallpox, January 1742.

Robert Kirkham (c 1708-1767), a student at Merton College, who was the son of Rev Lionel Kirkham, rector of Stanton, Gloucestershire, whom he succeeded as rector, 1739-1766.

William Morgan (c 1712-1732) was born in Dublin, the son of Richard Morgan sen. He entered Christ Church 1728. His poor physical and mental health and early death were by some attributed to his adherence to the strict rules of the Holy Club, a charge rebutted by Wesley in a letter to Richard Morgan sen. 19 October, 1732.

William Smith (c 1707-1765) of Leicester, was a student and fellow of Lincoln College. He proceeded BA 1729, MA 1732.

The ODNB has articles on Westley Hall and John Simpson.

Westley Hall (1711–1776), a dissenter, was born Salisbury 17 March 1711. His father, Thomas, was a clothier and his mother, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Westley, rector of Imber, near Warminster. Her brother, Robert, became Lord Mayor of London and was knighted 1744. The Halls were in comfortable circumstances. Westley inherited Hornington Manor from his father and a house at Fisherton, near Salisbury, from his mother. He received his early education from his mother's brother, Thomas, Rector of Berkeley, near Frome, and matriculated as a gentleman commoner at Lincoln College, Oxford, 26 January 1731. At his entry he presented the college with two silver sauce boats and at his departure he gave rector, Euseby Isham, ‘who was always kind to me’, a copy of Raphael's cartoons.

He became a pupil of Wesley, who recalled later that he had been ‘holy and unblamable in all manner of conversation’ and was an assiduous Holy Club member, making so favourable an impression on Wesley that he was invited to his home at Epworth. He became secretly engaged to Wesley's elder sister, Martha, whom he had met when she was staying with her uncle, Matthew, in London. A few months later, however, he proposed to younger sister, Keziah, and gained the family's consent. When Martha revealed her engagement, he abandoned Keziah and married Martha, 1735. His action was strongly condemned by Charles and Samuel Wesley, who described him as a ‘smooth-tongued hypocrite’. More immediately John reconciled himself to the marriage, which was highly praised in verses in the Gentleman's Magazine September 1735. For a time Keziah resided with the Halls, later becoming a pupil teacher at Lincoln and dying young - her death hastened, according to John, by Hall's treatment.

Hall, who left Oxford 1734 without a degree, was made deacon and priest by the Bishop of London with a view to his becoming chaplain at Savannah in the newly established colony of Georgia in succession to Samuel Quincy. He joined the Wesleys and other members of the intended expedition at Gravesend 1735 but (in spite of having spent £100 on clothing and furniture), partly because of objections from his family, he opted out, informing Governor Oglethorpe that he had been offered a living by an uncle. He became a curate at Wootton Rivers, Wiltshire, moving to his mother's Fisherton house, 1735. There he was joined by Wesley's widowed mother, Susanna. She then described him as a ‘man of extraordinary piety and love to souls’. In 1739 the household moved to London, where he became actively engaged in promoting the youthful Methodist society, preaching against the Moravian doctrine of ‘stillness’ and urging expulsion of 2 members of the society for failing to adhere to the principles of the Church of England. Within a year he had himself adopted Moravian tenets, converting Susanna to the ‘witness of the Spirit’ and strongly criticising John's management of the society as well as his religious teaching.

In 1743 ‘poor Moravianized Mr Hall’ (Charles Wesley) returned to Salisbury, where he set up a religious society which he urged John and Charles to join, but his views were to become increasingly extreme, moving from Moravianism to deism, repudiating the sacraments, denying the resurrection and preaching and practising polygamy. His wife, whom he treated with little consideration, remained loyal to the C of E. ‘You are’, Wesley wrote to him, 18 August 1743, ‘a weak, injudicious, fickle, irresolute man, deeply enthusiastic and highly opinionated. You need a tutor now more than when you first came to Oxford’. In a strongly worded letter, 22 December 1747, Wesley remonstrated with Hall for his heterodox religious teaching and immoral manner of life, listing some of his many affairs.

Hall was, however, to persist in his eccentric opinions, seeking to disturb Charles prayer meetings at Bristol, 1750-51, for which Charles was to criticise him in his Funeral Hymns (no 11). Shortly afterwards, accompanied by his mistress, he moved to the West Indies, visiting Essequibo in Guiana and Barbados, where in 1758 his mistress apparently saved his life when some black people entered his house and tried to slit his throat by hurling a pewter tankard at the miscreant's head!

On his return to England he took clerical duty and became reconciled to his wife; John commented to brother Charles, ‘Is it right that my sister, Patty, should suffer Mr Hall to live with her? I almost scruple giving her the sacrament, seeing he does not pretend to renounce Betty Rogers [the seamstress whom Hall had seduced]’. Nevertheless John and Charles took over the responsibility for the maintenance and education of the Halls' eldest son, Westley, but the boy died from smallpox at 14, much mourned by Charles in his Funeral Hymns (no 10): ‘unspotted from the world, and pure and saved and sanctified by grace’. His father, with characteristic ineptitude, had addressed a tract to the boy entitled The Art of Happiness, or, The Right Use of Reason, in which he strongly criticised orthodox religious teaching. In all Hall had apparently 12 sons and daughters, of whom at least 2 were illegitimate, of whom only 3 were still living 1774. After suffering much ill health, Hall died at Bristol 3 January 1776. John was too late to visit him but helped at his burial service, commenting in his journal: ‘God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in 70 years’. Hall was a plausible and charismatic figure, especially where women were concerned, but of a very unstable character. His wife, Martha, survived him, dying 12 July 1791. She was buried in the ground attached to the New Chapel in the City Road, London.

John Simpson (1709/10 - c 1766), evangelist and preacher, was the son of Thomas Sympson. Brought up in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire it was possibly under the influence of Wesley, in nearby Epworth, that he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, aged 18 as a servitor, 1728. There he became Wesley's pupil and a Holy Club member. He graduated 1731, and after ordination obtained a valuable Leicestershire living.

During the 1730s he kept in touch with Wesley, and when the evangelical revival began, he was drawn in. By November 1739 he was in London, the revival centre. He preached in Ingham's Yorkshire societies, and, January 1740, visited Ingham's Nottingham followers. Wesley seems to have left him in charge of his fledgling Foundery Society, established for his London followers because he disapproved of the doctrine of ‘stillness’ that was taking hold of the Fetter Lane Society. But by April Simpson had himself espoused ‘stillness’, rejecting the sacraments, and led opposition to Charles Wesley in both societies. The dispute resulted in the Wesleys' withdrawal from Fetter Lane that July.

In November 1740 Simpson, who had by now resigned his living, moved to Ockbrook, Derbyshire, and became leader of the societies established by Ingham's followers there and in Nottingham. In 1741 his ‘stillness’ teaching annoyed the Countess of Huntingdon - though she believed he was ‘a good man and means well’ - and she asked Fetter Lane to recall him. They replied that they had not sent him but asked him to return, but he declined.

By now the Moravians had taken over Fetter Lane. When Simpson visited, August 1741, they judged him ‘honest but peculiar’. They remonstrated with him for going to Ockbrook, acting unilaterally and fostering error. In April 1742 Moravian opposition to his planned marriage to an unconverted woman prompted him to repudiate them. Meetings with Lady Huntingdon and the Wesleys ensued, but he stood by his teachings and, though initially thought to have made common cause with the Wesleys, remained independent.

His support in Ockbrook grew (2 houses were built for him), and he visited Nottingham quarterly, but in 1743 several members of his society withdrew after the Moravians, who thought he acted ‘like a madman’, publicly disowned him for refusing to obey directions. By May just 10 remained; 30 of his former followers requested Moravian supervision, January 1744.

Wesley's journal entries recording meetings with Simpson display continued affection: ‘Whatever he does is in the uprightness of his heart. But he is led into a thousand mistakes by one wrong principle … the making inward impressions his rule of action, and not the written word’; ‘the oddest, honestest enthusiast, surely, that ever was upon earth’; this ‘original enthusiast … spoke many good things, in a manner peculiar to himself … what pity it is this well-meaning man should ever speak without an interpreter!’. In November 1747 he aroused Wesley's sympathy when drawn to London by the offer of a living, but was then asked to stop preaching outside church - a condition to which he could not agree.

Still living and preaching in Ockbrook, 1748–9, his repeated drunkenness and the content of his conversations to and about women gave offence. He railed against the Moravians, seeming ‘crazy if not fuddled’ when doing so in a Bedford inn. He was in Derby gaol by January 1751, and still there October 1753. By 1757 he was out of prison, still living in Ockbrook and preaching to 5 or 6 every Sunday. He is last recorded living in Ockbrook 1766; details of his date and place of death are unknown.

John Clayton

Another member of the Holy Club was John Clayton (1709–1773) who became a Church of England clergyman. Born Manchester 9 October 1709, eldest of four, his father William Clayton (1679-1725) was a bookseller–stationer, whose wife was Martha Mosson (1678/9–1730). He was educated at Manchester grammar school and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated with a school exhibition 17 July 1725, proceeding BA 16 April 1729, MA 8 June 1732. In 1732 he became associated with Wesley's Holy Club. He had a significant influence on the Oxford Methodists, extending their social work and deepening their devotional life under the influence of primitive Christian beliefs and practices. He had a taste for mystical writings, acquired under the guidance of non jurors in Manchester and elsewhere (Thomas Deacon, John Byrom, William Law).

He was ordained 29 December 1732 and made perpetual curate of Sacred Trinity, Salford, 1733. Wesley continued to seek advice from him and his circle and preached for him in Manchester and Salford, as did Whitefield. Wesley, however, became less strict in his devotion to ‘primitive’ precedents, and his increasing irregularities after his evangelical conversion made Clayton alarmed and critical. A letter from Wesley, probably to Clayton (28 March 1739) rejected Anglican restraints famously proclaiming ‘I look upon all the world as my parish’. This probably marked the end of their friendship and in later years Clayton cold-shouldered the Wesleys on their Manchester visits.

In 1736 he acted as chaplain to Darcy Lever, high sheriff of Lancashire, and published an assize sermon preached at Lancaster entitled The necessity of duly exercising the laws against immorality and profaneness. He was elected chaplain, 6 March 1740, and fellow, 28 June 1760, of Manchester collegiate church. His high-church Tory sympathies were shown in his support for the agitation to stop the erection of a poorhouse in Manchester, dominated by whigs and dissenters, 1729–31. During the Jacobite invasion 1745 he said grace for Bonny Prince Charlie and allegedly knelt and prayed for him in the street. This is said to have led to his ecclesiastical suspension, though he was later reinstated. He did not, as was once thought, go into hiding only to be reinstated at the general amnesty for rebels; rather he was indicted for treason at Lancaster, though not convicted. For a time after 1745 he was subjected to attacks for his Jacobitism by Thomas Percival of Royton, Presbyterian Josiah Owen of Rochdale and ‘Tim Bobbin’ (John Collier). In later years he modulated his loyalties towards the Hanoverian dynasty, for which he was denounced as two-faced.

From at least 1738 he conducted an academy in Salford which was naturally patronised by local Tory and Jacobite families and produced a number of university entrants. For their use he published Anacreontis et Sapphonis carmina (1754) and created a 6000 volume library. He was elected a feoffee of Chetham's Hospital and Library 1764. His Friendly Advice to the Poor (1755) reacted to economic changes in Manchester by blaming the poor for idleness, extravagance and bad management, though he left money 1772 to aid poor tradesmen and farmers. (This was reported lost by 1826). ‘Joseph Stot’ (Robert Whitworth) replied satirically in his A Sequel to the Friendly Advice to the Poor (1756). Apart from his early influence on Wesley's religious development Clayton is perhaps chiefly significant as an example of the overlapping religious and political culture of high-churchmen, Tories and Jacobites in Manchester and elsewhere.

Clayton was described as standing about 5' 8", somewhat portly, dignified in gait, with an enormous wig: he was a disciplinarian to his pupils and a meticulous observer of clerical duty. It has been claimed that he was married, but evidence is indecisive. His sister Jennet kept house for him.

He died (probably of the stone) 25 September 1773 at Back Salford and was buried 28 September in the Derby chapel of the collegiate church, Manchester. After his death his former pupils founded a society of Cyprianites and erected a monument in his memory. His library was also dispersed in this year.