William Huntington
by J. C. Philpot
Thomas Hardy, in one of his excellent letters, makes the
following remark, "The best Christians I meet with are generally
Huntingtonians." This witness is true. There is, or as we must now say
there was, for so few of them are left, a depth and clearness of experience,
a savor and a sweetness, a rich, tender, feeling, unctuous utterance, a
discrimination between law and gospel, letter and spirit, form and power, a
separation from a lifeless profession, whether presumptuous or pharisaical,
which distinguished them, in a most marked and decisive manner, as a
peculiar and separate people. They had their failings and infirmities, as
their justly admired and esteemed pastor and teacher had before them; and
there were those, doubtless, in their ranks who had caught his faults
without catching his grace, who were followers of his doctrine, but not
followers of his Lord. Seeing all delusion but their own, taking hold of
their teacher's skirt, as if he could thereby pull them into heaven,
idolizing and extolling him, as if thereby a part of his grace were
reflected upon themselves, and clinging to him as a servant of God, as if
that were the sum and substance of Christian experience; if there were such
among his hearers, it was only what he himself declared and denounced, and
is but another proof of the desperate wickedness and deceitfulness of the
heart of man.
His eminent gifts and grace, his great abilities as a
preacher and writer, his separating, discriminating ministry, and the power
of God so evidently resting upon him, not only gathered together a large
congregation, but wherever there was a saint of God of any deep experience
of the law in other congregations seeking rest and finding none under a
letter ministry, he as it were instinctively crept in to hear the man who
could and did describe the feelings of his heart. And when from the same
lips the gospel was preached, with the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven,
and pardon and peace reached his conscience, the wanderer settled under his
ministry, as fraught with a divine blessing, and loved and revered him as
the mouth of God to his soul. When he went into different parts of the
country it was still the same. In Kent and Sussex, in the Isle of Ely, in
Lincolnshire at Grantham, in Nottinghamshire at Newark and Nottingham,
wherever he went, his Master went with him, and accompanied the word with
signs following. His ministry was especially blessed to the gathering
together of the outcasts of Israel, those peculiar characters whom Hart so
well describes:
"The poor dependents on his grace,
Whom men disturbers call;
By sinners and by saints withstood,
For these too bad, for those too good,
Condemned or shunned by all."
Like Simon Peter, he was made a fisher of men. He could
throw the hook into deep waters, where his brethren of the rod and line knew
not where or how to angle. His own deep experience of the law, of diverse
temptations, of soul distress, of spiritual jealousy, of the hidings of
God's face, enabled him to drop his line into the dark waters and gloomy
sunken holes, where some spiritual fish hide and bury themselves out of
sight and light; and his clear and blessed deliverance qualified him to
angle also for those which leap and bask in the bright beams of the noon-day
sun.
By his writings, occasional visits, and constant
correspondence, he kept up the tie which knit him to his country friends.
His liberal hospitality opened his house to them when they came to London,
where he fed body and soul, entertaining them with his lively, witty,
cheerful, yet spiritual conversation, reading at a glance their foibles and
failings, and entering into their varied experience of sorrow and joy, with
all the freedom and familiarity of an intimate friend, and all the authority
of a revered and beloved teacher.
Though not ourselves Huntingtonians, in the usual sense
of the word, yet, as lovers of good men, as admirers of the grace of God
wherever seen, and as pressing forward to the experience and enjoyment of
the same power of godliness, we venerate with the greatest esteem and
affection the memory of Mr. Huntington and his immediate friends and
followers.
It is impossible, we believe, for any person who knows
anything of the power of vital godliness in his own soul to read half a
dozen pages of Mr. Huntington's writings without feeling that there is a
peculiar stamp upon them which none of his friends and followers, as they
themselves would willingly and readily admit, have ever been able to reach.
It is not merely the great and striking grasp of thought, the singular
boldness and originality of expression, the wonderful aptness of scripture
quotation, the firmness and decision of mind, the vigor and clearness of
style, the lively wit and playful humor, the sparkling figures and pregnant
comparisons, all which must ever characterize them as literary performances
of a very high order to those who understand what mental ability and
powerful writing are; but it is not, we repeat, these mere literary
excellences (though even these have an unperceived weight and influence on
the minds of many who from lack of education or mental cultivation can
hardly appreciate them) that stamp Mr. Huntington's writings with such
undying worth and value. It is the force of truth, the weight of deep and
undeniable experience, the close and strict accordance with the testimony of
God himself in the inspired word, and the life and power in them which so
search the conscience and reach the inmost heart that make them acceptable
to the family of God, and will always render them a priceless treasure to
the Church of Christ.
The ministry of the preached word is such an express
ordinance of God that he himself accompanies it with a peculiar blessing. No
writings, therefore, of a servant of God, nor even his published sermons,
however faithfully or accurately reported, can come up to what he is in the
pulpit when his Master is with him. The sweetness and savor that fall with
his words, the entrance they find into the conscience, the demonstration of
the Spirit and of power that attend them to the heart, the blessing that
they communicate as speaking peace, pardon, and salvation with the very
voice of God himself, the softening influence that they spread to melt and
dissolve the soul into humility, contrition, and love—these, and similar
effects, cannot be reproduced by our holding in our hands the exact words
which, as they fell from the lips of God's servant, were attended with these
blessings.
At this distance of time, therefore, though we have Mr.
Huntington's works, we have not Mr. Huntington. We have the sermons, but we
have not the minister; we have the words, but we have not, at least not in
the same measure, the power which accompanied them. It was himself, whom
they saw and heard—the reality, the substance; we have but the shadow. When
he stood up before them, he so spoke what he personally and experimentally
knew, what he had tasted, felt, and handled of the word of life, what he had
received by divine revelation from the Lord of life and glory, that his
words fell with a weight and power upon their consciences which we who read
his writings can hardly now realize; for his speech and his preaching were
not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power; and thus the faith of his believing hearers stood not in the
wisdom of man but in the power of God. From this power resting on his
ministry Mr. Huntington gradually gathered round him not only a large body
of hearers who warmly loved and deeply revered him for his work's sake, but
a circle of attached friends who vied with one another in showing him
sincere respect and affection.
The 'letter ministers' whom he exposed sometimes with
such keen, caustic humor, and sometimes with such sharpness and severity,
and the 'empty professors' whom he sent away stripped naked and bare of all
their professed religion, naturally enough, in their spite and vexation,
reviled and slandered him. He took away their gods, and what had they more?
This was an unpardonable offence, and his unsparing mode of doing it made it
worse. But their very outcry against him only made his real friends cleave
more closely to him, as seeing in the very scorn and contempt manifested by
them only the stronger proof that he was walking in the footsteps of his
despised Lord, and that it was enough for the disciple to be as his Master.
Among the many striking features which distinguished the
life and labors of Mr. Huntington, this was not the least conspicuous, that
by the graces and gifts which the Lord bestowed so abundantly upon him he
attached to himself so large a number of personal friends, some of whom
became eminent ministers of the gospel. As a proof of this assertion we need
only mention the names of Jenkins, Brook, Lock, Beeman, Chamberlain, Turner,
Parsons, and, though last, not least, the late Mr. Vinall. The names of
others may occur to our readers which have for the moment escaped our
memory, or are unknown to us, but we have mentioned, we believe, the most
conspicuous. Mr. Huntington, it is true, shone among them and above them all
as the moon among the planets, or as David amid his mighty men of valor. In
grace, in gifts, in experience, in light, life, and power, in originality
and variety, in the knowledge and ready use of Scripture, in acquaintance
with the human heart, in wielding the weapons of warfare on the right hand
and on the left to defend truth and beat down error, none of his friends and
followers approached him, if we may use the expression, within speaking
distance. There was, therefore, no rivalry between them.
Before they were drawn within his circle, the Lord had
set him on high as a burning and a shining light. They had, therefore,
nothing to give, or teach him, though he had much to give and teach them.
Thus naturally, necessarily, he took his position, and they theirs; and his
friends no more thought of rivaling him than the friends of a prince strive
to be greater than he. This was not on their part servility, or on his undue
assumption. The bond which knit them together was a spiritual, not a natural
tie. A poor despised coalheaver as he had been, though now, by the
providence and grace of God, raised up to an eminent position in the church
of Christ, had no places of honor or of emolument at his disposal. If he
were in their eyes the King's prime minister, he had no preferment to bestow
but that of hatred from the world and scorn from the professing church.
Those, therefore, who boldly stood forth as his followers
and friends had to bear their share of ridicule and shame. Competition being
precluded, there was little room for envy and jealousy, for these exist
chiefly among equals. Mr. Huntington was raised above rivalry, for none so
fully admitted his superiority as his immediate friends. He fully repaid
their respect and kindness. He gave them wise counsel in their difficulties,
sympathized with them in their troubles, and was always ready to help them
with his purse in their necessities. We are not setting up Mr. Huntington,
for, like other great men, he had great infirmities; but merely describing
what is plain to all who have read his correspondence with his friends, or
have ever heard them speak of him since his decease.
To have known him, to have had the privilege of his
friendship, was to the latest period of their lives regarded by them as one
of their choice mercies. As flesh mixes with everything, we do not
deny that on his side there might have been the gratification of pride
in being so looked up to and almost revered, and on theirs the pleasure of
being received by him as saints and servants of God. We think that we have
seen traces of both these feelings in their communion; and as unchecked
authority is apt to degenerate into tyranny, and unresisting obedience into
submissiveness, so in some cases Mr. Huntington might have condemned too
severely, and his friends acquiesced in his authority too implicitly.
Let us also bear in mind that, like other great men, Mr.
Huntington had his flatterers who often spread their net for his feet, and
many admirers who walked in the light of his knowledge and gifts without any
share of his grace. It could not be expected, therefore, that he would never
be entangled by fair speeches, or always see through the mask of profession.
But with all these deductions, which a sense of duty compels us to make, we
must still bear in mind that, amid the storm of ridicule and contempt which
assailed him from every quarter, it must have been a solace to Mr.
Huntington that he had for his personal friends some of the excellent of the
earth, and for them that they had the fullest persuasion in their own
consciences that he was an eminently favored servant of God.
Few men have had to encounter such a storm of contempt,
slander, enmity, and opposition as that eminent servant of God. The only
doubt among those who despised and hated him was whether he were a fanatic
or an impostor; and some very quietly and curtly settled the doubt to their
own full satisfaction by pronouncing him both.
Reproach and calumny which were heaped upon him from all
quarters, reaching him even after his death, and spread all over the world.
But in his case there was this peculiar feature, that his greatest opponents
and most violent calumniators were the preachers and professors of his day.
There were, no doubt, peculiar reasons which drew forth an enmity against
him and a storm of contempt and scorn by which few have been assailed as he
was.
His views of the Law, at that time novel, his bold
declaration that it was not a rule of life to believers, his strong and
stern denunciation of the legal preachers of his day, the keen way in which
he ripped up their arguments in his controversial writings, and the
uncompromising language in which he laid bare their erroneous views,
unmasking at the same time their profession and showing how ignorant they
were not only of the truth of God but of any saving light in their own
souls, provoked their wrath, and goaded them almost to madness. Knowing
nothing for themselves of the sweet liberty of the Gospel, of a revelation
of Christ, of a living faith in his Person and work, or of any union or
communion with him, and resting all their hopes, if not professedly, yet
really on a broken Law, or at the utmost on the bare letter of the word,
they were naturally stung to the quick to see all their religion brushed
away by him as a spider's web. He took away their gods, and what had they
more? He broke up their idol, and with it fell both their countenance
and their hope.
What course was then left to them? If they wrote against
him, he was as a controversialist so unrivaled in his knowledge of Scripture
and the use of it, so acute to discern the whole state of the argument, so
keen in his dissection of their legal views, so fearless in his attack, and
so thoroughly persuaded that God was with him and would stand by him, that
none of his opponents could stand before him. We are free to admit that he
did sometimes mingle his own spirit in his controversial writings with that
Spirit of grace and truth by which he was undoubtedly led; but he himself,
who knew best his own spirit, would not allow this, and we shall, therefore,
leave the point.
He tells us that "God gave him so uncommon a spirit of
meekness, at his first setting off to preach that he found himself rather
too tender to declare the whole counsel of God." "I was more fit," he says,
"for the character of a nurse than for that of a soldier. But when these
Arians came to tear up the very foundation of my hope, that spirit of
meekness gave way to a fiery zeal. When I came in private before God, my
soul was overwhelmed with contrition; but when I got into my pulpit, I was
clad with zeal as with a cloak."
As, then, his opponents could not overthrow his testimony
on grounds of Scripture and truth, and as they had nothing to say against
his life and conduct, for that was most circumspect and exemplary, they
turned all the current of their reproach against his views upon the Law, as
if by them he had removed the very foundations of morality. Not knowing in
and for themselves the constraining love of Christ, the sweet and sacred
influences of the Holy Spirit, the springing up of godly fear as a fountain
of life, or anything of that sacred power whereby the child of God is led
into all holy obedience to God's will and word, and kept from evil that it
may not grieve him, they set up an image as a mark for their arrows, which
was nothing but the imagination of their own mind. Every 'young theological
sprig'—as he speaks, had a word against 'the Antinomian'—against his horrid
doctrine, his dreadful views, his licentious sentiments, and what a wide
door his preaching and writing opened for all ungodliness.
It was impossible to convince these men of their mistake.
They were honest, many of them, as far as they went, but in leveling their
arrows against his doctrines it was not so much the doctrines themselves as
the consequences which they in their ignorance drew from them that they
attacked. They did not see that the Law for which they so zealously
contended was a ministration unto death and not unto life, of condemnation
not unto justification, of bondage not unto liberty, and that its fruits and
effects were not to produce obedience unto holiness, but to provoke and
irritate the carnal mind and thus stir up and put power into sin, so as to
deceive and slay the soul under it. Now, Mr. Huntington, on the contrary,
held that the Gospel, in its truths, promises, and precepts, was the
rule of life in the hands of the Spirit; and that from it—and not from the
Law—flowed not only pardon and peace but holiness in heart, in lip, in life.
We are great admirers of Mr. Huntington's writings. From
his works and those of Dr. Owen we have derived more instruction,
edification, encouragement, consolation, and we may add conviction, counsel,
reproof, and rebuke, than from any other source, except the word of God; and
indeed it is because the writings of these two eminent men are so in harmony
with the Scriptures, so breathe the same spirit, and are so impregnated with
the same heavenly wisdom, that they are so profitable to those who know and
love the truth. The Spirit of God speaks in and through them, because what
they wrote they wrote under his special influences, and out of the treasure
of a good heart brought forth those good things which make them so weighty
and so valuable.
Mr. Huntington's greatest work is probably his
"Contemplations on the God of Israel;" but for our own private reading we
prefer his "Posthumous Letters" to any of his other writings. In them
we see the man just as he was in his private moments before God; in them he
pours forth to his various correspondents the treasures of wisdom and grace
with which he was so largely endowed and blessed. There we see him not as a
warm controversialist, nor a keen disputant provoked and irritated, as he
sometimes unduly was, by the slanders of his enemies, or the errors of the
day, against which he contended with such earnest zeal; but we see in them
the breathings of a tender, kind, and affectionate spirit, mingled with such
openings of the Scripture and the various branches of living experience as
made them full of instruction and edification. As a letter writer he
strikes us as unrivaled. Even apart from the subject of his letters, the
ease, flexibility, originality, strength, and variety of his language is
something marvelous. You never find in them anything dry, dull, and prosy;
you are never wearied with long, obscure phrases and periods from which it
is hard to extract sense or meaning; but his language flows from his pen
with all the freshness and clearness of a summer brook, so transparent that
you can see at once to the bottom, and as free from mud and mire as when it
first gushed out of the hillside.
As his correspondents were very numerous, and as they
were in different stages of the divine life, his Letters, taken as a whole,
touch upon and unfold every branch of living experience, from its first
movements in conviction to its fullest joys in deliverance and consolation.
Some of his correspondents were very young, both in age and experience.
Some, like Mr. Charles Martin, for instance, had only just begun to set
their faces Zionward; some had been long and deeply exercised with trials
and afflictions; some were contending with sharp and powerful temptations;
and some, like himself, after having been much favored and blessed, were
engaged in a perpetual conflict with a body of sin and death, had to labor
under the weight of a daily cross, and to endure hardness as good soldiers
of Jesus Christ.
Now, as he had traveled all these paths, and knew for
himself more deeply than they did the various exercises, desires,
sensations, feelings, sorrows, and joys of a believing heart, and was
favored with a most wonderful gift in unfolding from the Scriptures and his
own experience every feature of the divine life, he could suit his letters
so as to meet the case and state of every correspondent. There is,
therefore, we believe, scarcely a feeling, a sensation, or a movement of
divine life in the heart which he has not touched upon or described as no
other but he could do, and this with a life and power, a clearness,
decision, certainty, and authority which carry with them an indescribable
influence that seems to penetrate into the inmost soul. We read them again
and again, and ever find something in them to instruct and edify the soul,
strengthen faith, confirm hope, or draw forth love. He seems to have been
singularly fond of writing to his friends, and would sometimes spend nearly
a whole day in his little cabin in this use of his pen. Where he felt union,
it was strong. There were few, perhaps, comparatively speaking, who had
crept into his heart; but if once there, they were there forever. Those who
spoke of him as harsh, austere, and stern, only knew him as opposed to
errors and evil doings. They knew nothing of the man as spending hours and
days in prayer and meditation, on his bended knees, before his dear Lord and
Master, with flowing eyes and a broken heart. They knew nothing of his
confessions in secret, his earnest wrestlings, or of the sweet union and
communion with which, in answer to them, he was blessed and favored.
But if he were despised and hated by his enemies, who in
truth were the enemies of God, he was proportionately loved and esteemed by
his hearers and friends. Indeed, the feeling entertained toward him by many
of his hearers was almost idolatry. We remember hearing a good woman say, to
whom he had been much blessed, that when she looked at his house, she almost
worshiped the smoke that came from the chimney of his study. This she
confessed was but idolatry, yet it showed the strength of her feeling. And,
indeed, there was much in the man, independent of the grace that rested upon
him and his wonderful gifts in the ministry, to make him the center and
object of the greatest esteem and affection. He was gifted with a noble,
liberal mind, abhorring covetousness, and giving away his money with a most
profuse liberality. Though born and bred in so low a state, yet he was one
of nature's gentlemen; and we have heard from those who intimately knew him
that there was a dignity in his person, manners, and appearance which
commanded respect.
He was also naturally of a warm, affectionate spirit, and
in his conversation there was a playfulness, though no levity, and a humour
without jesting, which made his company very pleasant. That he was most
hospitable in his own house, we can see from his letters, in the invitations
which he gives to his friends to come and make themselves at home with him;
and when he saw and felt the grace of God in them, and he would have no
other company or other companions, he would converse upon the things of God
with such wisdom, tenderness, contrition, knowledge of the Scriptures, and
so open up every point from his own experience, that it was most blessed to
hear him converse. Not but that he had his angry, peevish fits; not but that
his natural temper was not one of the sweetest and most equable; but at
these seasons he kept much to himself, and fought the battle alone with his
own spirit, with many prayers and tears before God.
We have had the pleasure and privilege of knowing at
various times some of his friends and hearers, and what we have thus written
about him has not been at a mere uncertainty, but been gathered both from
what we have read in his writings and from what we have heard from those who
knew him. And we are free to confess that we have generally found in his
hearers and friends a savor, a life, a feeling after, where not full
enjoyment of those divine realities, in which the power of vital godliness
so much consists, that we have not found in others.