This morning my wife and I, during our breakfast devotions, read the second half of Philippians 1. One stand-out statement is Paul’s great line, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” In 1763 it was on this text that Henry Venn preached at the funeral of William Grimshaw, whose 300th anniversary will shortly be celebrated. William Grimshaw? Who?
William Grimshaw was born in September, 1708. The son of a farm worker he graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge and became an ordained clergyman in Todmorden, near Halifax, England. He was a disgrace, spending his time hunting, fishing, socialising and getting drunk. After but four years of marriage his young wife died, leaving him with two small children. He plunged into dark despair, developing suicidal thoughts. Now fearing God’s wrath he tried to straighten himself up, morally speaking, but failed again and again.
Then, in 1742, he read John Owen’s Justification by Faith and learned, as he put it, “to embrace Christ only for my all in all”. He spoke of the light and comfort that entered his soul and of his “taste of the pardoning love of God”.
Grimshaw then became curate of Haworth in Yorkshire, later to achieve fresh fame for its association with the Bronte family.
Grimshaw was an 18th century clergyman and things were done differently in those days. Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell wrongly represented him as using a horsewhip to drvie people into church. But he did use a horsewhip on thugs who were assaulting defenceless people who came to a cottage for a prayer meeting.
In those days the Church of England had its own canon laws which prohibited a preacher from ministering beyond the bounds of his own parish. But his friendships with people of the ilk of the Wesleys, George Whitfield and John Newton made him put the gospel first. So he defied the Church of England’s man-made anti-gospel rules and became well known as a preacher over a very wide area of north England. During a slack week he preached 14 times. During a busy week over 20 times. On Sundays he preached in Haworth. George Whitfield and the Wesley brothers were frequent visitors to Haworth.
In 1763 an epidemic of typhus fever swept through the village. Succombing to this fatal disease Grimshaw said,
My last enemy has come, the signs of death are on me, but I am not afraid! No, blessed be my God, my hope is sure and I am in his hands.
Wracked with violent headaches and a burning fever he told Henry Venn:
I am as happy as I can be on earth and as sure of glory as if I were in it.
Source: Faith Cook, “Heavenly fire… which shattered the terrain” in Evangelicals Now (August 2008) 24
Posted August 28, 2008
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