Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN
LETTER OF JOSEPH HAET TO HIS NEPHEW.
MAS WR
JO
it l^ifats 0f % §ritisjj Hgrnn Writes
BEING
Personal Memoirs derived largely from unpublished materials
.V
THOMAS WRIGHT
(Author of "The Life of William Cowper," "The Life of William Huntington," &c.)
JOSEPH HART*
*
LONDON:
FARNCOMBE & SON, 30 IMPERIAL BUILDINGS, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.G.
1910
f »
THIS SERIES
IS DEDICATED, BY KIND PERMISSION, TO
THE RIGHT REV. H. C. G. MOULE, D.D.,
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
1051261
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1712—1744
CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND EARLY MANHOOD Page
1 Early Days, 1712 — 1733 ..... i
2 Soul Trouble, 1734 — 1739. Early verses . 2
3 Whitefield and Wesley, 1741 . ' 4
4 The Unreasonableness of Religion, 1741 . . . 7
5 " The Road to Death " ..... 13
CHAPTER II 1744—1751
HART AS A TRANSLATOR
6 Phocylides, May, 1744 ... 15
7 Herodian, Nov., 1749 ..... 18
CHAPTER III 1751 — 3ist Dec., 1756
I WILL ARISE
8 Marriage, about 1752 . . . / . . . 26
9 Andrew Kinsman ...... 27
10 A Sermon by Whitefield, 1755 .... 30
CHAPTER IV
1757
THE VISION AND THE EARLIER HYMNS
11 The View of the Agony, Easter, 1757 (Hymn i, Part i) . 34
12 " All for Love " (Hymn i , Part 2) . . . . 35
13 He becomes personally acquainted with Whitefield. Hymns
2 and 3 .... . 37
14 At the Moravian Chapel, 2gth May, 1757. Hymns 4 — 6 . 38
15 Dates of the Hymns . . . . . . 41
16 Hymns 7—15 43
CHAPTER V
1758
THE HYMNS OF 1758
17 New Year's Hymn and Hymns 17 — 32 , 44
18 The Good Friday Hymns of 1758 and Hymns 37—61 , 46
vi LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
CHAPTER VI
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. Page
19 At the Sign of the Lamb. Hymns 62 — 75 . . 48
20 Hart's First Sermon ... 50
21 Romaine and the Prodigal . 51
22 Hymns 76 — 119 ... 52
23 The Experience ...... 54
24 First Edition of the Hymns, 7th July, 1759. Andrew
Kinsman makes his acquaintance . . *'. ' 57
CHAPTER VII 1760 — 1767
PASTOR AT JEWIN STREET
25 Jewin Street Chapel ...... 62
26 The Supplemental Hymns. Death of George II., 25th
Oct., 1760 ...... 63
27 Second and Third Editions, 1762, 1763. John Wilkes . 68
28 The Dr. Johnson Anecdote. Fourth and Fifth Editions,
1765, 1767 ..... 70
CHAPTER VIII
THE YEAR 1767
29 Hart in the Pulpit. John Katterns. The Toplady
Anecdote . . . . . . 74
30 Hart's Friends. Dr. John Ford . . ... 77
31 " The King of the Jews," 25th Dec., 1767. Garnet Terry 79
32 Letter of Hart to his Nephew, 2gth Dec., 1767 . . 83
CHAPTER IX
1768
LAST DAYS AND DEATH
33 The John Wilkes Riots. Deathbed Scenes . . 86
34 The Funeral Oration delivered by the Rev. Andrew
Kinsman . . . . . . .91
35 Rev. John Hughes's Sermon, 5th June, 1768 . 94
36 Rev. John Towers . . . . -^ . * 95
CHAPTER X
"' CONCLUSjjpN,v **
37 Tributes to Hart »• ' • • • • 97
38 Death of Whitefield,\Iughes, and others . . . 100
39 Hart's Memorial in Bunhill Fields . , , , 103
CONTENTS. vii APPENDICES.
Page
1 Bibliography of Joseph Hart . . . . 106
2 History of the Jewin Street and Barbican Churches sub-
sequent to 1774 . . ... . 107
3 Descendants of Hart ... . . 107
4 List of Essays on Hart's Hymns by Rev. A. J. Baxter . in
5 References in Dr. Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology . 113
LIST OF PLATES
1 Letter of Hart to his Nephew . . Frontispiece
2 Title-page of The Unreasonableness of Religion . Facing page 5
3 Title-page of Hart's "Phocylides" . . . „ 12
4 Title-page of Hart's "Herodian" . „ 17
5 Moravian Chapel, Fetter Lane ... ,,32
6 The Tabernacle, Tottenham Court Road . . ,,32
7 Rev. Andrew Kinsman ... ,,36
8 Rev. William Romaine .... ,,36
9 Title-page of First Edition of Hart's Hymns „ 45
10 Inscriptions in Hart's handwriting from the Pulpit
Bible used at Jewin Street Chapel . „ 49
11 Rev. John Towers . ,,64
12 John Benjamin Moor . >. . . „ 64
13 Hart's Tomb .... . „ 80
14 Title-page of Funeral Sermon preached by the
Rev. John Hughes .... „ 97
PREFACE
THERE has hitherto been no Life of Joseph Hart — the most spiritual of the British hymn-writers, as one of his admirers has styled him, — and yet those glorious productions, " Come, all ye chosen saints of God," " Come, Holy Spirit, come," " Descend from heaven, celestial Dove," "Christ is the Friend of sinners," and " Ye souls that trust in Christ, rejoice," have for more than a century and a half been the delight and com- fort of the churches. When I first mooted the desirability of a work of this kind, I was met with the assurance that there was no material. Impelled, however, by a high estimate of, and a deep affection for, a writer whom I place unhesitatingly among the six or seven very greatest of our hymnists, I gave myself to research ; and, as the following pages will show, success rewarded my efforts.
I naturally commenced my labours by making a careful study of Hart's Experience, the " Advertisements " and pre- faces to the numerous editions of his Hymns, the first editions of The Unreasonableness of Religion and The King of the Jews, the Oration delivered at his grave by the Rev. Andrew Kinsman, and the Funeral Sermon by the Rev. John Hughes. I found Shrubsole's Christian Memoirs helpful, notwithstanding its veil of allegory, for its author evidently had his information concerning Hart direct from Whitefield. The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, by Walter Wilson, Bunhill Memorials, by Andrew Jones, Toplady's Works, and the early volumes of The Evangelical Magazine, The Gospel Standard, and The Earthen Vessel, also furnished material. I have never met with a portrait of Hart, and I fear there is not one in existence. The Rev. A. J. Baxter's Essays on Hart's Hymns, which appeared in the Gospel Advocate, have been invaluable. There is a copy of Hart's translation of " Herodian " in the British Museum, and a copy of his " Phocylides " in the University Library at Cambridge.
x LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
There is nothing of his in the Bodleian, with the exception of a few copies of the Hymns (1769, 1777, 1856, 1867). Both the " Phocylides " and the " Herodian " throw, by means of preface, introduction, and annotation, curious and welcome light on Hart's life and character. A number of miscellaneous facts respecting Hart, that have hitherto been unknown, will be found in these pages ; but to the majority of readers, the discoveries respecting the origin of various of the hymns will prove the most attractive portion of the book. A new interest, for example, attaches itself to hymn 41 in the Supplement by the discovery that it was suggested by the death of King George II.
I have seen an old picture representing a poet offering on bended knee a volume of verse, bound in crimson and adorned with golden roses, to King Richard the Second. To-day we are all kings and queens, and Joseph Hart bending before us extends his precious volume. Let us, like the gracious Plan- tagenet, not only accept the proffered treasure but also give it Our frequent and thoughtful attention. Exteriorly it may be without ornament, but we have only to open it in order to come upon whole gardens of golden roses.
I wish to express my hearty thanks to the following ladies and gentlemen who have helped me in different ways : Miss Emily Hart, Miss Jane Hart, Miss R. L. Moor (descendants of Hart), Miss Louisa Sharp (a descendant of Hart's friend, Robert Jacks), Sir John Thorold, the Rev. A. C. E. Thorold, the Rev. W. J. Latham, the Rev. Dr. Stokes, the Rev. W. J. Styles, Mr. W. J. Martin, Mr. Charles King, Mr. J. Wilmshurst, Mr. H. Belcher, Mr. William Wileman, Mr. T. R. Hooper, Mr. R. Heffer, Mr. F. M. Jordan, the Rev. H. H. McCullagh, Mr. A. Smith, of the Moravian Church, Fetter Lane, Mr. E. Thorold Garland, Mr. J. Lock, Miss Julia Smart, Mr. H. Buck, Mr. Joseph Wittome, Mr. J. P. Wiles, Mr. B. Hunt, Rev. T. G. Crippen, Miss Annie Paul, Mr. Wright, of the Plymouth Library, and Councillor E. H. Norman, J.P-
The warm interest that the Bishop of Durham (the Right Rev. H. C. G. Moule, D.D.), to whom this book is dedicated, has so kindly shown in my undertaking has been of great encouragement to me.
PREFACE. xi
I have been indebted to the following books and periodicals :
1768. A Sermon occasioned by the Death of the Rev. Mr. Joseph Hart, preached in Jewin Street, June 5th, 1768, by John Hughes, brother-in-law to Mr. Hart ; and an Oration delivered at his interment by Andrew Kinsman.
1773. A Funeral Sermon occasioned by the Death of the Rev. Mr. John Hughes. By Thomas Chorlton.
1790. Christian Memoirs. By W. Shrubsole. A new edition.
1793. Evangelical Magazine. 1793, vol. i. Life of Rev. Andrew Kinsman, pp. 45 — 60, with portrait.
0 8 1 o. The History and A ntiquities of Dissenting Churches. By Walter Wilson. 4 vols., 1810.
Barbican Chapel, Vol. 3, pp. 221 — 227. Jewin Street, „ pp. 320—353.
Fetter Lane, „ pp. 420 — 426.
1811. A History of the English Baptists. By Joseph Ivimey. 4 vols.
1814. The King of the Jews. Also the edition of 1821, published by E. Huntington.
1816. The Unreasonableness of Religion. Edition of 1816. Published by E. Huntington. 1825. Toplady's Works. 6 vols. 1849. Bunhill Memorials. By John Andrew Jones. Hart, pp. 80, 81. Towers, pp. 280, 281. Terry, p. 275.
1864. Gospel Standard, p. 253. Estimate of Hart, by Rev. J. C. Philpot.
1868. Gospel Standard, p. 186. Notes respecting Miss Sarah Katterns.
1873 to 1907. Gospel Advocate. Articles on Hart's Hymns, by Rev. A. J. Baxter.
1877. Memorial to Mr. Joseph Hart, Minister of the Gospel and Author of Hymns. J. Gadsby, 18, Bouverie Street, London.
1883. Joseph Hart's Hymns. Article by Robert Hoddy, in The Gospel Herald, 1883, P* 238' Mr. Hoddy died on 8th November, the same year,
xii PREFACE.
1 904. A BrieffJistory of the Moravian Chapel, 32, Fetter Lane.
1908. Barbican Congregational Church, New North Road. Report, 1908.
1908. Dr. Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology. 2nd edition.
The History of Nonconformity in Plymouth. By R. W. North, F.G.S.
THE LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
CHAPTER I
1712—1744 CHILDHOOD, YOUTH, AND EARLY MANHOOD
Joseph Hart, the hymn-writer, " dear Hart," "that dear man of God,"1 as -his i. Early devoted admirers lovingly style him Days' (and admirers more devoted never man had), was born in London about 1712. His parents, who were gracious and stedfast Calvinists, worshipped at some Independent meeting2 in the City, and they endeavoured both by example and precept to bring up their son in the fear of God.
" I imbibed," says Hart, " the sound doctrines of the gospel from my infancy ; nor was I without touches of heart, checks of conscience, and melt- ings of affections, by the secret striving of God's Spirit with me while very young ; but the impres- sions were not deep, nor the influences lasting."
He was a warm-hearted, self-reliant, highly- strung, ambitious lad ; his parents gave him a sound education ; and he applied himself
1 "That Master in Israel, second to none." — Thorpe Smith in the Gospel Advocate, Vol. VIII. p. 84.
2 "Mr. Hearty was born in Independent Street." — Shrubsole's Christian Memoirs, 2nd ed., p. 209.
2 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
assiduously to his studies, especially French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in all of which he became proficient. He was neat and methodical in his habits. A devotee to literature, he might any day be seen bending over the dingy book- stalls of Moorfields. He read with relish most of the great English writers, but his master bias was for the literatures of Greece and Rome ; and after leaving school he became a teacher of the classics, though where or whom he taught has not trans- pired. That he was a practical, enthusiastic, and successful teacher is clear from the notes to his translation of Phocylides, in which he explains how it was that in those days so many lads made but indifferent progress in their classical studies. The reason is, he says, because the teachers them- selves study their subjects only perfunctorily; consequently, instead of carrying their pupils, as they should, into the very presence of an ancient author, they leave them to stagger about as best they can " under a load of indigestible rules."1 He laid down that, as with other temples so with the classics, it is love alone that unlocks.
Soon after reaching the age of twenty-one, he
began to be under serious concern 2'b?(?U'£riu" resPectmg ms eternal state. He says, 1734^1739 " The spirit of bondage distressed me
sore ; though I endeavoured to com- mend myself to God's favour by amendment of
' Hart's " Phocylides," pp. 2 and 19.
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 3
life, virtuous resolutions, moral rectitude, and a strict attendance on religious ordinances. I strove to subdue my flesh by fasting and mortification, and other rigorous acts of penance ; and when- ever I was captivated by its lusts I endeavoured to reconcile myself again to God by sorrow for my faul'ts, which, if attended with tears, I hoped would pass as current coin with heaven." From his boy- hood he had aspired to authorship, and these spiritual conflicts — victories alternating with defeats — had the effect of leading him to express his thoughts in verse, but all his early poems are lost, with the exception of a few lines which many years afterwards he thought good enough to be incorporated in some of his hymns.1 His religion, however, proved to be only superficial. Possessor of rare natural talents, he was a welcome guest in gilded and convivial circles ; and the public garden, the play-house, and the tavern were his habitual resorts.2 " He wasted his substance." The name given him by Shrubsole — Mr. Hearty — was probably the one bestowed on him by his worthless companions. He was indeed hearty in the devil's service. If he broke with these com- panions, as now and again happened, it was only to return with impetuosity, after a brief interval, to his old and vicious courses. " In this uneasy,
1 See Preface to First Edition.
2 In the words of Shrubsole. " he spent the day in rambling from one diverting scene to another. In the evening he came into Wine Street, and put up at an elegant tavern known by the sign of the ' Tun and Bacchus.' "
4 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
restless round of sinning and repenting, working and dreading," he says, " I went on for above seven years, when, a great domestic affliction befalling me (in which I was a moderate sufferer, but a monstrous sinner), I began to sink deeper and deeper into conviction of my nature's evil, the wickedness of my life, the shallowness of my Christianity, and the blindness of my devotion." Long after, recalling those days, he likened him- self to an insensate mariner, who " sees yet strikes the shelf" ;x and in one of the most agonizing cries that ever poet uttered, he exclaims, referring to the Lord Jesus,
" I broke His law, and (worse than that) Alas ! I broke His heart.2
While Hart's mind was in this deplorable condi- tion, while the sores of sin were cor-
3. Whitefleld
and Wesley, roding his soul,3 and while he was
1739—1741.
11 reckoning trash for treasure, 4 the country was being feverishly agitated by the magnetic preaching of Whitefield and Wesley ; and Hart, who, notwithstanding the looseness of his life, still called himself a Calvinist, followed the career of Whitefield, first with curiosity and after- wards with passionate enthusiasm.
In August, 1739, Whitefield, who since the pre- ceding April had preached regularly in Moorfields, set sail for America,5 his main object being the
1 Sup. 20. 2 Sup. 71. 8 Sup. 39. 4 Hymn 112.
5 His second visit to America.
T HE
Unreafonablenefi
RELIGION.
BEING
RE MARKS and AN IMADVERSIONS O N
Mr, John Weflejs Sermon.
On Romans vni. 32.
By JOSEPH
Cut ft ihou by fe arching find out Cod? Cdnf tkott jir.j out the Almighty to Perfection ? •
It is- fc/gjb as Heaven. What canft fbou dof J>ccpcr than HclL What catift ihou JKOIP ? Job xi. 7, 8.
- The Spirit fearsketh all things , yea^ the Deep things of God. i Cor.ii. 10.
Printed for the A U T H O R.
M DCCXLI. ft
TITLE PAGE OP "THE UNEEASONABLENESS OF
EELIGION." From the copy in the British Museum. (By permission.)
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 5
establishment of an orphanage for the benefit of the colony of Georgia.1 One evening in the fol- lowing November, Wesley, who for long had been diverging doctrinally from Whitefield, preached at Bristol a sermon from Romans viii., in which he declared himself an unhesitating believer in per- fection2 and universal redemption, speaking pointedly against the Calvinistic position, and against election and predestination in particular. The' sermon was afterwards published with the title of " Free Grace,"3 and it fell like a thunder- bolt upon the religious world. The line of argu- ment alone would have had the effect of exciting to fever heat those who had ranged themselves on the Calvinistic side ; but the title which Wesley had tacked to his sermon acted like oil to the fur- nace. On receiving a copy, Whitefield, who insisted that the doctrine of election had been taught him of God, wrote at once to Wesley a letter, every line of which bubbles with indigna- tion. It is dated 24th Dec., 1740, and runs :
" Reverend and very dear Brother, — God only knows what unspeakable sorrow of heart I have felt on your account since I left England last. Whether it be my infirmity or not, I frankly con-
1 On 3ist Jan., 1740, he wrote, " I am building a large house. It will cost much money. But our Lord will see to that."
2 "Thursday, i5th Nov., 1739. On Saturday evening I explained at Bristol the nature and extent of Christian perfection." — Wesley 's Journal, Dent's ed. i., p. 248.
3 Free Grace. A Sermon preach 'd at Bristol by John Wesley, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. London. Printed by W. Strahan.
MDCCXL.
6 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
fess that Jonah could not go with more reluctance against Nineveh than I now take pen in hand to write against you. . . . For some time before, and especially since my last departure from England, both in public and private, by preaching and printing, you have been propagating the doctrine of Universal Redemption. . . . Dear, dear sir, oh, be not offended. . . . Down with your carnal reasoning. Be a little child. And then, instead of pawning your salvation, as you have done in the late hymn-book,1 if the doctrine of Universal Redemption be not true ; instead of talking of sinless perfection, as you have done in the preface to that hymn-book, and making man's salvation depend on his own free will, as you have in this sermon, you will compose a hymn in praise of sovereign, distinguishing love."
Such is the substance of this epoch-making letter. It is the conspicuous white way-post with unmistakable finger, erected at the angle where the great evangelical high road suddenly and unexpectedly splits. This letter was afterwards printed, and hundreds of copies were handed to Wesley's people, both at the door of his preaching place in Moorfields — the Foundry — and inside the building. Having procured one, Wesley, who believed it had been printed without Whitefield's leave, gave an account of its origin, concluding his remarks with, " I will do just what I believe
» Hymns and Sacred Songs by John and Charles Wesley.
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 7
Mr. Whitefield would were he here himself," and then he tore it in pieces before the congregation. " Everyone who received it," he says, " did the same, so that in two minutes there was not a whole copy left."1
When Whitefield landed again in England — on nth March, 1741 — it was to declare that he could no longer work with Wesley. However, they " were kept from anathematising each other," though there were at times ominous rumblings, and each persevered in the course that seemed best to him.
But if Whitefield refrained from attacking Wesley, others who disapproved of the 4 The Un. Bristol sermon trenchantly assailed it n2r?f Ren- both by lip and pen, the most uncom- £ion- 1741 promising being Joseph Hart, who issued in 1741 a caustic and powerful pamphlet entitled, " The Unreasonableness of Religion, being Remarks and Animadversions on Mr. John Wesley's Sermon on Romans viii. 32. "2 Gifted, acrimonious, hasty to proclaim his opinions — sound or unsound ; not alto- gether pleasing in his manner, even when in the right; impatient to flesh his sword, Hart rushed upon
1 Wesley 's Journal, ist Feb., 1741, Dent's ed., i. 297. Wesley's Sermon and Whitefield's Letter to Wesley are both advertised in the London Evening Post, 7th April, 1741, and in other numbers of that newspaper, the latter just below the former.
2 There is a copy of the first edition in the British Museum. (Press mark iii. a. 56.) This pamphlet and Hart's sermon, "The King of the Jews," were reprinted by Ebenezer Huntington in 1821 ; by John Bennett and John Gadsby, in 1836 ; and reviewed in the Gospel Standard for May of that year. A portion of the pamphlet appeared in the Gospel Advocate for 1876, Vol. 8, pp. 42 and 107.
8 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
Wesley with a confident and exulting, " Ha ! ha ! " " It is a truth," he commences, " of singular use and solid comfort to those whose understandings are enlightened by the Spirit of God to perceive it, that religion and reason are not only widely different, but directly contrary the one to the other.
" i. Reason bids me expect acceptance from the Almighty in a future state according to the moral justice, equity, and goodness of mine actions in the present. Religion teaches me that I shall be acquitted, justified, and accepted of God by the righteousness of another, freely bestowed and given me, without the least regard to my own personal either merit or demerit.
"2. Reason tells me that in order to secure an interest in eternal life, I must by mine own natural strength strive, struggle, and labour. Religion plainly shows me that when I was in my natural state it was impossible for me to move one step towards heaven ; but was as incapable of exerting the least power or motion towards any spiritual good as a dead carcase is of performing any action of natural life.
" 3. Reason in some asserts that, admitting man in his natural state cannot turn or prepare himself to seek the Lord, yet that divine power necessary to enable him so to do is given, or rather offered, indiscriminately to all alike. Religion, in contra- diction to this, declares that the glory of God is the
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 9
ultimate and only end of all His works ; and that as even the wicked, made for the day of evil, shall be instruments of setting forth this glory in their destruction, which they are utterly unable by any means to avoid ; so, on the other hand, those who are predestinated to the adoption of sons shall infallibly receive the grace given them here, and enjoy the glory prepared for them in Christ before the foundation of the world.
" 4. Reason in those who are converted is ever speaking thus : Although in my unregenerate state I was utterly unable to move the least step forward in the pursuit of religion, yet, now I am converted and born again, I must stir up the gift that is in me. It is my duty to pray to the Lord to increase my faith. I must endeavour to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. The voice of Religion speaks in this wise : I plainly see, and experimentally feel, that as before conversion I could not move one hair's breadth towards God and goodness ; so, since I am new created in Christ Jesus, the old man in me is as rebellious and stubborn as ever. . . . My greatest labour is to be quiet, my strongest struggling to sit still,1 and my most active endeavours to apprehend myself entirely passive in God's hand."
After various observations ancillary to these statements, he deplores the degeneracy of an age " when religion is almost thrown aside ; when
1 Cf. Hymn 30. " The strength of e%rery tempted son Consists in standing still."
io LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
self-named preachers of all professions seem unani- mously agreed in a literal sense to do nothing, except it be to strive for the fattest livings and wealthiest congregations." " Feebly, however, as the doctrines of truth had been proclaimed, alarm," he tells us, " had been felt by the adversary, and zealous opposers of that little truth " had arisen. And then it transpires that he has in mind one person in particular, " Mr. John Wesley, who," he adds, " in a sermon lately come to my hands, preached at Bristol, and published under the specious title of Free Grace, has debased and vilified the glorious doctrine of God's eternal love to elected sinners."
He then takes Wesley's sermon paragraph by paragraph, and comments bitterly on the " old Arminian errors."
" Many things that happen," he says, " are inconsistent with one's natural notions of justice and mercy " — good men are weighed down with trouble ; evil men go through life like a band of music. Think again of the sufferings of the brute creation. " Surely these things are disagreeable to our natural notions of goodness and mercy. And yet we see so they are, and ever have been. How then can any man presume to say that the doctrine of predestination cannot be true, only because it disagrees with our reason, and contradicts our natural conceptions of justice and mercy ? "
After commenting on the uselessness of "a mere
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. n
notional assent to the doctrine of election," which, he observes, is as incapable of helping the soul as the bare ocular sight of meat is of nourishing the body, he sets down what we may take to be his own experiences. " The first thing generally done by the Spirit in the conversion of a sinner is to show him that he is lost in himself, and must die eternally without the free grace and mercy of God in the Mediator. . . . Thus is he continually distressed . . . till God shall shine in upon him by His Spirit. . . . He now begins to see a mar- vellous light in the sacred writings, unknown to him before by the letter."
In his sermon, Wesley had described election as " an uncomfortable doctrine." " Indeed, so it is," says Hart, " to those who cannot see their interest in it, but marvellously sweet and comfort- able to all who by grace are made partakers of it."1 " I believe the doctrine of election to be true because I believe myself elected. It is so because it is so, is good logic in religion, though ridiculous in philosophy."
Up to this point Hart's line of argument is one which commends itself in almost every particular to those who uphold the doctrines of Free Grace2 as understood by Whitefield and his co-religionists; but having gone so far he shoots off at a tangent
1 Cf. Huntington's remark : " Election is a formidable mountain before us so long as we do not know our interest in the Saviour, but when we do it is an iron pillar at our back."
a As opposed to those of Free Will.
12 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
— taking upon himself to make the outrageous and portentous assertion that sinners' sins " do not destroy but often increase their comfort even here."1 The painful part is that his actions at this time comported generally with his notions, for he says in his " Experience," " Having (as I imagined) obtained by Christ a liberty of sinning, I was resolved to make use of it, and thought the more I could sin without remorse, the greater hero I was in faith."
Often and often in after days — whatever his attitude towards one or two other passages in the pamphlet — he deeply regretted this pronounce- ment— those after days in which he could but write, deeply sighing the while,
"How sore a plague is sin,
To those by whom 'tis felt ; The Christian cries, ' Unclean, unclean ! ' E'en though released from guilt."2
Far from finding "comfort" in the recollection of his sins, he could only look back upon them with horror and loathing. Though the sores had healed, there were still the unsightly scars.
This passage would have revealed, even if the knowledge had not come to us from another source, that Hart was at the period of his pamphlet
1 There is a review of The Unreasonableness of Religion in the Gospel Standard for May, 1836, but the Reviewer seems to have been unaware of the state of Hart's mind at the time the pamphlet was being written. Its grave faults do not escape his notice, but he attributes them to a " temporary short-sightedness on the author's part."
3 Hymn 106.
nOIHMA NOT0ETIKON; OR, THE
PRECEPTIVE POEM
O F
PHOCYLIDES,
Translated into ENGLISH.
To which are fubjoin*d
NOTES, explaining the difficult Paf- fages ; enlarging on feveral ufeful and exten- five Precepts ; illuftrating various Philofophi- cal Opinions ; and containing ibme general Obfervations on Propriety of Expreffion, and Grammatical Order.
By J. HAR r.
. — . . id quod
pauperibus prodcft, locupletibus ceqite : negktfum pueris, fenibujque nocemt.
HOR,
LONDON:
Printed for J. ROBINSON, at the Gclden-Lwh in Ludgate-ftreet. M.DCC.XLIV.
TITLE PAGE OF HART'S TRANSLATION OF PHOCYLIDES.
YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. 13
an extreme Antinomian. " His choice friends," says Shrubsole, " were Antinomians, and he loved nothing better than to sit under high Antinomian preachers." It is true he adopts the role of a con- vert, and he doubtless persuaded himself that such a one he was ; but when the great awakening came he was able to see, even in those portions of the pamphlet which he could heartily endorse, nothing more than " dry doctrine," and then none so emphatic as he in pronouncing that dry doctrine cannot save us,1 adding,
" In vain men talk of living faith, When all their works exhibit death."2
From high Antinomianism to Humanism, which is a fancy name for Paganism, was an easy course, and Hart, having 5> ™Delthd constructed a religion which combined the libertinism of ancient Greece with the doctrines of Christianity, " published a few tracts in favour of the way in which he chose to live."3 " He joined himself to a citizen of that country." Ultimately he " ran such dangerous lengths, both of carnal and spiritual wickedness," that he even
1 In April, 1742, was published, by an anonymous writer, a pamphlet, Christianity Not Founded on Argument, the title of which seems to have been suggested by Hart's pamphlet. It was answered by a book in two volumes, The Reasonableness of Religion, by George Benson, D.D. (advertised in the London Evening Post for May, 1744). I have not seen the former, but to judge by the latter, it had nothing in common with Hart's pamphlet.
a Supplement, No. 56.
8 Shrubsole, p. 211. I have not been able to trace any of these "tracts."
i4 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
•" outwent professed infidels." He says, " I com- mitted all uncleanness with greediness."1
" The road of death with rash career I ran, and gloried in my shame ; Abus'd His grace, despised His fear, And others taught to do the same.
Bold blasphemies employ'd my tongue,
I heeded not my heart unclean ; Lost all regard of right or wrong,
In thought, in word, in act obscene."3
1 We know what Shrubsole means when he says of Hart, " When he came to the sign of the Weather-cock, he was so pleased with Mr. Shandy that he plunged into all the vice and dissipation of his house," but the allegorist was unhappy in his choice of landlord for that irregular tavern, for the period was 1742 — 17441 ant^ the first volumes of Tristram Shandy were not published till 1760. '* Hymn 27, " The Author's own Confession."
CHAPTER II
1744—1751 HART AS A TRANSLATOR
" In this abominable state," says Hart, " I con- tinued a loose backslider, an audacious 6 phocy)jdes apostate, a bold-faced rebel, for nine or M&*' 1744- ten years, not only committing acts of lewdness myself, but infecting others with the poison of my delusions. I published several pieces on different subjects, chiefly translations of the ancient heathens, to which I prefixed prefaces and sub- joined notes of a pernicious tendency, and indulged a freedom of thought far unbecoming a Christian."
The books to which he refers particularly are his translations of Phocylides and Herodian.1 From the time of Elizabeth downwards, transla- tion from the classics had been the pastime — for in most cases the incentive was pleasure — of a long line of English gentlemen. The Golden Age of Translation — that of North's Plutarch, Hobbes's Thucydides, and Adlington's Apuleius — had indeed passed away, but it had been succeeded by an age that was respectable though not brilliant — that of
1 It is alleged that Hart published other translations, but I have not met with any at the British Museum, at Oxford, or at Cambridge.
i6 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
John Clarke,1 " Mr. Cooke,"2 Philip Francis,3 and William Melmoth,4 and it may have been the suc- cess of some of these writers that incited Hart to similar exertions. For the work of a translator he was admirably equipped. An excellent classical scholar, he had read with avidity every known Greek and Roman writer. Again, if he was deeply versed in Livy, Tacitus, Ovid, Horace, whose " Art of Poetry" was one of his enthusiasms, the horribly curious Suetonius, who was his special favourite, and other classics, he was also deeply versed in such writers as Orosius, that " learned editor Henry Stevens," and the " ingenious Salmasius." He had indeed Salmasius's own hunger for know- ledge, and his salient ambition in those days was to win the reputation of a scholar. His rendering of Phocylides5 — or rather of " The Preceptive Poem " attributed6 to that author — appeared in May, I744-7 It consists of a Preface (pp. iii. to vi.), the concluding portion of which is in execrable taste, and the Translation, with voluminous notes (pp. i to 44) .8 In the Preface, speaking of the
1 Translator of Suetonius, 1732. 2 Translator of Hesiod, 1743.
3 Translator of Horace, 1743. 4 Translator of Pliny, 1746.
6 A Greek philosopher, born at Miletus, who flourished about B.C. 535.
6 There are critics who insist that the poem was not by Phocylides, but by an Alexandrian Jew of the first century. It was also translated by W. Hewitt in 1840.
7 Announced in the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1744, p. 288. " The Preceptive Poem of Phocylides. Translated into English, with Notes. By J. Hart. Price 6d. Robinson."
8 On the title-page is an appropriate motto from the Epistles of Horace (Bk. i, Ep. i), the translation of which is, " that which is of equal benefit to the poor and to the rich, which neglected will be of equal detriment to young and to old."
HEROD I AN's
HISTORY
O F
His Own Times,
OR O F T H E
Roman Empire after MARCUS,
TranQated into ENGLISH.
With large NOTES, explaining the moft remark-
able Cuftoms, Ceremonies, Offices, &V.
among the ROMANS.
To which is prefix' d,
An INTRODUCTION, giving a (hort Account of the
Roman State, from its firft Origin, to the Time
where Herodian's Hiftory commences ;
AND
An APPENDIX added, containing the mpfl memorable
Tranfa&ions under the fubfequeut Emperors to the
Reign of CONSTANTINE THE GREAT.
With a CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, And a Copious INDEX.
The Whole defign'd as a Compendium both of the HISTORY and ANTIQUITIES of ROME.
By J. H A R T.
waAAov T^iTrov^). Thucydidcs,
LONDON, Printed for the AUTHOR,
And fold by T. WALLER in Fleetftree^ T. PAYNE in
Round Court in the Strand, and R. DODSLEY in
Pall- Mall. M D c c x 1 1 x .
TITLE PAGE OF HART'S TRANSLATION OF HERODIAN.
HART AS A TRANSLATOR. 17
original, Hart says, " The style is masculine and nervous, not embellish'd with tropes, or set off with imagery; but majestic and simple, as the dignity and importance of the subject required. The language of Phocylides is pure, and his sentences neither dull nor tedious, but full and yet concise."
This was precisely how Hart himself wrote when he came to compose his hymns, and it can hardly be doubted that the study of Phocylides — one of the compactest of ancient writers — influenced healthily him who must be pronounced the com- pactest of English poets. The following citations will give some idea of Hart's translation :
" For favour wrest not judgment : nor reject A poor man's suit ; nor show the least respect Of persons, but remember, God will be, If e'er thou judgest wrong, a Judge to thee."
" Be all thy passions with the mean endow'd,1 Nothing too great, too lofty, or too proud. Ev'n profit when redundant, noxious proves, Immoderate pleasures breed immoderate loves."
Again,
" One moment men some sudden ill endure, And find the next some unexpected cure."
In another couplet we are bidden to shun the con- tagion of the worthless. Phocylides was an ardent advocate of matrimony, for does he not say :
" Remain not single, lest obscure thou die, And buried in oblivion nameless lie ;
1 Cf. Ruskin. Moderation is the girdle of beauty. C
i8 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
Render to nature what for thee was done, And be a father as thou wast a son."1
Then we are taught our duty to those about us :
" Love all thy kindred with unfeigned respect, Revere the head with hoary honours deckt, Rise to a senior, and resign thy seat, And show him all regard and homage meet ; For thy domestics keep no scanty board, His undiminished hire to each afford."
And there are other verses on what Hart in his title to hymn 7 of his Appendix calls " the Rela- tive Duties." When he was writing that hymn, doubtless he was thinking of the apostle's words in the fifth of Ephesians, but it is probable that he also had in mind some of Phocylides' maxims ; and other lines in his hymn-book have a Phocy- lidian ring. Although here and there we find a happy expression, Hart's translation is not litera- ture. The notes are heavy as well as voluminous, and most are quite unnecessary to the elucidation of the text, which, indeed, scarcely requires anno- tation.
Having launched the Phocylides, Hart turned
7. Hart at ms attention to other classical writers,
MHeLrooTan8' and on 2&h Nov-> J749, he published
25 NOV., 1749. a translation of Herodian.2 The work
1 Or, suppose we say, putting it more compactly still, and allowing the old Greek a little humour :
" Get married and preserve your name : those who Had parents should themselves be parents too "
2 A Greek historian who lived at Rome. Herodian's work is the history, in eight books, of the Roman emperors who flourished in his lifetime, that is to say, between A.D. 180 and A.D. 238. Herodian had been translated into English in 1550 (?) by W. Smyth ; in 1629 by Tames (?) Maxwell ; in 1652 by C. B. Stapylton ; and in 1698 by "A Gentleman at Oxford."
HART AS A TRANSLATOR. 19
is advertised in the London Evening Post, Tuesday, Nov. 2ist, to Thursday, Nov. 23rd, and also in the number dated " Nov. 23rd to Nov. 25th." At the end of the advertisement appears : " N.B. — Such gentlemen as have been pleased to favour the Author with their subscriptions are desired to send for their books at his lodgings, at Mr. Liford's, Mathematical Instrument Maker, near the new church in the Strand."1 Those who do not possess a copy of " Herodian " can obtain a tolerable idea of his subject-matter from the pages in Gibbon that cover the same period ; and it may be added that Gibbon, unlike some other scholars, had for Herodian a genuine respect. Hart's work, which was " printed for the author," consists of Preface (v. to xvi.), Introduction (i to 42), the Translation with Notes (i to 326), an Appendix (i to 14), a Chronological Table, and an Index.2 As regards the Introduction, the end he had in view was to endeavour " to say as much as was requisite in as small a compass as possible."
One of his objects in producing this work was the mischievous one of trying " to show," by means of his notes, " the parity," or he might in some articles say the identity, of the religious notions of the heathen with those of the Jews of old, and the Christians of all denominations. He had set him-
1 St. Mary-le-Strand, finished in 1723.
2 My own copy, which appears to be in the original binding, is in old calf with gilt lines at the edges of each lid, and the words, HART'S HERODIAN, in gilt letters on the back.
20 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
self, indeed, the quixotic task of endeavouring to form a homogeneous whole out of incompatible materials. He was an i8th century Walter Pater. " The external evidence of all religions," he goes on, " is much the same. But the internal evi- dence of pure Christianity is invincible. I mean the divine doctrines of salvation and universal charity." Further, he has the grace to admit that " the Bible well deserves the title of the best book extant," and we may recall that in his Unreason- ableness of Religion he had styled it " that reposi- tory of sweet treasures." His method of procedure is well illustrated by the following note in reference to the procession in honour of Cybele : " However odd and fantastic these dancing festivals among the heathen may seem to us moderns, I cannot but observe that there is in them a strong resemblance of some in use among the Jews. ... In 2 Sam. vi. 14, King David is described dancing before the ark in a very extraordinary manner. . . . Even the frantic behaviour of the priests of this goddess, in their mad processions at her festivals, so comically described by Juvenal (Sat. VI.), is equalled by the phrenzy of the Jewish prophets. . . . Nor is the similitude conspicuous only in the religious ceremonies of the Jews and heathens, but it appears as plain in the several accounts of the political advantages made of their religion by their respective rulers " — and he parallels the story of the rape of the Sabine virgins with the narrative in Judgesxxi. 16-23.
HART AS A TRANSLATOR. 21
How wide the difference between Hart's wrang- ling note on divination and necromancy and his judicious remarks on those vain studies in his sermon, " The King of the Jews ! " " The Magi," he says in the " Herodian,"1 " seem to have learnt the birth of our Saviour from the aspect of the heavenly bodies. That miracles may be per- formed by magicians and prophets of heterodox principles is plain from the story of the Egyptian conjurers, who, as well as Moses, produced several plagues. The witch of Endor is a glaring instance of necromancy. ... In a word, though it would be the height of superstition to credit all the silly, absurd stories of oracles, augurs, conjurers, and fortune-tellers among the pagans, yet that they sometimes revealed future events is confirmed at least by the testimony of the Scriptures," and there is more, written for the most part in an unenlightened and cavilling spirit.
Hart's remarks on the Lucretia incident arrest attention on account of his insistence on the power of pride, a subject with which he was to deal so effectively in his well-known hymn 58.2 " Of all the passions of the soul," he says, " the power of pride is the most extensive. By this, as by a spring, the several movements of the human mind are actuated and directed. It is to this principle we are beholden for most of that valour and virtue
1 The Herodian, p. 195. * See also hymn 106, v. 5,
22 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
the world so much admires. This was sufficiently verified in Lucretia. . . . She who had been deaf to prayers and entreaties, had rejected all offered rewards, and had remained intrepidly firm against the threats of death itself, was conquered by the fear of disgrace. . . . She endured adultery to save herself from the scandal of an adulteress."
When Hart confines his remarks purely to the subject of literature he is delightful. The follow- ing, for example, is worthy of being written in letters of gold : " It is with books as with persons, they who are most trifling and capable of giving least instruction or benefit by their conversation, are commonly understood at the first or second interview, and seldom fail to please for a time, because the eye is always most sensibly struck with beauties which are most superficial and glar- ing. But wherever there is any instructive good and real work, it is generally so couched as not to be presently seen by a slight external view ; but the more we grow acquainted with the object, the more we are delighted with its excellency, and the higher esteem we have of its intrinsic merit. Truth loves to unveil herself to the patient, humble, and impartial mind, but scorns to expose her charms to the vulgar eyes of traditional superstition, or the unequal inquiries of prejudiced infidelity; to the narrow views of popularity, pride, or interest, the hasty conclusions of self-conceit, the rash judg-
HART AS A TRANSLATOR. 23
ment of partial zeal, or the shallow perceptions of indolence or levity." The translation itself, like that of Phocylides, is simply an honest piece of work, without literary charm. Many of the sen- tences are wearisome, owing to their extreme length. The chronological table at the end,, compiled with great labour and care from the best ancient historians, as well as the poets, who " in some particulars " had been " very helpful," bears witness, along with other features in the book, to the author's industry, his love of system, and the orderliness of his mind.
Hart's reference in his Experience to these trans- lations is liable to mislead, suggesting, as it does, annotatory vagaries in the Gibbon or Sir Richard Burton manner. Phocylides, like Juvenal and other ancient moralists, has unpleasant verses that have been responsible for fungoid horrors ; but to Hart's comments upon them none but the captious would take exception. Certainly it could not have been inferred from them that he was at the time living an immoral life. Indeed, it pleased him more to make tremendous dissertations on gram- matical niceties, and to bolster up his theory of the moment, than to expend labour upon the erotic and the esoteric. His humanity and common sense peer through a number of passages. Thus he deplores the prevailing practice of duelling, and he denounces those men who1 " readily improve
1 Hart's Phocylides, p. 21.
^4 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
every advantage the letter of the law will allow them to oppress and rack their weaker brother, whose only fault perhaps is that he is poor and defenceless. Than this unjust, though lawful, pro- ceeding, nothing can be more dishonest and wicked, nothing more repugnant to the eternal dictates of benevolence and chanty, by which •external laws should sometimes be superseded. For such is the weakness of mankind, that the wisest legislators cannot invent or institute any law extensive enough to conduce in every respect to the good of society. The truly honest man should, therefore, in many cases, recede from what the rigour of the law would give him, because the strictest and most legal prosecutor is very often the greatest and worst offender. According to the old Latin proverb, Jus summum saepe summa injuria."1 Nevertheless his annotations (and the same may be said of his prefaces) have indubitably an un- pleasant— a grating — tone. In some of those which we have cited there is a flippancy, an absence of reverence, an attempt to put unwar- rantable constructions upon the actions of certain Bible characters, and to drag the religion of the Bible down to the level of other religions — a habit of speaking authoritatively upon matters concern- ing which no man is competent to pronounce. Very often it is less what he says than his manner of saying it that gives umbrage, but he has the
1 Law enforced to strictness often becomes the severest injustice.
HART AS A TRANSLATOR. 25
superciliousness, the perversity, and the assurance of a Matthew Arnold, with no more " vision " than had that writer when he produced St. Paul and Protestantism. Like his polished successor, he was a superior person. In short, to use his own words, he was "puffed up with each fantastic whim,"1 and it was this attitude which in after days he recalled with so much sorrow. How different the Hart of the inconsiderable Herodian transla- tion from the man who, at the time he was pro- ducing deathless verse, could write,
" The author's merit none, And therefore none his boast !"2
His notes are cumbrous with quotations from the Hebrew, to say nothing of the Greek, but, with all his erudition, the Bible was as yet a sealed book to him. He had still something to learn which mountains of Hebrew and oceans of Greek were incapable of imparting.3
1 Hymn 27.
2 Hymn 119, the last in the ist edition.
8 The motto on the title page of Hart's ' Herodian ' is from Thucydides, i. 20. It may be translated : " Owing to their impatience of labour in the search of truth, most men accept straightway whatever is readiest to hand."
CHAPTER III
1751 3IST DECEMBER, 1756
"I WILL ARISE"
In the year 1751 Hart began "to reform a little and to live in a more sober and orderly 8ab5J*tr'ii752. manner." " And now," he says, " as I retained the form of sound words, and held the doctrines of free grace, justification by faith and other orthodox tenets, I was tolerably confident of the goodness of my state ; especially as I could now also add that other requisite, a moral behaviour." About this time he became united in marriage to a young woman of whom we know nothing, except that her Christian name was Mary, that she was fourteen years his junior,1 and that she may have been the sister of the Rev. John Hughes, a Baptist minister, who, as we shall see, succeeded to Hart's pulpit. Mr. Hughes is styled Hart's brother-in-law, but whether Mrs. Hart was Hughes's sister or whether Hughes mar- ried Hart's sister is not disclosed.2 In either case Hart and Hughes, who became affectionate friends, had probably by this time made each other's
1 Mrs. Hart was born in 1726.
2 Mrs. Hughes's name was Mercy, and, as we have seen, Mrs. Hart's was Mary. Mrs. Hart's younger daughter was called Mary Mercy, and there were Mary Mercys in the family for two more generations.
«I WILL ARISE." 27
acquaintance. " The generality of both sexes," laments Hart in a note to his Phocylides, " rush into marriage as carelessly as if their interest were but lightly concerned in it, and their happiness or misery did not at all depend on their choice." It may be assumed, therefore, that he himself exer- cised reasonable caution. Be that as it may, the union, which was doubtless one of the causes of his reformation, proved an ideal one, and he be- came a tender and attentive husband.
For several years he continued with a " luke- warm, insipid kind of religion, yet not without some secret whispers of God's love and visitations of His grace, and now and then warm addresses to Him in private prayer." Then, too, he regularly read the Scriptures, both in English and the original languages; but he could not see that there was any necessity for our Saviour's death, and often resolved that he never would believe it.
In the meanwhile Whitefield, to use the phrase of an enemy, had been travelling from 9 Andrew common to common, preaching from Kinsman. chairs, joint stools, and garden walls, and making the people cry,1 but his principal preaching place was a huge shed which he had erected in Moor- fields, very near to Wesley's centre, u The Foundry." About 1744 he visited Plymouth,2 and among those who received serious impressions
1 See also Whitefield's Letter, i2th March, 1744.
3 See Whitefield's Letters, a6th June, 1744, to 4th Aug., 1744.
28 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
under him, and with whom he became personally acquainted, was a young man of splendid physique — a Hercules for strength — Andrew Kinsman, of Tavistock — who was destined to become, through Whitefield's instrumentality, Joseph Hart's most devoted friend and correspondent. A little later Kinsman removed to Plymouth, wherehe fell in love with and married a Christian lady of means, Miss Ann Tiley. They resided in a thoroughfare called Briton Side ; and, moved by pious desires, they erected at the end of their garden a chapel, which they called, after the Free Grace centre in London, the Tabernacle. The supplies were Whitefield's colleagues, John Cennick,1 the hymn-writer, John Adams, and occasionally Kinsman himself.2
Several years passed away, and in 1749 White- field, who had been making a tour in the West, once more approached Plymouth. His spiritual children, headed by Kinsman, rode out on horse- back to meet him, and welcomed him3 as an "angel of God." Hundreds waited " to hear the Word," and he preached to them (" celestial radiance shining in his face ") in the Briton Side Taber- nacle. Like Whitefield, Kinsman was often roughly treated — sometimes stoned — by the rabble, and persecuted in other ways. Thanks, however, to a powerful frame and a mind insensible of fear
1 See Gospel Standard, February and March, 1850. 3 Philip's Life of Whitefield, pp. 201, 490, 496. Life of Countess of Huntingdon, vol. ii. p. 173. 3 See Whitefield's Letter to Lady Huntingdon, i6th Feb., 1749.
"I WILL ARISE." 29
and inured to contempt, he proved equal to every emergency. On one occasion a lieutenant in the Navy led a gang of rioters into the Tabernacle, and commenced smashing the windows and beating the worshippers. Kinsman straightway grappled with the leader, wrested his sword from him, and by main strength, and notwithstanding the opposi- tion of the other rioters, dragged him bare-headed (for his laced hat had fallen in the struggle) into the yard, and thence through the street to a magistrate. In 1752 Kinsman settled at Devon- port, where he built another chapel ; and he not only superintended the services at both places of worship, but he made preaching tours throughout the surrounding country, sometimes journeying as far as Bristol.
In the meantime Whitefield, finding the Taber- nacle shed in Moorfields inconvenient and inade- quate, took it down and erected on its site a huge hive-shaped building capable of seating 4,000 per- sons.' It was opened with the name unchanged, loth June, 1753. A little earlier Whitefield had made a tour through Kent, and among those con- verted by him and with whom he became per- sonally acquainted was William Shrubsole2 — a ship- wright of Sheerness — the William Shrubsole who afterwards by his Christian Memoirs linked his name not only with Whitefield's but also with Hart's.
1 See Life of Countess of Huntingdon, p. 203.
2 Born in 1729.
30 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
In 1754, just before setting sail for America, Whitefield sent for Kinsman to London, and in his announcement at the Tabernacle he told his people that " a promising young man, Mr. Kins- man," would preach to them. The news circulated that he had said, " my kinsman " ; and curiosity having been whetted, a large and expectant crowd gathered on the following Sunday. However, Kinsman's evident sincerity, conjoined with a har- monious voice and a sprightly and pathetic delivery, enabled him to rivet the attention of an exacting audience ; and thenceforward he was second in popular favour only to Whitefield himself. Among his regular hearers were Hart's father and mother, and he became an honoured guest at their house. Whitefield returned to England in May, 1755, and among those who were attracted
10. A Sermon
by Whitefield. to the " dear old bee-hive," as Ber-
Autumn, 1755.
ridge of l±verton called the laber- nacle, was Joseph Hart. Whitefield in wig, black robe, and bands ascended the pulpit, his pockets bulging with notes1 written by persons " brought under concern." The notes having been read, the sermon followed. The earnestness of the preacher was even terrible. " Mr. Fervidus "2 had never more truly deserved his name. He threw out his arms. To threatenings (the " wild fire " of the profane and even of some of the faith-
1 He sometimes received as many as a thousand in a day. 3 Shrubsole's name for Whitefield.
"I WILL ARISE." 31
ful1) succeeded " soft compassion." The people, always emotional, were exceptionally moved; some wrung their hands, others cried out; and Hart, becoming thoroughly alarmed, " manifested all the signs of a sincere repentance of his sins."2 There was but one thought in his mind : " I will arise and go to my Father." A few days later he fell into a deep despondency because "he had never ex- perienced grand revelations and miraculous dis- coveries." " I was very melancholy," he says, " and shunned all company, walking pensively alone or sitting in private and bewailing my sad and dark condition, not having a friend in the world to whom I could communicate the burden of my soul, which was so heavy that I sometimes hesitated even to take my necessary food." To the end, Hart continued to be a solitary man.
He often fell on his knees and besought God, with strong and frequent cries and tears, to reveal Himself in a clearer manner. In the midst of one of these prayers, a voice said to him, " Do you choose the visionary revelations of which you have formed some wild idea, or to be content with trusting to the low, .despised mystery of a crucified Man ? " Hart was enabled to prefer the latter, and the choice gave him sweet comfort. " His Father had compassion on him." But to dejection he was still at times a prey. " From
1 Wild fire, said "John Thornton the Great," was never absent from the Tabernacle, "but better wild fire than no fire." a Shrubsole.
32 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
this," he says, " I used to be relieved by pouring out my soul to Christ, and beseeching Him, with cries and groans and tears, to reveal Himself to me."
A verse of Scripture answered his petition : " That which thou hast already, hold fast till I come."
Clasping fast his hands, he exclaimed with emotion, " I would sooner part with every drop of blood than let go the hopes I already have in a crucified Saviour."
Another scripture having presented itself, " Be- hold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me," he cried in ecstasy, " Come, Lord Jesus, come ! "
The year 1756 passed away — a ye^r of gloom for England, for the country had been plunged into the horrors of war. There was talk of nothing but gorgeous uniforms, muskets, and the departure of troops ; the kettle-drum, the fife, and the trumpet were heard in the stree^ ; and yet the year was marked by at least one conspicuous religious event — the erection by Wnitefield of a second " soul-trap," as the " indolent clergy who battened in ease"1 thought fit to call it — the chapel in Tottenham Court Road.2 The spring of 1757 — an even more calamitous time — marked as it was by defeat and disgrace to Britain (" Oswego gone, an army cut to pieces, an admiral shot to
1 Hart's expression in Unreasonableness of Religion. 8 Opened 7th Nov., 1756.
THE MORAVIAN CHAPEL IN FETTER LANE. From " Old and New London," Vol. 1 , p. 97. By permission of Messrs. Cassell &• Co.
WHITEFIELD'S TABERNACLE, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD.
"I WILL ARISE." 33
death ! Ml) also passed away ; and then finally came the answer to Hart's fervid prayer. It was the central event of his life ; and cannot better be described than in his own words.
1 Fast Sermon by Hervey, of Weston Favell, 1757. Byng was shot. 1 4th March, 1757.
CHAPTER IV
THE VISION AND THE EARLIER HYMNS
" The week before Easter,1 1757," he says, " I had such an amazing view of the agony f the Agony of Christ in the garden as I know not to Describe. I was lost in
wonder and adoration, and the impres- sion it made was too deep, I believe, ever to be obliterated. I shall say no more of this, but only remark that, notwithstanding all that is talked about the sufferings of Jesus, none can know any- thing of them but by the Holy Ghost; and I believe he that knows most knows but very little." The vision led him to resume his pen, and within a day or two he wrote the first part of the impas- sioned ode, " Come, all ye chosen saints of God," which appears as hymn i in his collection. He says he afterwards " mutilated and altered it." The original, if superior to the present version, must have been powerful indeed. Here, as in everything else that he wrote, poetical embellish- ment is religiously avoided. " All he aimed at was to enter into the deep mysteries of Geth- semane, and the intense reality of the sufferings
1 Easter Sunday was on April loth in 1757.
THE EARLIER HYMNS. 35
of Christ."1 Even the name Gethsemane, " the olive press," had a deep significance for Hart. Stupendous are the lines in which he represents our Lord as bearing all that incarnate God could bear,
" With strength enough, and none to spare ; " and what a picture of desolation is there in :
" Soon as the Chief to battle led, That moment every soldier fled ! "
The black polluted Kidron is represented as roll- ing its torrent of sin, and the lyric ends with a stanza that connects sweetly the two surpassing earthly gardens — Eden and Gethsemane. Forked lightnings play over this hectic hymn ; and none but a soul fluctuating between mortal agony and divine rapture could possibly have penned it. Gethsemane had for Hart an ever-abiding fascina- tion. He returns to the theme again and again.3 In the midst of the poetic ecstasy attendant on 12. "AH for the composition of these passionate Love> lines, Hart left his home and paced the adjoining London streets. On his way, as he passed one of the theatres, his eye caught the words on a bill, " All for Love,"3 the title of a play
1 Rev. A. J. Baxter, Gospel Advocate, 1873, P- I2-
* Thus in hymn 75 he dwells lovingly on the touching fact recorded in John xviii. 2, that Gethsemane had for long been our Lord's favourite retreat when He needed quiet.
3 Gospel Advocate, Vol. 5, p. 45. All for Love, or the World well Lost, was first acted at the King's Theatre in 1678. It was revived about 1746, when Anne Bellamy took the part of Cleopatra, and Barry that of Antony. It was popular for years.
36 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
by Dryden. With its story, which hinges on the crass infatuation of Mark Antony for Cleopatra, and the fact that Europe, Africa, Asia were
" put in balance, And all weighed down by one light, worthless woman,"
Hart, as a student of English literature and as a play-goer in his graceless days, must have been thoroughly familiar, for the piece had often been on the boards. The words, impinging upon him at a time when his soul was so sensitive, had the effect of suggesting a parallel which at a calmer moment might not have presented itself; and, hastening home, he wrote what now forms the second part of his first hymn — the melting lines commencing,
" And why, dear Saviour, tell me why Thou thus would'st suffer, bleed and die ? What mighty motive could Thee move ? The motive's plain — 'twas all for love ! "
The agony of Part I. has given place in Part II. to moving pathos — one tender verse sweetly fol- lowing another, and all straining towards the final and vividly impressive :
" For love of me, the Son of God Drained every drop of vital blood ; Long time I after idols ran, But now my God's a martyr'd Man."
A little later he wrote hymn 2, in which the influence of the play is still discernible ;
" Tortured with bliss, I cry, ' Remove That killing sight ! I die with love ! ' "
THE EARLIER HYMNS. 37
Further examples might be given of the influ- ence of passing events on Hart's hymns. For instance, the first line of verse n, in hymn 75,
" Poor disciples, tell me now,"
is evidently an echo, intentional or unintentional, of the popular song of the day,
•' Gentle shepherd, tell me where." These moments of exaltation and tension were naturally followed by a period of dejec- 13. He be. tion. Even from his Bible he o little comfort. One text in particular distracted him : " And cast ye the un- Hvmns 2 * 3- profitable servant."1 " Despair," he says, " began to make dreadful head against me : hopes grew fainter, and terrors stronger; which latter were increased by a faithful letter I received from a friend, who had also run great lengths of impiety with me formerly, but was now reclaimed. The convictions I now laboured under were not like those legal convictions I had formerly felt, but far worse, horrible beyond expression. I looked upon myself as a gospel sinner ; one that had trampled under foot the blood of Jesus, and for whom there remained no more sacrifice for sin. ... So deep was my despair that I found in me a kind of wish that I might only be damned with the common damnation of transgressors of God's law. But, oh ! I thought the hottest place in hell must be my portion." It was while he was in this piteous state
1 Matthew xxv. 30.
38 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
that he composed hymn 3, " The Doubting Christian."
Then followed an illness. " One morning," he says, " I was waked with intolerable pain, as if balls of fire were burning my reins. Amidst this excruciating torture, which lasted near an hour, one of the first things I thought on was the pierced side of Jesus, and what pain of body as well as soul He underwent. Soon after this fiery stroke I was seized in the evening with a cold shivering, which I concluded to be the icy damp of death, and that after that must come everlasting damnation." He feared to close his eyes lest he "shouldawake inhell." " While these horrors remained," he continues, " I used to run backwards and forwards to places of religious worship, especially to the Tabernacle, in Moorfields, and the chapel in Tottenham Court Road ; where, indeed, I received some comfort ; but in the general almost everything served only to condemn me, to make me rue my own backslidings, and envy those children of God who had continued to walk honestly ever since their first conversion."
About this time he became personally acquainted with Whitefield, and a friendship ensued between them which was severed only by death.
On Whit-Sunday afternoon (that is, on May
14. The Mora- 2Qth), 1757, he went to the chapel, in
F^LaaPnee; Fetter Lane> belonging to the Mora-
whiteuntide,' vians> or United Brethren, where he
Hymns4— 6. had attended several times before.
THE EARLIER HYMNS. 39
" The minister,"1 he says, " preached on these words, ' Because thou hast kept the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth ' (Rev. iii. 10). Though the text, and most of what was said on it, seemed to make greatly against me, yet I listened with much attention, and felt myself deeply interested by it. When it was over, I thought of hastening to Tottenham Court Chapel ; but presently, altering my mind, returned to my own house.
" I was hardly got home when I felt myself melting away into a strange softness of affection, which made me fling myself on my knees before God. My horrors were immediately dispelled, and such light and comfort flowed into my heart as no words can paint. The Lord, by His Spirit of lover came not in a visionary manner into my brain, but with such divine power and energy into my soul that I was lost in blissful amazement."
Nevertheless, when he considered his past life, he could scarcely believe there was mercy for him,
" What, for me, Lord! " he cried.
" Yes, for thee," replied a voice.
" But I have been so unspeakably vile and wicked," moaned poor Hart.
" I pardon thee," followed the voice, " fully and
1 Perhaps the Rev. John Gambold, who was minister at the chapel from 1742 to 1768. In 1754 he was consecrated a Bishop of the United Brethren.
40 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
freely. Thy own goodness cannot save thee, nor shall thy wickedness damn thee. I undertake to work all thy works in thee and for thee ; and to bring thee safe through all."1
" The alteration," says Hart, " I then felt in my soul was as sudden and palpable as that which is experienced by a person staggering and almost sinking under a burden when it is immediately taken from his shoulders. Tears ran in streams from my eyes. I threw my soul willingly into my Saviour's hands ; lay weeping at His feet, wholly resigned to His will, and only begging that I might, if He was graciously pleased to permit it, be of some service to His church and people."2
As the Easter vision had led Hart to write the hymn on the Passion, so the Fetter Lane sermon inspired him to write the three Whitsuntide hymns, 4, 5, and 6, two of which, " Come, Holy Spirit, come," and " Descend from heaven, celestial Dove," are among the finest in our language. The fourth verse of hymn 6 concludes with a line that is eminently characteristic of Hart. The Earls of Nottingham may proudly cite their motto, Nil conscire sibi ;3 but none, to use Hart's expression, save those arrayed in coverings not their own,4 will be able to cry on the Great Day :
" We're clean, just God, we're clean."
1 See Experience, and hymn 27. 3 Cf. hymn 27, verse 20.
3 To be conscious of no guilt.
4 Hart's Hymns, 82.
THE EARLIER HYMNS. , 41
We must here notice the statement made by Hart that his hymns are arranged in the order in which they were written.1 the Hymns* This fact seems to "have escaped the eye of others, but it is of first importance, seeing that it enables us to fix the date, or approximate date, when every hymn was composed. When dealing with the subject of " Holy Days,"2 he says:
" Some Christians to the Lord regard a day, And others to the Lord regard it not."
Now Hart himself was a punctilious observer of days, and it is probable that he wrote this hymn in answer to some excellent friend who remonstrated with him for making so much of Good Friday and the festivals. His affectionate argument is, " My dear brother, the shell is certainly not the meat ; but, all the same, commemoration is no sin. You have your reasons for not observing these days, I have mine for observing them. Our con- descending Lord will approve both of us.
" ' Let each pursue the way that likes him best ; He cannot walk amiss, that walks in love.' "
So as each " Holy Day " came round Hart kept it as seemed fit to him, and it was usually provo- cative of a hymn. This will explain how it is that the Easter hymns and the hymns congenial to the festivals are scattered throughout his book instead of being grouped together, and the fact is addi-
1 Preface to First Edition.
2 Hymn 33.
42 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
tionally welcome in that it enables us to compile the following invaluable table : —
DATES OF HART'S HYMNS.
i. Easter Sunday. J757- April 10.
2, 3. Spring.
4, 5, 6. Whit Sunday. „ May 29.
7 — ii. Summer and Autumn. „
12 — 14. Christmas. „ Dec. 25.
15. Last Week of 1757.
16. New Year's Day. J758- Jan- *• 17—32. Spring.
33 — 36' Good Friday. „ March 24.
37 — 44. Easter to Whitsuntide. „
45, 46. Whit Sunday. „ May 14.
47. Trinity Sunday. „ May 21.
48 — 56. May to December. ,,
57. New Year's Day. 1759 Jan. i.
58 — 61. Early in 1759. „
62 — 76. Easter Week. „ April 15 — 22.
77 — 119. April and May.1 „
[The Book appeared 7th July, 1759.]
SUPPLEMENT.
i — 30. Early in 1760. 1760.
31 — 34. Easter. „ April 6.
35, 36. Ascension Day. „ May 15.
37 — 40. May to October. „
41 — 43. Death of George II. „ Oct. 25. 44 — 47. Nov., 1760 — Mar., 1761.
48 — 50. Easter. 1761. 51 — 82. Between Easter, 1761, and date of going to press in 1762.
APPENDIX.
i — 13. Between 1761 and 1765. Fast Hymn.2 „ „ „
1 The Fast Hymn, No. 96, was probably written on Fast Day, 16 Feb., 1759-
2 This hymn is placed in front of the book in the 4th edition, the edition in which it first appeared. In some editions it appears as No. 14 of the Appendix.
THE YEAR 1758. 43
Hymns 7 to 15 were written between May and December, 1757. " A Man there is, a 15. Hymns real Man," savours of Watts's, " With 7 to 15' joy we meditate the grace."1 Hart, indeed, like his saintly predecessor, loves to dwell on the con- soling thought that Christ can fully sympathise with the sorrows of His people, seeing that He Himself experienced trial and temptation ; and we find him over and over again, when in deep waters, extracting comfort from the recollection that our Lord was not only the Son of God but also " a real Man." In hymns 8 to n he endeavours to push home the cardinal truth that there is salva- tion by Christ alone, the most arresting verse being the last in the autobiographical hymn, 10: — " Then sinners black as hell
May hence for hope have ground ; For who of mercy needs despair, Since I have mercy found ? "
The four hymns produced at Christmastide, 1757, breathe, every one, a holy joy, that has lifted the hearts and spirits of thousands who have sung or read them. The weakness of the Infant Jesus — a little Child born in little Bethlehem — appealed to Hart persistently ;2 and the world's harsh treat- ment of its Lord and King was never for long absent from his devout meditations :
" But see what different thoughts arise
In ours and angels' breasts; To hail His birth they left the skies, We lodged Him with the beasts."
1 Watts's Hymns. Book i., No. 125. aSee §§ 17 and 31.
CHAPTER V THE YEAR 1758
Hart opened the new year with a hymn that has 17. "New aptly been described as " an epitome
YlandSHHyyr^nn8 of vital and experimental religion,"1 17 to 32. « Lamb of God ! we fall before Thee."
Many a good man has regarded it as his creed, and has recited it on his death-bed with streaming eyes and quivering lip — deriving comfort from every sustaining sentence. Fitting companions to it are " Oh the pangs by Christians felt," and hymn 19, which contains the verse,
" Our good Guide and Saviour
Hath helped thus far ; And 'tis by His favour We are what we are."
Few hymnists can approach Hart when he is upon the subject of sorrow.
" Boast not, ye sons of earth,
Nor look with scornful eyes ; Above your highest mirth
Our saddest hours we prize. For though our cup seems fill'd with gall, There's something secret sweetens all."8
Then there is that other cheering reminder :
" Trials may press of every sort, They may be sore, they must be short."8
1 Rev. A. J. Baxter.
2 Hymn 20.
3 Hymn 21.
HYMN .S,.
COMPOSED
On . various Subjects
WITH A
P'.R- E F A C E,
CONTAINING
A BRIEF and SUMMARY ACCOUNT
OF THE
AUTHOR'S EXPERIENCE,
AND
The great Things that God hath done for his Soul.
By J. H A R T.
fng unto the Lird a new 'Song ; for be bath done
M A R V H L L O U S T H J N G S : His right Hand*
and his hsly Arm hath gotten him the Fitfory.
Pial.
xcv. r.
LONDON:
Printed by J. E v E R i N G H A M j nnd Sold by T. WALLER, in Fleet-ftreet 5 G, KEH in Gracechurch-Streetj and D. WILSON an, D. DURHAM, oppofite Buckingham-flreet in the Strand. 1759.
[Price Bound j s. 6 d, j
TITLE PAGE OF FIEST EDITION OP HART'S HYMNS.
From the copy in the British Museum. (By permission).
THE YEAR 1758. 45
It should steadily be borne in mind that many of the hymns were intended simply for private read- ing— No. 24, for example, " A Dialogue between a Believer and his soul," being quite unsuited for public worship. No. 26, " The Narrow Way," reminds us, along with other hymns,1 that Hart was saturated with John Bunyan. The Christian's way, as Hart sees it, is choked first of all by " two dangerous gulfs" — Dead Sloth and Pharisaic Pride. The pilgrim is confused by the beckoning finger of Jack o' Lantern and the cries of untrust- worthy guides. At every turn he encounters new dangers and new foes ; and these dangers passed, these foes overcome, he is confronted by the last foe of all, the " ghastly phantom, death." The sequel is an answer to the question, " If this be the way, who can hope to attain the prize ? " "Be not afraid," says Hart, " One is at your side, even though you neither feel nor see Him. Therefore, whatever foe oppose, you are absolutely safe."
" When all these foes are quell'd,
And every danger past ; Though death remains, he but remains To be subdued at last."
We may sum it all up with, Only dastards doubt their God.2 To " The Author's own Confession "3
1 '• Come and welcome to Jesus Christ," the title of hymn zoo (" Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched ") is taken from the title of one of Bunyan 's works.
2 For Scott's criticism of the attitude of Hart towards doubt and fear, see Life of the Rev. Thomas Scott, by John Scott, chap. ii. (yd ed.. PP- 339—341)-
9 Hymn 27.
46 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
reference has already been made. Hymn 28 con- cludes with the oft-quoted
" Meanwhile that foe can't boast of much Who makes us watch and pray " ;
and in No. 32 Hart once more dwells lovingly on the recollection that Jesus was once a helpless babe in a little Syrian town, concluding with the tremendous stanza :
" No less almighty at His birth
Than on His throne supreme ; His shoulders held up heaven and earth While Mary held up Him."
In hymns 33 to 36, which were written on or near Good Friday, 17^8, Hart
1 8. The Good
Friday Hymns endeavours to touch the human heart Hymns 37 to by the recital of our Lord's sufferings, and in hymn 42 he deals with the sub- ject of election,1 the doctrine which he had so stoutly championed even in his unregenerate days. Hymn 48 is the ouch for that gem of gems, the verse commencing, " But they that in the Lord confide," a verse which sweetly harmonizes with the concluding lines of another hymn that has endeared itself to multitudes :
" Fly to the throne of grace by prayer, And pour out all your wishes there ; Effectual fervent prayer prevails When every other method fails."2
In No. 58 Hart once more reveals some of the
1 Hymns 60, 61, and 113 are on the same subject. a Hymn 52.
THE YEAR 1758. 47
secrets of his own heart. His great and un- wearied internal enemy, he tells us, was " Pride, accursed pride," that ubiquitous enemy whose appalling power had so forcibly impressed him at the time he was compiling the notes to his " Herodian." Even after he had become en- lightened, he found it present at the most unex- pected times:
" This moment, while I write,
I feel its power within ; My heart it draws to seek applause, And mixes all with sin."
This hymn was a favourite with the militant minister and hymn-book compiler, John Stevens, of Meard's Court, Soho, who naturally changed part of the third verse into :
" From sinner and from saint I meet with many a blow."
CHAPTER VI
1759 PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK
Spring had once more returned, and the approach of Easter led Hart to ponder
19. At the ^.
sign of the again, as he had so often pondered
Hymns before, the terrible tragedy of Golgotha,
and to write thereupon the series of
hymns, Nos. 62 to 75. Among them, however, are
compositions on other subjects, two of which call
for special notice, namely 69 and 71.
As we have seen, Hart was in 1748 lodging at " Mr. Liford's, mathematical instrument maker, near the new Church in the Strand." He prob- ably left these lodgings at the time of his marriage. In any case, his home at the period to which we have come, and for the rest of his life, was over a shop — the sign of the Lamb — near Durham Yard,1 on the south side of the Strand, which, with its unending stream of coaches, chaises, drays and waggons, was already one of the noisiest streets of London. The rent must have been low, for the house was old and crazy — so old and crazy that ten years later it had become, along with the houses
1 That is somewhere near the present Durham House Street and opposite the Adelphi theatre.
' What have we
Sg
1 notrrtU
1 inot*rrtU we call the proud h»Pi>V :
, , And 00* J»j« wickjncfs t are let ^''^M'tCiod are even
frrvant. wfei. h 1
Horebfcw »)1 li« u 1,
judgements.
J j« Behold. I V •
prophet, hefors the <
and dreadi'ul dav o» thv. 6 And 'hc(h«l turn
thers to the cVi'ildren, .
children to thciv i.iili' •
(mite the earth with A
INSCEIPTIONS IN HART'S HANDWRITING FROM THE PULPIT BIBLE USED AT JEWIN STREET CHAPEL.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 49
adjoining, " an unprofitable heap of ruin."1 The shop may have been his too ; in any case, it was afterwards (on the title-page of the Hymn-book, for example) called " Hart's Warehouse," and it pleases us to assume that the name of the sign was of his own choosing. No doubt a board with a painting of a lamb hung and creaked over the entrance — an appropriate sign for him who sangr " My portion is the Lamb ;2 whose thoughts were never long absent from '" the Lamb for sinners slain." Hymn 69 should have for lovers of Hart a peculiar fascination, seeing that it carries us right to his fireside, and sets us down in the very midst of his family circle. We see him seated in pensive mood, with writing materials before him. It is a plain apartment, with uneven floor, and old and worm-eaten wainscoted walls, which are bare save for a bookcase, whence look down upon him his old friends the classics, including his favourite " Horace," and along with them the best English devotional books, from John Flavel to Isaac Watts, each of which had tinctured his mind. A girl about six, and a boy of four — the latter, sad to say, subject to epileptic fits — are playing at his side, and hard by is his wife nursing a child of ten months or so. Something — the rattling of a window, perhaps — startles the sleeping infant, and
1 In 1768, within a few weeks of Hart's death, the estate of Durham Yard was purchased by Messrs. Adam, architects, who erected the Adelphi Terrace, and made several new streets.
a Hymn 72.
5o LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" he fondly strives to fling his little arms about her neck." Thereupon Hart, moved by the pretty sight, hastily sets down the lines :
" As when a child secure of harms Hangs at the mother's breast."
To use his own expression, the thoughts come quickly enough, but it takes some time to hunt for the tinkling rhymes.1 However, he at last finds them, with the result of an idyllic and touching picture teaching the lesson of the importance of renunciation of self and absorption in the Beloved Shepherd. Another hymn that reflects his home life is No. 7 in the Appendix :
" Parents, be to children tender ; Children, full obedience render
To your parents in the Lord. Wives, to husbands yield subjection ; Husbands, with a kind affection,
Cherish as yourselves your wives."
One is apt to think of Hart as perpetually mewed up in bricks and mortar, forgetting that the London of those days was far more confined than the present metropolis. Hart was never very far from the fields, and his love for verdant meadows, yellow crops,2 and tinkling rills is reflected in many of his hymns ; while he had all a townsman's passion for a garden.
That Hart was anxious to enter the ministry has
20 Harts alrea-dy been mentioned. His first
First Sermon. sermon, they tell us, was preached "in
1 Hymn 119.
2 E.g. Appendix No. 5.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 51
the Old Meeting House, St. John's Court, Ber- mondsey,"1 and he seems to have served occa- sionally in other chapels. The burden of his cry was Phil. iii. 7, 8, 9 : " What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubt- less, and I count all things but loss for the excel- lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, not having my own righteousness . . . but the righteousness which is of God by faith," and the fervour of his preaching made a lasting impression on his hearers. Shrubsole, in his allegorical way, says that Hart, using his " Philippian powder, blew up — making a terrible explosion — -the city of self, and was the means of causing many to quit that city." Against the Arminians Hart urged the twin texts, Romans iii. 27, 28 ; and if he angered them, on the other hand he delighted Whitefield, who expressed himself " highly pleased with this exploit."2 A little later Hart — as Shrubsole tells us — gave Whitefield a detailed " account of his journey along the River of Life," dwelling par- ticularly on his struggles with the more insidious of his foes, namely, " Merit, Self-sufficiency, and Spiritual Pride."
Among those who had listened with wonder to the new and perfervid Hart was a hearer
. 21. Romaine
ot Komaine, and after the sermon he and the
11 i i i- • • •> i i Prodigal.
called on the distinguished preacher
1 What chapel this was I cannot discover. It is not mentioned in any old list of licensed chapels that I have come across. There seems to be some mistake.
2 Shrubsole.
52 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
and gave some account of it. Romaine, with all his virtues, was wanting in geniality and everyday wisdom ; and he was apt to relieve his feelings by short and quick comments. Moreover, he had known Hart personally, and was aware of the lengths to which Hart had gone ; so pulling him- self up smartly, he exclaimed, " What, that devil!" The words drifted to Hart, who thereupon seized a pen, and having written the beautiful lines en- titled " The Prodigal,"1 he sent them, by way of reproof, to Romaine.2 It would be pleasant to know that the elder son — William Romaine — and the younger son — Joseph Hart — afterwards met on delightful terms, and that the elder, ever swift to acknowledge an error, expressed regret for the rashness of his judgment. But history is mute. How sweetly the hymn concludes : —
" Good God, are these Thy ways !
If rebels thus are freed, And favour'd with peculiar grace, Grace must be free indeed."
Hymns 76 to 119 seem to have been written in
22. Hymns the spring of 1759. The series, taken
76 to 119. as a wijOie> js jess impressive than some
of the earlier groups, but it includes two of the
most precious hymns Hart ever wrote, namely,
" Christ is the Friend of sinners,"3 and, " Come, ye
1 Hymn 71. See also Gospel Advocate, vo\. xviii., p. 65.
2 Some have taken exception to Hart's description of the elder son as a child of God, though a murmuring one.
3 No. gi.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 53
sinners, poor and wretched."1 The second verse of the former has been quoted myriads of times. It has comforted the sorrow-laden, cheered the dying, and dried the eyes of generations of mourners. The words have fallen like refreshing rain upon parched and fissured pastures :
" Trust not to joyous fancies, Light hearts, or smooth behaviour :
Sinners can say,
And none but they : How precious is the Saviour."
From this beautiful hymn one instinctively turns to that union pearl, " Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched." No man had a deeper knowledge of the depravity and the needs of the human heart than he who wrote :
" Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream ; All the fitness He require th Is to feel your need of Him."
William Huntington used to object to the line in hymn 84,
" Some long repent and late believe," on the ground that repentance could not precede faith ; but others have dulled the force of the objection by the allegation that in this place Hart had in view, not the burgeoning, or first budding, but the full assurance of faith.2
Hymn 1 12 is an admonition urging triflers to turn their backs upon this gew-gaw world ; and hymn 96,
1 No. ioo.
a See Gospel Advocate, vol. v., p. 48.
54 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" For a Public Fast," discloses that the nation was just then passing through a period of extreme tension and anxiety — an anxiety that led the Government to appoint a day or days in each year (usually a Friday in February)1 for public humilia- tion, and special sermons were preached on them.2 On Fast Day, 1756, says Wesley, " Every church in the City was more than full, a solemn serious- ness sat on every face, and the day was observed with equal solemnity by the Dissenters;" and on Fast Days, 1758 and 1759, the places of worship were equally crowded. To hymn 119 and last we have already alluded. It is slightly autobiogra- phical, and in its reference to the author's pursuit after elusive rhymes there is a tincture of humour, or at any rate the nearest approach to humour that Hart ever made.3
Having finished his hymns, Hart set himself to
23. The write that immortal piece of prose, the
Experience. Experience, We have elsewhere dealt
with the autobiographical element4 in it. The chief glory of Hart's prose masterpiece is a series
1 Thus ; Fast Day, 1756 was on Feb. 6th.
1758 ., ,, i7th.
1759 ,, ,, i6th. ,, 1760 ,, ,, i3th.
2 See stereotyped edition of James Hervey's Works, pp. 643 — 672. 8 He was not wanting in irony, however, e.g.,
' ' Why so offensive in their eyes Doth God's election seem ? Because they think themselves so wise
That they have chosen Him" — (Hymn 113).
4 See also Notes to Hart's Experience, by Thorpe Smith. Gospel Advocate, vol. v., p. 295 ; vol. xii., p. 361.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 55
of versicles which flash like diamonds of the first water. The following are a few :
" None can make a Christian but He that made the world."1
" It is the glory of God to bring good out of evil."
" Whom He loveth He loveth unto the end."
" Prayer is the task and labour of a Pharisee, but the privilege and delight of a Christian."
" God grants not the requests of His people because they pray ; but they pray because He designs to answer their petitions."
" God's design is to glorify His Son alone, and to debase the excellence of every creature."
" No righteousness besides the righteousness of Jesus (that is, the righteousness of God) is of any avail towards acceptance."
" To be a moral man, a zealous man, a devout man, is very short of being a Christian."
" The dealings of God with His people, though similar in the general, are nevertheless so various that there is no chalking out the paths of one child of God by those of another."
" Faith and holiness, with every other blessing, are the purchase of the Redeemer's blood ; and He has a right to bestow them on whom He will, in such a manner and in such a measure as He thinks best."
1 Toplady quotes this in "Excellent Passages from Eminent Divines," adding that it was taken from Hart's Preface (meaning the " Experience"). The Posthumous Works of the late Rev. Mr. A. M. Toplady, 1780, and Works, 1825 ed., vol. iv., p. 341.
56 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" It is not so easy to be a Christian as some men seem to think."
" Mere doctrine, though ever so sound, will not alter the heart."
" A whole-hearted disciple can have but little communion with a broken-hearted Lord."
" If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."
" A prayerless spirit is not the Spirit of Christ. Prayer to a Christian is as necessary and as natural as food to a natural man."
"The usual way of going to heaven is through much tribulation."
"The sinner who is drawn to Christ is not he that has learnt that he is a sinner by head knowledge, but that feels himself such by heart contrition."
" A true Christian is as vitally united to Christ as my hand or foot to my body."
" A believer talks and converses with God."
" A dead faith can no more cherish the soul than a dead corpse can perform the functions of life."
" Where there is true faith there will be obedience and the fear of God."
" Faith, like gold, must be tried in the fire before it can be safely depended on."
The Rev. J. C. Philpot ranked Hart's Experience with Bunyan's Grace Abounding and Huntington's Kingdom of Heaven. " Where," he asks, " can we find three more edifying books ? '"
1 Gospel Standard, August, 1852.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 57
The Hymn-book appeared on yth July, 1759, on which day it was advertised in the
J 24. First
St. James's Chronicle: — Edition of the
" This day were1 publish'd, Price Andrew Kins- bound One Shilling and Sixpence, his acquaint- HYMNS, &c., composed on various SUBJECTS, with a Preface, containing a brief and summary Account of the Author's Experience, and the great things that God hath done for his soul. By J. HART. Printed by J. Everingham, and sold by T. Waller, in Fleet Street ; G. Keith, in Gracechurch Street; and G. Wilson and T. Durham, opposite Buckingham Street, in the Strand."
A fastidious reader, on opening Hart's book for the first time, would probably be repelled ; but a work of merit, as Hart himself observes in his " Herodian,"2 usually does repel on first acquaint- ance. After turning over a page or two, however, the reader comes to a hymn or a verse that goes straight to his heart. This leads him to give more careful attention to the rest ; and having grasped the whole scheme with all its excellencies, he becomes thoroughly absorbed in it. Thencefor- ward it is a treasure with which he will never part. The Rev. W. J. Styles observes, and justly, that " Hart is often ungraceful and uncouth." Yet one
1 Other books were mentioned under Hart's. It was announced in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1759, as follows : — " Hymns on Various Subjects. By J. Hart. is. 6d. Waller."
aSeep. 22.
58 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
would no more think of altering even a word than of tampering with one of Hogarth's pictures. Hart, indeed, is the Hogarth of hymnists. The painter is not more terrible in his realism. Read Hart's hymns, and you see that " doleful gulph,"1 the Fleet Ditch, rolling its black and fetid waters through the heart of London to sully the lower Thames; for it was not Kidron, but the Fleet, with its rank and bitter weeds2 — its docks and water- peppers — upon which Hart was casting his eyes when he wrote the powerful stanzas of his opening hymn. Deformed indigence in rags and dirt, its body horrible with exposed sores, jostled in any street with ruffled and gold-waistcoated opulence. There was bull-baiting at Hockley-in-the-Hole, cock-fighting in Shoe Lane ; nay, the very number of the newspaper that announces the publication of Hart's Hymns advertises also that there " will be fought a main of cocks between Sir Charles Sedley, Bart., and Hugo Meynell, Esq." The pinioned highwayman, seated on his coffin, rode backwards any day to die game at the triangular Tyburn Tree ; and any day too one might see on Kennington Common, dangling on rusty chains, the tarred and shrivelled remains " of what was once a man." The pinched debtor appealed to the benevolent through the gratings of the Fleet prison. " Of all the seats of woe on this side hell,
1 Hart's Supplement, 30. 3 Hymn 75.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 59
few exceeded Newgate."1 The avenues of the Strand were beset with troops of viragoes who, with dreadful imprecations, beat and plundered passengers.2 Such were the scenes upon which Hart's eyes or thoughts roved when he wrote :
« Though filthy as Mary, Manasseh or I."8
His hymns, indeed, are crowded with references to needy beggars, nasty rags, ugly gaolers, cold and joyless cells, outcasts base and vile, rankling sores ; and in a time of hunger and nakedness, for those were lean years indeed, it is not surprising that there should be so much in his pages about food and clothing, and plenty of them : " rich savoury meat," " celestial bread," "rich garments," "royal dainties."
Hart owes his power as a writer in great measure to his even terrible earnestness. In respect to his compactness, the man whose favourite motto was Horace's Quicquid praecipies esto brevis* the man who had entered into the soul of Phocylides, could scarcely be other than compact and concise. He wrote fine English because he was super- saturated with the best in English poetry. He was not a word-fancier; nevertheless he occasionally introduces an archaic expression. Thus in hymn i
1 Wesley's Journal, Dent's ed. iii. 33.
a Goldsmith. Essay X.
8 Hymn 84.
4 Whatever you undertake, be concise.
60 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
he uses " condole " without the preposition ;' he permits to " let " and " prevent " the Prayer Book meanings respectively of "hinder" and "go before." In hymn 3, "pretend" is used in the sense of " stretch forward."2 It was an axiom with him that " there are no two native words in any pure language exactly synonymous ;3 and he had a Flaubert's anxiety to hit upon the precise word required to express his meaning. In short, he is a scrupulously exact writer. He discrimi- nates, for example, in hymn 79 between believing on4 Christ and believing into5 Christ, that is, being absorbed in Him. He delights in paradox.6 Although few writers are more original than Hart, one can here and there detect in his work the influence of his sacred predecessors. For example, the opening line of hymn 6, " Descend from heaven, celestial Dove," was doubtless suggested by Watts's " Descend from heaven, immortal Dove " ;7 but there is no further resemblance, and each hymn has its special savour. Again, Hart's
No. 4:
" Come, Holy Spirit, come,
Let Thy bright beams arise," recalls Watts's
1 Having Milton's Samson Agonistes for precedent, " I come not, Samson, to condole thy chance."
2 Latin praetendo. " Pretend to live the life divine." 8 Note on p. 4 of his " Phocylides."
4 As in Acts iv. 42.
5 As in Gal. ii. n. See Rev. A. J. Baxter's remarks in Gospel Advocate, Vol. 19, p. zoo.
6 See Supplement, 38 ; Appendix, 4.
7 Watts's Hymns, Book 2, No. 23.
PUBLICATION OF THE HYMN-BOOK. 61
" Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove, With all Thy quickening powers."1
But the two hymns have nothing else in common, and Hart's is incomparably the finer. Then too in hymn 8, " How can ye hope, deluded souls," there is an analogy to Watts's " Vain are the hopes the sons of men," though, as the Rev. A. J. Baxter observes, " As usual with Hart, he enters more deeply into the details of the subject, as experimentally understood by all the Lord's living family;2 and other instances in which Hart was indebted to Watts have been pointed out by the curious and the sedulous.
The book had been published with no idea except that of doing good, but it met with an enthusiastic reception. For thirty years Hart had paid assiduous court to the uncertain goddess Fame. She spurned him. He turned his back upon her. She straightway sought him with winged feet.
Among the readers of the book was the Rev. Andrew Kinsman, who was then supplying at the Tabernacle, and he was led to seek out Hart, and to make his acquaintance. An affectionate friend- ship ensued. Hart was forty-seven, Kinsman thirty-five. " From the year 1759," says Kinsman, " a religious and literary correspondence ensued. Oh, how full were his epistles of sound experience ! How sweetly did he write of Jesus and His great salvation ! Since then we have lived as brethren, and servants of the same Master."
1 Watts, Book 2, No. 34. a Gospel Advocate, Vol. 6, p. 322.
CHAPTER VII
1760—1768 PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL
In 1760 Hart became minister at the Indepen- dent chapel in Jewin Street1 — a huge Jewin street wooden, oblong building, with four large galleries, which had been erected in 1672 for the eminent Presbyterian divine, William Jenkyn. Jenkyn's friend, the great John Flavel, had spoken from its pulpit.2 The building was approached from Jewin Street, from which it was hidden by some old houses, through a narrow passage. In 1754 it had been hired by a congregation of Particular Baptists, pas- tored by the Rev. Thomas Cramer ; but in 1760 they removed to Meeting-house Alley, Red- cross Street;3 and the congregation which chose Hart for pastor took their place. Owing in part to the reputation gained by his hymn-book, and in part to his verve as a preacher, and his straining after holiness,4 Hart from the first attracted large
1 Nonconformists abounded in the neighbourhood. Writing in 1810. Walter Wilson says, " Perhaps there is scarcely a spot of ground in all London where there are so many meeting-houses."
* He was invited to succeed Jenkyn, but could not be persuaded to leave his old congregation at Dartmouth.
8 Here Cramer preached till i8th Mar., 1773. See Ivimey's History of the English Baptists, vol. iv. p. 242. 4 " But I would be holy," hymn 24, verse 8.
PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL. 63
congregations ; he dearly loved his people, and they soon acquired the habit of speaking of him in terms of tender affection. The old wooden chapel has long since disappeared, but Jewin Street and its purlieus, that labyrinth of narrow courts with queer names — Jacob's Well Passage, Harp Alley, Jewin Court, and the rest — whence Hart drew a large portion of his congregation, will be associated with his name as long as London stands.
He was no sooner settled in his pastorate than he began to write more hymns — those „
26. The Sup- nOW known as the Supplement. The piementai
. Hymns.
first twenty are on the subject of the Death of
T j» o XT George II.,
Lord s Supper. Nos. 31 to 34 were 25th Oct., written at Easter, 1760, and Nos. 35 and 36 at Ascensiontide of the same year. One of the most striking of them is No. 38, upon the difference between true and false faith, or notion, of which he says,
" Notion's the harlot's test,
By which the truth's reviled ; The child of fancy, finely dressed, But not the living child."
The two hymns on sickness1 point to a serious ill- ness in the summer of 1760. Hart had for long been " weak of body ;"2 medicines did not ease, food support, or sleep refresh. " Lord," he cried, " hear a restless wretch's groans." Recovery seemed unlikely :
1 Supplement, 39 and 40.
2 Hymn 72.
64 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" Or if I never more must rise, But death's cold hand must close my eyes, Pardon my sins, and take me home : O, come, Lord Jesus, quickly come ! "
But it pleased Almighty God, who never forsakes His dear children, be they in health or " in pain, in sickness or in death,"1 to restore him once more. The next three hymns, 41 to 43, were suggested by the death of King George II., who expired suddenly — " a moment brings us all to dust " — on 25th October, 1760; and Hart was probably a spectator of the funeral solemnities, and heard the herald at arms proclaim the many illustrious titles and honours with which the deceased sovereign had been invested. Funeral sermons of the laudatory sort fluttered from the Press like the leaves of Vallombrosa. Nonconformity in par- ticular outwent the mark. Thinking only of its in- debtedness to the Hanoverian idea, it set about eulogising the man where it should have eulogised only his polity. Dr. Gibbons pompously bade " Fame take her silver trump and sound our mon- arch's praise." Samuel Stennett, Daniel Noble, and Dr. Chandler — good men all — were nearly as ful- some. Hart was as loyal to the reigning family as any of them ; but he looked upon kings in a dif- ferent light :
" Ah, what avails the pompous pall,
The sable stoles, the plumed hearse ! To rot within some sacred wall,
Or wound the stone with lying verse.
1 Supplement, No. 41.
I
w J°
S g
PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL. 65
" Blessed are they, and only they,
Who in the Lord the Saviour die ; Their bodies wait redemption's day, And sleep in peace where'er they lie."
How solemn is that verse in hymn 43 (Supple- ment) :
" The awful change not far
Dissolves each golden dream ; Death will distinguish what you are From what you only seem."
The four funeral hymns, which include the stately " Sons of God by blest adoption," and Nos. 48 to 50 were written in the spring of 1761. Of the remaining Supplemental Hymns, the grandest is No. 55.
The war was drawing to a close. The sinister events of the opening campaigns had been followed by victory after victory. The British nation, thanks to the genius of Wolfe,1 Clive, and others, had triumphed on land and sea. People were proud of being Englishmen ; and Hart's Supplement re- flects no less faithfully than the contemporary news- sheets the exhilaration and general feeling of the time. In hymn after hymn there are " conquests," "shouts of victory," " songs of victory." The words,, "conquering hero," "triumphant hero," as applied to Keppel and others, were constantly in his ears, and — consistent with his habit of improving the passing event, and utilising the phrase of the moment — he deftly leads men's thoughts from Keppel to Christ.
1 Killed 1 3th Sept., 1739. F
66 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
The battle-hymn, 29, is particularly rich in cheering and quickening passages. The following, for example, should hearten even the most timorous :
" Let the danger make thee bolder ;
War in weakness ; dare in doubt. " Let thy courage wax the warmer
As thy foes and fears increase.
" Prayer's a weapon for the feeble, Weakest souls can wield it best."
The Government were now bent on peace, but the country in general, dazzled by the brilliance of the British successes, and the merchants of London specially, whom the war had enriched, stoutly and angrily opposed it. The opinion pre- vailed that the Government were about to surrender the greater part of the conquests for which the nation had expended so much blood and money. Joseph Hart, with all his horror of war, was evidently at one with his fellow-citizens in dis- trusting the Government. The line in his Sup- plementary hymn, 29,
" Patch up no inglorious peace,"
had a double meaning, as his hearers perfectly understood. But the Government continued its course, and the news spread that the prelimin- aries of peace were about to be signed. While, however, the thoughts of others were directed upon the return of the battered and victorious British veterans, and the acquisitions which it was hoped would be made to the Empire, Hart's thoughts
PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL. 67
ran mainly on the glories of the God-man and His victorious return, "with dyed garments, from Bozrah."
" Where Jesus, Son of man and God,
Triumphant from His wars, Walks in rich garments dipped in blood, And shows His glorious scars."
" Where ransomed sinners sound God's praise
The angelic hosts among ; Sing the rich wonders of His grace, And Jesus leads the song."
The preliminaries of peace, which were signed on 3rd November, 1762, justified the national forebodings. William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, though suffering agonies from the gout, voiced the general discontent in a memorable speech which lasted nearly four hours.
" It is with the deepest concern, astonishment, and indignation," said John Wilkes's paper, the North Briton* that " the preliminary articles of peace have been received by the public. . . . England has consented to give up nearly all her conquests." The Government, however, were not to be moved, and the treaty was clinched at Paris in the following year.
Hymn 77, " Holy Ghost, inspire our praises," contains some splendid thoughts :
" Every state, howe'er distressing,
Shall be profit in the end ; Every ordinance a blessing, Every providence a friend.
1 No. 28, for nth Dec., 1762.
68 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" All things for our good are given — Comforts, crosses, staffs, or rods ; All is ours in earth and heaven ;
We are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
In 1762 appeared a second edition of the Hymns. The Experience was omitted,
27. 2nd and , \*
3rd Editions but there was added the long-contem-
of the . . _ . r
Hymns. plated Supplement1 of eighty-two
John Wilkes. , , j i • A
hymns and seven doxologies. Apart from this, there are only trifling alterations.
In the third edition, issued in 1763, the Ex- perience is restored to its place, two reasons being given for its re-appearance: i. Because earnest and repeated enquiries had been made after it. 2. Because some " serious Christians " had de- clared that it " had been much blessed to them." " I beseech Almighty God," adds Hart, " to make it further useful to His children, in making them see by it the riches of His free grace to the worst of men ; for which intent it was written. And let those who may be tempted thereby to backslide, in hopes of being so miraculously reclaimed, con- sider that the repentance to salvation given me may not be given to them. I charge them there- fore, in the name of God, to beware of any such diabolical delusion ; for they who say, ' Let us sin that grace may abound,' their damnation is just."2
To Hart, the year 1763 was one of unusual anxiety. Owing to the continuous attacks of John
1 The price was is. gd. ; the Supplement was also issued separately, at 3d.
2 " To the Reader," in the 3rd edition.
PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL. 69
Wilkes on the Government, London seethed with excitement, and many religious men, including a portion of Hart's congregation, condoned Wilkes's levity, and even his vices, on account of his patriot- ism. Hart, however, was emphatically of opinion that, despite Wilkes's efforts in the interests of liberty, the author of the "Essay on Woman," and the scurrilous ribaldry of the North Briton1 — the man who broke jests on the New Testament — was not one to be trusted ; and he repeatedly, though without effect, gave voice to his sentiments. Hart's house was in the very midmost of the hurly-burly, W. Bingley's, the office of the North Briton, being just opposite Durham Yard ;2 and the tall, thin, elegantly-dressed figure of Wilkes, with his cadaverous countenance and his squint, and the burly form of his bosom associate, Charles Church- hill, the poet, must have been very familiar to Hart's eyes. On December 3rd, No. 45 of the North Briton was publicly burnt, by order of the Government, but the mob, whose turbulence was unprecedented, not only rescued some of the sheets, but carried them in triumph to Temple Bar, where they made a bonfire, and committed to the flames, in ridicule of the Prime Minister,3 a huge jack-boot. The two Houses of Parliament then voted that not only all persons who were concerned
1 No. i was issued on «th June, 1762 ; the famous No. 45, on 23rd April, 1763.
9 See advertisement in St. James's Chronicle. i4th May, 1759. No. 45 was "printed for George Kearsley, Ludgate Street."
8 The Marquis of Bute.
70 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
in the riot but also their aiders and abettors were perturbers of the public peace, dangerous to the liberties of the country and obstructors of national justice. However, a little later, Wilkes, who had been outlawed, left the country, the storm blew over for the moment, and Hart's mind became more at ease.
By this time the Hymn-book had found its way almost everywhere. " On Easter Day,"
28. The Dr.
Johnson 22nd April, 1764, says Dr. Samuel 4th and 5th Johnson, " I went to church " [St.
Editions of _. ,-. -10, j-i // T
the Hymns. Clement Danes, in the btrandj . 1
1765 & 1767. , .„. j • ,
gave a shilling ; and seeing a poor girl at the sacrament in a bed-gown, gave her pri- vately a crown, though I saw Hart's Hymns in her hand."1 We smile at the good man's bigotry, for the curious scene in St. Clement Danes is one of those that impress the memory ; and there is the feeling that we should be glad to know a little more of the history of that poor girl in the bed- gown.
A fourth edition of the Hymns appeared in 1765. Like the third, it contains both the Author's Experience and the Supplement ; but there were also added the Fast Hymn, which was placed imme- diately after the dedication, and an Appendix. This edition differs considerably in places from the first, second, and third editions. Thus, the con- clusion of hymn 34,
1 Prayers and Meditations. The Works of Samuel Johnson. Mur- phy's Edition, 1823, vol. ix. p. 492.
PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL. 71
" To Golgotha ; the place of skull
Is heav'n enough for me." becomes,
" To Golgotha ; the place of skull Is heav'n on earth to me,"
In the first, second, and third editions, verse two of hymn 57 runs,
" I would not ask, like David's heir,
Exceeding wise to be ; His was, indeed, a proper pray'r For him — but not for me."
In the fourth it is changed to,
" I would not ask a monarch's heir
Or councillor to be ; A better wisdom I would share, A nobler pedigree."
In verse four of the same hymn,
" I have not wisdom to perceive, Nor strength to do Thy will,"
is altered to,
" For fear I might not well perceive, Or fail to do Thy will."
In the seventh verse of hymn 97 :
" Those rounds of duties, forms, and ways,
Which some so much esteem, Compared with this stupendous grace, What trifling trash they seem ! "
the first four words are changed to " Rounds of dead service," and " trifling " gives place to " trivial."
Of the hymns in the Appendix, which were written in 1763 and 1764, Nos. I and 2 at once arrest attention. " What was Hart's chastisement ? "
72 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
it may be asked. Three afflictions were bearing upon him at the time he was writing these hymns. In the first place, as we have already noticed, his health had given way ; in the second, his eldest son's epileptic fits were a continual trial to him ; and in the third, he had just lost a child, Daniel, at the age of three years.1 Hart's attitude to- wards trouble, however, was that of the apostle, who gives thanks for " tribulations also." He was confident that God would overrule all for good.
" Gold in the furnace tried
Ne'er loses aught but dross ; So is the Christian purified And better'd by the cross.
Of hymn 4, the Rev. W. J. Brook, of Brighton, said, " Mr. Hart has a curious line ; it is objected to by some, but it is what I feel :
"' Rich of mercy, poor of grace.' "2
What golden advice is that in hymn 10 :
" Strive to be rich in works of grace, .Be rich towards thy God."
There is no hesitancy with Hart. "That is the disease," we hear him say, " this is the cure ; it works instantaneously :
" * If pain afflict, or wrongs oppress ;
If cares distract, or fears dismay ; If guilt deject ; if sin distress ;
The remedy's before thee — Pray ! ' "
This magnificent — this epoch-making — book
1 It died i8th Aug, 1763, and is commemorated on Hart's old grave- stone.
8 Letters written by W. J. Brook, p. 251.
PASTOR OF JEWIN STREET CHAPEL. 73
concludes appropriately with the solemn and double Amen.1
The fifth edition of the Hymns — the last in Hart's lifetime — appeared in 1767. There have been editions innumerable since.
1 That is, hymn 13 in the Appendix, which is the last in the book as Hart left it.
CHAPTER VIII
THE YEAR 1767
It is pleasant to be able to obtain some glimpses
of Hart in the old wooden galleried
the Pulpit" chapel in Jewin Street. The service
Katterns. usua^y commenced with a hymn given
°Ut by the Clerk> J°hn Katterns/
we cannot be wrong in assuming that it was often one of those in the Supplement entitled, " Before Preaching; " that the congrega- tion sang with fervour,
" Oh may not duty seem a load, Nor worship prove a task ; "
and that they with equal fervour besought " the Father" to send His quickening Spirit to put the souls of pastor and people in frame, and to grant that the scattered seed might produce " a copious fruit." Preaching was to Hart no easy task. " Though the Lord was pleased to confirm him in His everlasting love to his soul," says the Rev. John Hughes, " yet (to my knowledge) he was at times so left to the buffetings of Satan, for the trial of his faith, and to such clouds and darkness on his soul, that he has been oftentimes obliged to
1 He was afterwards clerk to the Rev. William Huntington, in Titch- field Street. His daughter Sarah died 2Oth Feb., 1867, aged 71. See Gospel Standard, 1868, p. 186 ; Gospel Advocate, 1873, p. 45, and 1893, p. 9; The Life of William Huntington, p. 61.
THE YEAR 1767. 75
preach to the church with sense and reason flying in his own face, and his faith at the same time like a bruised reed ; insomuch that he has often done by the church as the widow of Zarephath did to the prophet Elijah, who made him a cake of that little she had, when she herself seemed at the point of starving."1 Hart's delivery was soft and pleasing, and in his sermons, as in his hymns, he studiously avoided parade. Had he not enquired :
" What balm could wretches ever find
In wit, to heal affliction ; Or who can cure a troubled mind With all the pomp of diction ? "2
An occasional Whitefieldism in his sermons bore testimony to the influence on him of the great preacher. " He was in the habit," says Hughes, "of defending, with all his might, the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, viz., the Trinity in Unity ; the electing love of God; the free justification of the sinner by the imputation of Christ's righteous- ness, and salvation alone by His precious blood ; the new birth and final perseverance of the saints; always insisting upon a life and conversation becoming the gospel." Like Dr. Gill, he often complained of the neglect of fervent prayer3 among the people in general, and he continued to use the " Philippian powder,"4 and yet again the
1 Funeral Sermon on the death of Hart.
2 Hymn 112.
3 See Dr. Gill's sermon of zist Nov., 1754.
4 Seep. 51.
76 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" Philippian powder." The service usually con- cluded with one of the fine hymns of dismission at the end of the Supplement. " At the communion table," says Hughes, Hart "was known to have much of the power and presence of the Lord Jesus. He was a singular man, but it seems God had a singular work for him to do. I have thought sometimes that as he was much beloved of God, therefore He gave him a poetical turn to please him in his solitary path." When, on account of sickness or any other reason, he was obliged to have recourse to a supply, he was most careful in his choice. " He made it his invariable rule," says Toplady, " not to let an Arian, an Arminian, or any unsound preacher occupy his pulpit. His usual saying on those occasions was, ' I will keep my pulpit as chaste as my bed.' '" These were the happiest days of Hart's life. He was " a little king of a little people," bound to him by the beau- tiful and indissoluble cords of gratitude and love.
The pulpit Bible — a quarto, printed in 1762 — used by Hart is now in the possession of Mr. Joseph Whittome, of Wimbledon. In a space at the end of Malachi is the inscription, " Jewin Street Meeting, 19 April, 1767"; and on the back of the title-page of the New Testament are the words, " This Bible belongs to Mr. Hart's Meeting, Jewin Street, igth April, 1767" — both entries being in Hart's handwriting. The following
1 Anecdote preserved by Toplady. Works, ed. of 1825, Vol. 4, p. 134.
THE YEAR 1767. 77
appears on the cover : " This Bible, being out of repair, was given by the Deacons of the Meeting in Jewin Street to John Katterns, Clerk of the said Meeting. It was used in the pulpit by those two eminent ministers of the gospel, Mr. Hart and Mr. Hughes. New bound, Jan. i8th, 1775; rebound, Dec., 1825. "r
Hart's principal contemporaries in the London pulpits were William Romaine, Dr. Samuel Stennett, Dr. John Gill (to each Friends.
c , , i j r j\ Dr. John Ford,
of whom we have already referred), Martin Madan2 of the Lock, Dr. Andrew Gifford, John Brine, and John Macgowan ; but not a single line has come down to us to connect his name with any of them save Romaine, the one link with whom is the Prodigal Son anecdote, though it is true that Madan, in the Appendix to his collection of Psalms and Hymns, published in 1763, included Hart's verse, " This God is the God we adore." It may be noted, however, that George Keith, of Grace- church Street, one of the four booksellers who sold copies of the first edition of Hart's hymns, was son-in-law of Dr. Gill, and Hart and Gill may have met at Keith's counter, if not elsewhere. Although after entering the ministry Hart pursued
1 When Mr. Katterns died the Bible became the property of his daughter Sarah, at whose death, aoth Feb., 1867, it passed to Mrs. Whittome, wife of Mr. Harry Whittome, of Stamford, and afterwards of i Victoria Road, Bedford. At the death of Mr. Harry Whittome, 3oth June, 1909, it came into the possession of his brother, Mr. Joseph Whittome, of Burleigh Lodge, Queen's Road, Wimbledon.
2 Madan. Wesley, Whitefield, and Romaine had the reputation of being the four most popular preachers of the day.
78 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
for the most part " a solitary path," nevertheless he did not always walk alone. His principal friends, besides Kinsman and Hughes, were Mr. Justis, of Well Yard, Little Britain; Mr. William Abingdon,1 of Beauford's Buildings, Strand ; Dr. John Ford,2 the distinguished physician, and Mr. Robert Jacks,3 who held a position in the Navy, and from whom came possibly those whiffs of the sea4 that occasionally cross Hart's hymns. Dr. Ford, who was a member of Hart's church, had previously worshipped at the Moorfields Taber- nacle, of which he was at one time a trustee.5 Under Hart he " became confirmed in the great and distinguishing doctrines of the gospel, so that he was ever after remarkably clear in his views of divine truth." Even in the zenith of his profes- sional practice — when he earned ^3,000 a year — he was in his place at the chapel at each of the three Sunday services, and he was " rarely absent from the ordinance ; " and he also attended regu- larly the sermons of Romaine at Blackfriars on Tuesday mornings, and at St. Dunstan's on Thurs- day evenings. His conversation was " remarkably spiritual," and he had at least one other character-
1 Mr. Abingdon was a friend of Toplady. See Works of Toplady (1825), Vol. i. P- 131- 9 Born at Castle Hedingham, Essex, in 1740.
8 His son, Rev. James Jacks, was a Congregational minister, first in Plymouth and afterwards in Nottingham.
4 For the allusions to "rocks and shelves," see hymns 87, 114, and Supp., 70.
5 See Life of Countess of Huntingdon, i., p. 216.
THE YEAR 1767. 79
istic in common with Hart — namely, a taste for the literatures of Greece and Rome. He was one, indeed, of the great line of learned physicians and book-lovers that included Mead, Sloane, and Hunter; and a more conscientious physician never wore black velvet coat or flirted gold-headed cane and pomander.
Of Hart's sermons, only one has been pre- served, namely, that entitled " The King of the Jews," which was probably preached on Christmas morning, 1767. J It was " taken in shorthand at the time" by Garnet Terry, a young man who was afterwards a bookseller in Paternoster Row and engraver to the Bank of England, but it does not appear to have been published till i8i4.a The text is Matthew ii. 2. After some remarks on magic and sorcery, Hart gives his opinion that the Magi were not magicians in the worst sense : " It is true there were and had been in every age, and are still, many of those wicked magicians, for we read of their diabolical performances, and among the rest, of a woman who raised, or pretended to raise, the dead, as the witch of Endor did."3 He
1 It was republished by Ebenezer Huntington in 1821, and by John
Bennett and J. Gadsby in 1839. * This would account for the error on the title-page, on which the date
of the delivery of the sermon is given as Christmas Day, 1768, that is,
after Hart's death. 8 An allusion, doubtless, to the old hag, Dipsas, whose necromantic
exploits are referred to by Ovid in The Amores, Elegy viii : " The double pupil in her eye emits a fearsome light, O'er hoary sepulchres she flits alone at hush of night, And to the clammy corpses with horrid voice she cries, And one by one they break their bands, and (gruesome sight ! ) arise,"
8o LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
then shows that the experience of the Magi had parallels with that of Balaam, though " these men were of a much better sort than Balaam." Hart comes to the conclusion that they were " men wise in the sciences, who understood astronomy." He then tells the story of the Magi's visit to Herod, and their return home, and comments, " From these circumstances we may clearly learn and safely con- clude that no mere revelation, dream, or vision, though it be ever so singular or great, is in itself sufficient to constitute anyone a child of God, for how great revelations had Balaam ! and what great revelations had these wise men ! but we may be confident they were believers in some sense of the word.
" You see then the way to heaven is not by mere visionary revelation, but by divine faith — believing in Christ, receiving life from Him, and depending on the promises of God ; and we may be assured that the Spirit of God for this purpose aids the translating and expounding the oracles of God in all ages of the church ; nor was His aid wanting in our present translation, and, for my part, I could heartily wish that expositors of Scripture in this our day were more heartily agreed and confirmed in this one thing; and instead of laying so many stumbling-blocks in the way of people as theydo, by cavillings and pretended criticisms at the translation, they would rather labour to smooth the way of the illiterate than
HART'S TOMB IN BUNHILL FIELDS.
THE YEAR 1767. 81
make it rough, by attempting to remove pretended difficulties that appear on some occasions where there are none." How different his treatment of all these matters from his treatment of them in the old "Herodian" days! He next enquires, i. In what sense and how Jesus Christ is King of the Jews? 2. How it is that He is thus said to be born King of the Jews ? 3. Where He is that is so born King of the Jews ?
After showing that Christ is " King of true Jews in every respect," he concludes the first part of his sermon with " He is also King of kings, inso- much that there is nothing that is done on the earth but shall be ultimately for the good of His spiritual kingdom, for without Him none can even lift up a hand against His people ; neither wolf, serpent, nor dog shall be able to move tongue or tail against them j1 so guarded is the king- dom of Christ, and so well defended are all His subjects."
When dealing with the second head Hart brings to bear upon it his knowledge as a classical scholar. " As soon as Christ was born," he says, " the powers of hell were shaken, the devil's king- dom among men lost ground, for the world had long been overrun with lying oracles, delusions, witchcraft, and sorceries, as they are called ; but as soon as Christ appeared and came, they were
1 See Exodus xi. 7. A favourite expression of Whitefield's. See his letters of i4th June, 1749, 4th August, 1750. &c. Hughes also employs it, in his funeral sermon on Hart, when speaking of Hart's last illness.
82 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
struck dumb,1 silenced, and, in a great measure, destroyed ; for history informs us, and there is no doubt of it, because the information comes from Christ's enemies, that at that time the oracles of the heathens ceased. To deny the existence of such oracles would be denying all ancient history, and with it the use of our senses."
He then comments on the passage about believers being built up in their most holy faith. " You see it is said," he observes, " they shall grow in grace and knowledge ; they are not wise and strong all at once, for Christ, you recollect, was first a babe, supported by Mary2 ; then a child, led by her hand, and at length grew gradually to the stature of a perfect man ; and, indeed, they are very bad nurses who would kill us because we do not grow fast enough to please them,3 or would always keep us dwarfs or babes in religion, as others attempt to do. It is said of Christ that He increased or grew in grace and stature. As the Lord Jesus was first born into the world small and feeble, and then grew up by degrees, it is our promised privilege that we shall, and go from strength to strength, as we shall hereafter from glory to glory."
Under the third head he laments that Christ is
1 An allusion to the story told by Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, that a voice had been heard, proclaiming that the great Pan was dead. Cf. Milton's poem, On the morning of Christ's nativity, "The oracles are dumb," &c.
2 See § 16 and hymn 32, quoted in § 17.
3 Cf. hymn 32, verse 9.
THE YEAR 1767. 83
seldom, if ever, found in courts, in the palaces of the wealthy, or among " the polite sort of people." He then follows Jesus from the manger to Geth- semane, and he argues from John xiv. 23 that " it is as impossible for believers to perish as it was for Christ to have perished in the womb. . . . Can any subject of such a King have cause to be miserable ? No, they never can ; they may fancy themselves poor and miserable, but He says to them, ' I know thy poverty, but thou art rich.' . . . This indeed is a mystery to men of this world, but a soul that has obtained ever so little of the true grace of God will pursue it ; for observe, as I said before, Christ never leaves His own." Then once more he finds himself upon his favourite theme — the weakness of the infant Christ. " Littleness is a delightful characteristic with our King; for though He is the mighty God, Peter calls Him the holy child Jesus; therefore little and weak believers are precious in His sight as the strongest." The sermon concludes with an earnest appeal to the congregation in behalf of the poor, whose suffer- ings had been intensified owing to the severity of the weather. Like the Magi, they should offer gifts.
To the long religious and literary correspondence which was carried on between Hart and
32. Letter of
Andrew Kinsman we have already Hart to his referred. Not only are these letters Dec.P2&th, lost, but all the other letters that Hart
84 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
wrote seem to be lost also, with the exception of the following,1 which is addressed to a nephew : —
London, Tuesday, 2Qth Dec., 1767. 2 Dear Nephew,
I am glad the Lord has so far wrought on your soul as to make you concerned for its everlasting State ; and I sincerely wish you may hold out to the End and be saved. As to your Fears of falling back again, they are no signs that you will fall, but rather the contrary ; for none depart from God while they have any fears of departing from him. You do well to hear the Gospel at all opportunities as the means appointed for the God3 of Souls ; but always endeavour to look thro' all means to the God of Grace, and depend on his Strength and not your own. When you are comforted, bless God for the Encourage- ment, and when it is otherwise trust in the Name of the Lord and stay upon the God of your Salva- tion.
Remember the Lord will cast out none that come unto him, tho' they come ever so poor and helpless. The alteration of your Frames from warm to cold, from lively to dead, is what all Christians experience, and, therefore, let not that make you
1 Printed in Memorial to Mr. Joseph Hart, p. 27 ; Gospel Standard, 1876, p. 169; 1910, p. 133; Gospel Advocate, 1890 (Vol. 22), p. 260, but not quite correctly in any place.
2 The original was in 1877 in the possession of Rev. Daniel Smart, Cranbrook, Kent. It now belongs to Mr. B. Hunt, of Brighton.
3 Sic, but he evidently meant to say, " for the good of souls," or "by the God of souls."
THE YEAR 1767. 85
cast off your Confidence ; remember, we are made partakers of Christ if we hold fast our Profession to the End.
" The just live by Faith ; but if any Man draw back, my Soul shall have no pleasure in him."
" Fear not, be of good Courage ; wait on the Lord, and he shall bring it to pass." When you are weak, then you will be strong, if you look out of yourself to Christ Jesus, whose strength is made perfect in Weakness.
Be often in secret Prayer. And remember, the Trial is, not what frames of mind you may be in, but whether you endure to the End. The Lord strengthen, settle, and stablish you.
If I can be of any Service to you, write as often as you please. Our Love to you and yours, from Your loving Brother,
JOSEPH HART.
P.S. — Your Brother Joe never comes nigh me nor his aunt.
CHAPTER IX
THE YEAR 1768
LAST DAYS AND DEATH, 24TH MAY, 1768
The new year brought sickness once more to the sign of the Lamb. Mrs. Hart fell ill, bfd soils'. and was invalided for the rest of her cockades life- Hart's own health had again given way, he often suffered acute pain, and he now recognised that his days were drawing to a close. Notwithstanding his sufferings, he continued his labours at Jewin Street. " He was," Mr. Hughes a little later told Hart's congrega- tion, " like the laborious ox that dies with the yoke on his neck ; neither would he suffer it to be taken off, for you are witnesses that he preached Christ to you with the arrows of death sticking in him."
At last even these painful efforts had to be dis- continued, and Hart took to a bed from which he never again rose. Had he been wanting in faith, his last hours would have been dismal indeed. The country was enveloped in gloom as with a pall. Although the war had ended so long previously as 1762, the ministers still retained the taxes which had been imposed for military purposes. In the words of Dr. Gill, many people had " scarce clothes to cover their naked bodies," and only
LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 87
" scanty provisions of food, and that mean and coarse." The distress and discontent occasioned by the high price of provisions caused tumults in every part of the kingdom. It was " a calamitous time of dearth." A general election was proceed- ing, London in particular being furiously agitated owing to the return of Wilkes, who had become a candidate for the City. Having been defeated, he at once presented himself as candidate for the county of Middlesex. The long-suffering people, bled by taxes, faced by famine, came to regard Wilkes as a saviour. They supported him — and a number of Hart's people continued to be his warmest adherents — with wild enthusiasm. London suddenly burst into blue. Every man who loved Wilkes, and every man who, not loving him, respected his own unbroken skin, wore a blue cockade. Numbers left the town for fear of riots. Yard-long ballads in praise of the tall, lean, squinting hero were sung in every street, and the hoarse shout of " Wilkes and Liberty! " rose, ten thousand times reiterated, amid the tramp and roar of the frenzied multitude who poured in unending streams through the seething Strand. The din filtered through the bed curtains of the dying man, and, as evening closed, his window panes reflected the flare of the passing torches. On hearing that some of his own people were still sympathetic towards the rioters, he turned uneasily on his bed, and expressed himself " grieved to the
88 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
heart." He still insisted that no cause could prosper with such a leader as Wilkes ; and that Christians had a better way of righting them- selves than to fly in the face of government with horrid blasphemies. When Wilkes — leaner and sallower than ever — proceeded from Westminster to the polling booth at Brentford, seated in a coach drawn by six long-tailed horses, multitudes followed him. His victory sent the people delirious with joy. London was illuminated ; " even the small cross streets, lanes and courts being all in a blaze with lights." Unilluminated windows — whether belonging to nobleman or coalheaver — were promptly smashed. We may be sure that Hart's family, despite the sick man's sentiments, stuck a sizable candle in every window at the Lamb. The rioting did not pass by with- out bloodshed. In one of the encounters with the guards seven persons were killed. If Hart was moved by these occurrences, he was also moved by the knowledge that he was leaving a sick wife and a young family totally unprovided for,1 to wit, a girl of about sixteen, his poor afflicted son who was " almost stupid by epileptic fits," two boys, one eight, the other ten, and an infant of sixteen months. But he was not the man to lose courage in any circumstances whatever. We have viewed him in the various capacities of pamphleteer,
1 The chapel belonged to Hart, but there must have been a heavy mortgage on it. After his death it passed to one of his sons, and it remained in the family until recent times. See p. no.
LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 89
annotator, poet, and preacher. We have seen a character that was self-opinionated, dictatorial, and given to sensuality and unbelief — an epicure in sin — softened and refined by the power of the Holy Spirit into angelic sweetness. We have seen pride give place to humility, and unbelief to a faith in the Almighty that has never been sur- passed. He had learned the great lesson which holds alike in literature and religion, that to be everything one must first of all be nothing. He waited upon God. He insisted that if God gave, it was good; if He withheld, it was good also. " When- ever," he used to say, " I know not which path to take, I to the Saviour speed my way."1 He has summed up his convictions in that memorable verse : —
" But they that in the Lord confide, And shelter in His wounded side, Shall see the danger overpast, Stand every storm, and live at last."
His strength, indeed, consisted in an absolute, unwavering confidence in Almighty wisdom. There were no "ifs" and "buts" — all was cer- tainty— at the sign of the Lamb.
And yet, though he feared not death itself, nevertheless uneasy thoughts would sometimes intrude. For example, he had the feeling that English people are too hasty with their interments, and he commended2 the custom of the ancient
1 Hymn 108.
a Notes to his " Herodian," p. 164.
go LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
Romans, " who were so scrupulously cautious of burying any person before quite dead that they kept their deceased seven days, during which period the body was frequently washed with warm water and anointed in order to restore the circu- lation of the blood, in case it might have been obstructed by some latent cause."
It is probable that Dr. Ford and the two other good men of the Jewin Street congregation who became trustees to the family — Mr. Justis and Mr. Abington — were present in his last hours, and that he urged them to take in his own case every reasonable precaution. We may well believe that they gave him the required assurances, and we know that they eased his mind by promising that Mrs, Hart and the children should be cared for.
To the end he was upheld by his unwavering confidence in his Redeemer. " He knew assuredly," says Mr. Hughes, " that his sins were for ever pardoned."1 When the damps of death were upon him he said, " I know myself to be a child of God, and an heir of glory. Judas was lost that the Scripture might be fulfilled ; but the Scripture would not be fulfilled if I should not be saved."2 These are his last recorded words. " Died," runs an entry in the St. James's Chronicle, for Thursday, 26th May, 1768, " Tuesday, at his House in the
1 Cf. hymn 102, " How high a privilege 'tis to know
Our sins are all forgiven." 3 Toplady's Works, 1825. Vol. iv. p. 169.
LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 91
Strand, Mr. Hart, a Dissenting Minister, many years belonging to the Meeting House in Jewin Street." His dear and angelic spirit had winged its way into the holy presence of Him who said, " Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the king- dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."1
Hart's remains were conveyed to Bunhill Fields, the resting-place of Bunyan, Defoe, Dr. Owen, and many other eminent Funeral. Nonconformists. A vast multitude — Kinsman's estimated at 20,000 persons — assembled and spread themselves among the tombstones and on the mounds in order to pay a final respect to the revered writer and pastor. The service was conducted by the Rev. Andrew Kinsman, who commenced by giving out Hart's solemn hymn,
" Sons of God by blest adoption."2
The occasion must have been one of the most impressive in the memory of every person present. Lovers of the hymns, even at this distance of time, reading the words and recalling the mournful scene, are strangely moved.
" Sons of God by blest adoption,
View the dead with steady eyes."
And when the last solemn notes died away Mr. Kinsman, gazing into that vast undulating sea of troubled and intent faces, broke the hushed still-
1 Matthew xxv. 34.
2 No. 45, Supplement.
92 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
ness by giving out Isaiah's words, " The voice said, Cry! What shall I cry? All flesh is grass."1 " This truth," he began, " is confirmed by every day's experience ; and the solemn and mournful occasion of our assembling in this place proclaims, as with a loud voice, these things are so."
" Death and eternity," he continued, quoting Bishop Hopkins, "are subjects of meditation never unseasonable," and then he alluded to the fact that men are in the habit of endeavouring, by every method the heart can devise, to banish these subjects from their minds. After a touching tribute to the dead pastor and his strenuous labours for the conversion of souls, he addressed sympa- thetic words to the widow and her children. "You may be indulged," he said, " to drop some few tears of conjugal and filial affection ; for on such an occasion Jesus wept ! But let me exhort you not to sorrow as those without hope. For if ye believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him;2 and among them our departed brother; who after his remarkable conversion, or what he himself calls his re-conversion to God, you will know, not only preached Free Grace, but are witnesses that he lived Free Grace, and adorned it by an exemplary life and conversation."
The speaker then gave a brief account of the
1 The oration was printed at the end of the Rev. John Hughes's Funeral Sermon on the death of the Rev. Joseph Hart. * Thess. iv. 14.
LAST DAYS AND DEATH.
93
friendship between himself and Hart, alluding with particular affection to their correspondence.
The touching references led many of his hearers to sob aloud ; and then he imagined Hart himself to be addressing them and saying, " Weep not for me, but for yourselves and your children." He urged them to consider the uncertainty of life. " You see," he said, " by this instance, that faith- ful, laborious, useful ministers are cut down as the grass. Oh may this striking providence be sancti- fied, and these broken hints be attended with a divine influence, that some may be led to seek after Jesus, and an interest in Him. God the Father still waits to be gracious; God the Son still bears the character of being the Friend of sinners ; God the Holy Ghost is now ready to execute His blessed office."
It is probable that after the oration the people sang the lines1 entitled, " The Church's last Leave of their beloved Pastor at the Grave " :
" Sleep on, bless'd man, in Jesus sleep," which were evidently written for the occasion, and probably by the Rev. John Hughes. They con- clude :
" Now lean thy head, thou turtle dove,
Upon thy Saviour's breast ; And sink in everlasting love To everlasting rest."
1 They are printed at the end of Kinsman's Oration, which was issued with Hughes's Sermon. Hughes wrote a mumber of hymns, but ap- parently no other has been preserved. See also the Funeral Sermon on the death of the Rev. John Hughes, preached by the Rev. Thomas Chorlton, 6th June, 1773.
94 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
On Sunday, June 5th, Mr. Hughes improved the death of Hart by a sermon delivered
35. Funeral _ _,
sermon at Jewin Street Chapel, the text taken
delivered by , . A, , . ,~. A, .. T ,
Rev. John being the words in Timothy, "I have
Hughes. fouht a ood fiht,, He set himself
to show : i . What is to be understood by a good fight. 2. When it may be said a person has finished his course. 3. What that faith is that must and is to be kept. Perhaps the most striking passage was that in which, thinking of Hart's career, he appealed to those who had wandered from God. " But, oh," he said, " for thy comfort, thou poor, backsliding soul, if thou findest in thy heart so much as a desire to return home, thy God will make, like Samson's, thy hair to grow again ; and who can tell but that, with our dear departed brother, thou mayest be enabled to take vengeance on the Philistines, thy corruptions, for the loss of thy two eyes of faith and love; and farther, to lay thy hands on the two pillars of unbelief and pride, which support Dagon's or the devil's temple, and lay them level with the dust."
To the personal references in the sermon allu- sion has already been made in these pages. To the widow and children the preacher addressed encouraging and affectionate remarks, which he followed with an apostrophe to the bereaved church. He concluded with, " If ever there was a time for mourning and lamentation in the churches of Christ surely it is now ; for the Lord
LAST DAYS AND DEATH. 95
seems to appear with a drawn sword in His hand stretched out over Jerusalem ; and to begin with the eminent ministers1 of God first ; and what the end of this will be God only knows ; but, surely, it is the duty of all God's faithful ministers to ' blow the trumpet in Zion, and sanctify a fast . . . and say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them : wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God ? '"
The sermon was afterwards printed and pub- lished for the benefit of Hart's widow and children.2
Another funeral sermon for Hart was preached by Mr. John Towers, a young man of ability, and an enthusiastic admirer of J^n Towers. Hart's character and genius, who took as his text, Job xix. 21, " Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends ; for the hand of God hath touched me ; " and he also wrote an
1 Rev. John Brine, of Baptist church, Currer's Hall (Cripplegate
Meeting), died 2ist Feb., 1765. He was a valued writer, and
he took a prominent part in all the public transactions that
concerned his denomination.
Rev. Dr. Chandler, Presbyterian minister at Peckham, died 8th May,
1766. Rev. William Anderson, of Grafton Street, Westminster, died 8th Sept.,
1767. Funeral sermon by Rev. Dr. Gill.
Rev. Samuel Burford, minister of the Baptist church in Prescot Street,
Goodman's Fields, died i6th April, 1768. Rev. Dr. Samuel Sten-
nett preached his funeral sermon. He was interred in Bunhill
Fields. See Ivimey's History of the English Baptists, III. 556.
Rev. William Nash Clarke, minister of the church in Unicorn
Yard, Southwark, delivered an oration at his grave. See Ivimey,
IV., p. 393. Burford was succeeded by the Rev. Abraham Booth.
2 Advertisement in the Monthly Review, for July, 1768, p. 88: "The
Christian Warrior Finishing his Course. On the death of the Rev.
Mr. Jos. Hart, — at Jewin-street, by John Hughes; with an Oration at
Mr. Hart's Interment, by And. Kinsman, is. Keith," &c.
g6 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" Elegy on Hart," — a feeble production — which is prefixed to some of the later editions of the hymns. When the question of a successor to the Jewin Street pulpit was mooted, the choice of part of the congregation fell upon Mr. Hughes, but others objected to him because he was a Baptist, and expressed themselves eager to secure the services of Mr. Towers. Those in favour of Mr. Hughes attained their end, but, as a result, the defeated party seceded from the church and hired for worship an ancient meeting-house in Bartholo- mew Close, where Mr. Towers became their minister. After Mr. Hughes had been pastor at Jewin Street two or three years, the old wooden chapel was taken down, and another and smaller building, which was square and of red brick with three galleries, was erected on part of the site, and flush with the houses in the street.1
1 The old chapel, it will be recalled, stood back from Jewin Street, whence it was approached by a narrow passage.
The Chriftian Warrior Jinijhing his Courfe. A
SERMON
OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF THE
Rev. Mr. J O S E P H HART,
PREACHED IN
JEWIN-STREET,
JUNE 5, 1768.
BY JOHN HUGHES,
Brother-In-Law to Mr, HART.
AN D A N
ORATION
DELIVERED
AT HIS INTERMENT BY ANDREW KINSMAN.
PublifattattheRetueftoftheCburcbfortbaBeneftoftheFamily.
LONDON,
Printed for, and fold by, the Widow HART, near Durham-Yard, Strand; J. MILLAN, at Charing-Crofs ; G. KEITH, in Grace- church-Street; E. and C. DILLY, in. the Poultry 5 M. FoLiNGSBY,at Temple-Bar; G. PEARCH, N°.'ia, Cheapildej and W.HARRIS, N<>. 70, in St. Paul's Church Yard.
MDCCLXVIII, TITLE PAGE OP THE FUNERAL SERMON.
CHAPTER X CONCLUSION
If all the tributes to Hart's Hymns were set down they would make a formidable 37. Tributes volume, but a general idea of them may to Hart be obtained from the following selections. One of the first to recognise the extraordinary merits of these hymns was the Rev. A. Toplady. Referring in his diary to Psa. xlviii. 14, he says,1 " I remember a delightful paraphrase of this golden passage written by Mr. Hart, which I cannot help putting down here ; and the rather as it is the very language of my soul at present :
' This God is the God we adore.' "2
Another favourite of Toplady's was, " Come, Holy Spirit, come."3
" Herein," says the Rev. John Towers, referring to Hart's hymn-book, "the doctrines of the Gospel are illustrated so practically, the precepts of the Word enforced so evangelically, and their effects stated so experimentally, that it may with pro- priety be styled a treasury of doctrinal, practical, and experimental divinity."4
1 Works, edition of 1825, Vol. i, p. 54.
2 Hymn 73.
8 See Toplady's Works (1825 ed.) Vol. 3. p. 448 ; Vol. 4, pp. 134. 169,. 341 ; Vol. 6, p. 84.
4 Recommendation prefixed to the ninth edition of the hymns, 1777. H
98 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" Hart's Hymns," says the Rev. Daniel Smart, of Cranbrook, "have been a great blessing to the Church of God ; but truly to have fellowship with them we must be taught the same truths by the same Spirit. What a blessed hymn is that on Temptation ! m
" Hart's Hymns," wrote the Rev. J. C. Philpot, 41 will live till the angel which shall stand upon the sea and the earth shall lift up his hand to heaven and swear * There shall be time no longer.' "2
"When at his best," says the Rev. W. Jeyes Styles, " Hart is incomparable. Sententious in expression, tender and melting in sentiment, rich in experimental testimony, and candid without being morbid in laying bare the most secret and solemn exercises of his own soul, he is unapproach- able and unique. Words cannot express our personal indebtedness to many of his hymns."3
The Right Rev. H. C. G. Moule, D.D., Bishop of Durham, says in a letter to the author, 1 3th April, 1910, "I agree with you in your high estimate of Hart ; at his best he is superlative. What a golden hymn is ' Come, Holy Spirit, come.' "
Mr. W. J. Martin, one of the promoters of the Hart Memorial, describes Hart's hymns as the
» No. 70.
2 Gospel Standard, 1864, p. 253. These words are from a Review, which contains an excellent estimate of Hart as a poet. There are many references to Hart in Mr. Philpot's other Reviews, and also in his Letters.
8 Earthen Vessel, April, 1910.
CONCLUSION. 99
best exposition of the Scriptures with which he is acquainted. Mr. Herbert Buck observes, " I should say that Hart would be more widely known as the author of ' Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,'1 than of any other hymn. No one writes quite like Hart. Others have proclaimed the same truths, but he had his own unique way of expressing them ; and they are statements not merely of doctrine but of spiritual experience." " Hart's hymns," says Mr. H. Belcher, " are diamond fields. They sparkle with great thoughts. He is the most spiritual of the English hymn- writers."
" I value Hart's hymns," observes the Rev. W. J. Latham,2 " i. Because there is nothing * thin ' or ' unreal ' in them. They are not mere pious reveries, but are full of vigour and virility.
2. Because they exalt the Divine Person and atoning work of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in this are strikingly unlike many of the sickly senti- mental hymns that are in use to-day. They also honour the Holy Ghost in a marked degree.
3. Because they are steeped in personal religion, they are deeply experimental, and are the breath- ings of the heart at peace with God."
" I have long thought," observes the Rev. J. K. Popham,3 " that for depth and clearness of
1 Mr. Robert Hoddy, editor of the Gospel Herald, was of the same opinion. See his article in Gospel Herald, 1883, p. 238, "Joseph Hart's Hymns."
3 Vicar of Holy Trinity, Beckenham. Letter of 28th April, 1910.
8 Of Brighton. Letter of i-jth May, 1910.
ioo LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
doctrine, for rich and unctuous experience, a godly sense of sin, a humbling reception of the atone- ment of Christ, a melting realisation of the love of the Father, a knowledge of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and for a consistent enforcement of Christian practice — all tersely and finely expressed — Hart is probably not equalled, certainly not sur- passed."
Hart's principal friends speedily followed him to
the grave. Whitefield died in 1770;
38. Death of the Rev. John Hughes, whose funeral
Whitefield, J
Rev. John sermon1 was preached by the Rev.
Hughes, _. _. , . ' _ ,.
and others. Thomas Chorlton, in 1773. r-arlier in this book we referred to the conversion by Whitefield of William Shrubsole, shipwright, of Sheerness. After a time Shrubsole became master mastmaker, and while still following his trade he preached regularly to his fellow towns- men. " I am accounted a phenomenon," he said, " there never having been, I believe, a preaching master mastmaker before. However, I know there has been a preaching Carpenter."
On nth March, 1768, six students belonging to St. Edmund Hall were expelled from Oxford University for taking upon themselves to pray, read, and expound the Scriptures in private houses.
1 It contains two references to Hart, one being, " And when He took experienced Hart, did He forsake you ? " Hart's hymn, Sup. 77. is quoted. See also Wilson's History of Dissenting Churches, iii., p. 227 and pp. 347 to 350. Chorlton, who seems to have been acquainted with Hart, died igth Dec., 1774. From this time the church steadily declined. It was in a low state in 1810. See p. 107.
CONCLUSION. 101
Whitefield published a letter to Dr. Durrell, the Vice-Chancellor, in their defence, and Shrubsole entered the arena with an able pamphlet entitled, The Oxford Expulsion Condemned, a performance that won Whitefield's approval. In 1776 Shrub- sole published the work which so deeply interests students of Hart, namely, Christian Memoirs,1 in which, as the result of his intercourse2 with White- field he was able to characterize faithfully not only " Mr. Fervidus himself, but also a number of Mr. Fervidus's friends, including ' Mr. Hearty.' " Shrubsole died in 1797. William Shrubsole (1759 — 1829),3 author of "Arm of the Lord, awake, awake," and other hymns, was his eldest son.
Mrs. Hart, who survived her husband twenty- two years, died in 1790, at the age of 64, and was buried in the grave at Bunhill Fields. The Rev. Andrew Kinsman continued for long to preach in the Plymouth neighbourhood and at Whitefield's Tabernacle. In 1786 he had differences with William Huntington, who very considerately refrained from naming his opponent, though he added, he " has not done the Kinsman's part by me."4 Kinsman suffered during his latter years from asthma, which he endeavoured to alleviate by
1 Written 1773, that is, five years after Hart's death, ist edition, 1778; 2nd edition, 1790.
2 See Philip's Life of Whitefield, p. 370. 8 See Julian, 2nd edition, p. 1056.
4 Bensley's edition of Huntington's Works, vol. 8, p. 102.
102 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
means of quicksilver, of which he took altogether over a hundredweight. He died on 28th Feb.,
I793-1
In 1784 the portion of Hart's congregation who had formed themselves into a body under the Rev. John Towers, erected a meeting-house " on the south side of Barbican, nearly opposite Bridge- water Square, and at the corner of Paul's Alley ;2 and there Mr. Towers continued to minister to them until his death, which occurred on gth July, 1 804.2
Dr. John Ford, who, after working for a number of years at his profession, took up the work of the ministry, died 26th May, 1806. On his tomb at Bunhill Fields he is styled, " the Rev. John Ford, M.D." Mr. Garnet Terry, who became a contri- butor to the press, signing himself " Onesimus," sat for a time under William Huntington, with whom he too had differences. Eventually he erected a chapel in Curtain Road, and preached in it himself. He died 3ist July, 1817, aged 73, leaving something under ^7,000 to charitable objects.
Hart's resting-place was for many years marked
1 There is a portrait of him in the Gospel Magazine, Sept., 1774.
2 See Ivimey iv., 199 to 219, and p. 242.
RHepublished several sermons and an answer to Madan's"Thelyphthora." On his tombstone, in Bunhill Fields, are the words : " In memory of the Rev. John Towers, thirty-four years pastor of the Independent Congrega- tion in Barbican, who died July gth, 1804, aged 57." His death is referred to in a letter of William Huntington's, printed in the Gospel Standard for May, 1851. There are portraits of him in the New Spiritual Magazine, vol. 3, and in the Gospel Magazine, vol. 3, Sept., 1776.
CONCLUSION. IQJ
only by a simple headstone with the words : " In memory of the Rev. Joseph Hart, late minister of the gospel in in Jewin Street, who died May 24th, 1768, aged 56 years " ;x but in 1877, the old stone having become weatherworn and almost undecipher- able,2 a number of lovers of Hart's hymns erected close to it a conspicuous red granite obelisk bear- ing the following inscriptions3 : —
Front. — Erected by lovers of Hart's hymns, published in 1759, and still highly prized by the church of God. The author's remains were interred in this spot, as the original stone yet remains to show. Joseph Hart, minister of the gospel, died May 24th, 1765. Aged 56.
Left side. — Joseph Hart was by the free and sovereign grace and Spirit of God raised up from the depths of sin, and delivered from the bonds of mere profession and self-righteousness, and led to rest entirely for salvation in the finished atone- ment and perfect obedience of Christ.
Mercy is welcome news, indeed,
To those who guilty stand ; Wretches who feel what help they need,
Will bless the Helping Hand. (Hymn 51.)
1 Later were added the words, "Also of Mrs. Mary Hart, wife of above, who died nth Feb., 1790, aged 64 years; also of Daniel Hart, son of above, who died i8th August, 1763, aged 3 years; also of Mary Mercy Ellis, granddaughter of Rev. Joseph Hart, born i6th Oct., 1793, died nth Jan., 1835,"
a It is still standing, however.
8 See the booklet published on the occasion : " Memorial to Mr. Joseph Hart," &c. London, J. Gadsby ; and also the Earthen Vessel for Jan.,. 1877.
104 LIEE OF JOSEPH HART.
Right Side. — Though I am a stranger to others, and a wonder to myself, yet I know Him (Christ), or, rather, am known of Him.1
Where sin abounded grace did much more
abound.
O ! bring no price !
God's grace is free
To Paul, and Magdalene, and me.
(Hymn 119.) None but Jesus Can do helpless sinners good. (Hymn 100.)
Such is the life story, so far as, after affectionate pains, we have been able to decipher it, of the gracious and forceful Joseph Hart, a writer whose thoughts " lie deeper than did ever plummet sound " — one of the choicest souls, indeed, that the great God in His bountiful goodness ever placed among His people for their solace and encourage- ment. In some respects — in his persistent deter- mination to make the very best use of his talents, even when " sorrow and desperation" pursued him ; and in his obstinate refusal to ornament meretriciously even so little as a single line, he reminds us of a later poet who sleeps hard by him at Bunhill Fields — the devout and spiritual William Blake. But only in some respects, for, take him as a whole, Hart stands even startlingly alone. It would be difficult to over-estimate the blessing he has been, right from the very first, to the sorrow-laden, the heart-broken, and the oppressed. Other hymn-writers have produced
1 Hart's Experience, concluding paragraph.
CONCLUSION. 105
more melodious verses, have written single hymns that outshine the best of Hart's, but as the friend and consoler Hart has no equal. " I have never been led into an experience," says one1 who tenderly loved him, " however intricate, dark, try- ing, or perplexing, or soared so high in spiritual enjoyment, or sunk so low under the felt depths of the Fall, the hidings of God's face, His chastening hand, or the temptations of Satan, but Joseph Hart could in some of his lines find me." His hymns, indeed, have created a heaven on earth for multitudes, and if those writers have the pre- ponderating claim on our affection who can com- fort us most in hours of darkness and distress, when one's being is " sated with wormwood," when the overstrained mind is giving way, when the heart-strings are snapping, then Hart stands supreme. No hymnist enters more deeply than he into the real needs of the sorrow-laden ; of all hymnists he is the most balsamic.
1 Thorpe Smith, Gospel Advocate, vol. 5, p. 296.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH HART.
1. 1741. The Unreasonableness of Religion.
2. 1744. Translation of Phocyl ides. Published, May 1744.
3. 1749. Translation of Herodian. Published, 25 Nov., 1749.
4. 1759. Hymns, &c. ist edition. Published, 7 July, 1759.
5. 1762. „ 2nd edition, with Supplement.
6- 1763- >, 3r<*
7- I765- » 4th „ with Supplement and
Appendix.
8. 1767. „ 5th „ with Supplement and
Appendix.
9. 1767. A Sermon, "The King of the Jews," delivered
25 Dec., 1767.
10. 1769. Hymns, &c. 6th edition.
11. 1770- it 7th
12. 1774. „ 8th „ 13- 1777- » 9th
14. 1784. „ loth „
15. 1788. „ nth „
16. 1791. „ i2th „ 17- I793- „ i3th „
18. 1799- » Hth
19. 1801. „ i5th „
20. 1803. „ i6th „
21. 1805. „ i7th
22. ? „ i8th „
23. ? „ igth „
24. 1811. „ 2oth „
25. ? „ 2ist „
26. ? „ 22nd „
27. 1825. „ 23rd „
There have been many editions since. The one published by J. Tyler (83 North Street, Brighton) in 1841 has a partic- ularly useful memoir of Hart.
APPENDICES. 107
APPENDIX II.
HISTORY OF THE JEWIN STREET AND BARBICAN CHURCHES SUBSEQUENT TO 1774.
THE Rev. John Hughes was succeeded by Richard Woodgate (1774 — 1787), an Independent, the Mr. Ardent of Shrubsole's Christian Memoirs. From 1787 to 1814 the pulpit was occupied by Timothy Priestley, brother of the famous Dr. Priestley. The resident population of the neighbourhood was by this time gradually being displaced by warehouses and workshops, and the cause steadily declined. It ceased to exist about 1848; the last minister being the Rev. Joseph Ford. To the end it was known as " Mr. Hart's Chapel."
Barbican Church has been more favoured.
The Rev. John Towers was followed by John Gore (1805 — 1822), Spedding Curwen (1822 — 1827), Dr. Tidman (1827 — 1849), Robert Hamilton, Robert Macbriar, and Joseph Boyle, who began his ministry in 1862.
In 1864 the chapel was acquired by the Metropolitan Rail- way Company ; and the congregation, after several move- ments, eventually erected for themselves the present Barbican Church, in the New North Road, the site having been chosen with regard to the neighbourhood in which part of the old congregation were living.
Joseph Boyle, who died in 1887, was followed by Ira Boseley (1887 — 1891), Hampden B. Jones (1891 — 1894), George L. Hurst (1895 — 19°°)> George Savary (1901 — 1905). The present minister is the Rev. Sydney T. Carlton. The church has a communicants' roll of 246, and a Sunday school of 37 teachers and some 330 scholars.
APPENDIX III.
DESCENDANTS OF JOSEPH HART.
HART, as we have seen, left five children : —
i. The eldest I assume to have been a daughter, because in the Life of William Ellis1 the youngest child is called Hart's
1 "By his son, John Eimeo Ellis," 1873.
io8 LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
" youngest daughter." The writer must have meant either " younger daughter " or " youngest child " ; for as three of the children left by Hart were sons, there could not have been more than two daughters. I know nothing further of this child.
2. A son, born about 1754. Name unknown. Subject to epileptic fits.
3. A son, born about 1758. Name unknown.
There used to be at 22 Paternoster Row, London, a firm of the name of Hart & Co., music publishers. It was carried on by Mr. Joseph Hart of Hatton Garden, who was a grandson of the poet, and probably son of number 3. This Mr. Joseph Hart died in 1856, aged 59. His daughters, Miss Emily Hart and Miss Jane Hart, reside at Richmond. The business was about 1880 incorporated with that of the present F. Pitman, Hart & Co., but there is no one of the name of Hart now connected with it.
4. Benjamin, born about 1760. He became a barrister, and is said to have married Miss Thorold, an heiress, daughter of of Sir Nathaniel Thorold, of Harmston, in Lincolnshire, and an Italian lady of Capri. Sir John Thorold, in a letter of i7th March, 1910, says of Sir Nathaniel : " I think one of his family must have married lawyer Hart. I recollect hearing of a Hart Thorold, to whom Harmston had belonged, living in the village. Some years ago I went with R. Thorold, of Cux- wold, to a small house in Chelsea where the descendants lived, and saw several pictures of the family that were afterwards sold at Christie's. One of Nathaniel, by Battoni, was bought by R. Thorold. I do not think there is any son living, but beyond seeing some ladies in Chelsea who wanted to sell the pictures, I know nothing. They had the patent of the baronetcy. The late H. Thorold told me that he had a book of N. Thorold's letters."
In the obituary notices of the Gentleman's Magazine, for October, 1836, occurs:
" Sept. loth. At Lincoln, aged 75, Benjamin Thorold, Esq., of Harmston Hall, High Sheriff of Lincoln, and one of the magistrates of the city." This was probably Hart's son.
5. Mary Mercy, who married Mr. Alexander Moor. Mr.
APPENDICES. 109
Moor died in 1793, leaving her with two little children — John Benjamin and Mary Mercy. They are referred to in the advertisement of the i5th edition of Hart's Hymns. Mrs. Moor died in 1801, and her death is recorded in a footnote to that advertisement. John Benjamin married and left issue. He is buried at Hastings, and on his tombstone are the words, " John Benjamin Moor, grandson of the Rev. Jos. Hart." Mary Mercy married William Ellis, missionary to the South Seas.1 She died nth Jan., 1835, and is buried with her illustrious grandfather, in Bunhill Fields. A memoir of her, written by her husband, went through several editions.2
Several of Hart's descendants, named Thorold and Ocken- den, are still living, but I have not been able to get into com- munication with them.
In the following Genealogical Table will be found the names of many of the descendants of Mary Mercy Hart.
1 See The Life of William Ellis, pp. 23 to 25. * See footnote to § 39.
LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
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APPENDICES.
APPENDIX IV
ESSAYS ON HART'S HYMNS BY REV. A. J. BAXTER IN THE "GOSPEL ADVOCATE
|
Vol. page. |
Vol. |
page. |
|
|
Intro. |
5 Jo |
Hymn 35 n |
|
|
Hymn i |
„ 12, 40 |
36 „ |
225 |
|
2 |
„ 65 |
37 |
289 |
|
3 |
„ 97 |
38 12 |
33 |
|
4 |
161 |
39 |
97 |
|
5 |
» 193 |
40 |
161 |
|
6 |
„ 225 |
41 |
225 |
|
7 |
» 257 |
42 |
289 |
|
8 |
» 321 |
43 J3 |
33 |
|
9 |
6 33 |
44 |
97 |
|
10 |
» 97 |
45 |
161 |
|
ii |
„ 129 |
46 „ |
257 |
|
12 |
>, 193 |
47 |
353 |
|
'3 |
» 257 |
48 14 |
33 |
|
14 |
„ 289 |
49 » |
65 |
|
15 |
» 321 |
50 |
129 |
|
16 |
7 5 |
51 |
193 |
|
17 |
„ 65, 130 |
52 ,, |
257 |
|
18 |
„ 161 |
53 » |
321 |
|
19 |
„ 225 |
54 J5 |
97 |
|
20 |
„ 321 |
55 |
193 |
|
21 |
8 33 |
56 „ |
257, 289 |
|
22 |
„ 129 |
57 |
321 |
|
23 |
„ 161 |
58 16 |
65 |
|
24 |
„ 257, 289 |
59 |
161 |
|
25 |
» 353 |
60 |
225 |
|
26 |
9 34, 65, |
61 „ |
289 |
|
193 .225 |
62 „ |
353 |
|
|
27 |
10 33 |
63 17 |
65 |
|
28 |
„ 97 |
64 „ |
129 |
|
29 |
„ 161 |
65 „ |
193 |
|
3° |
» 225 |
66 |
225 |
|
31 |
» 289 |
67 ,, |
257 |
|
32 |
»» 353 |
68 „ |
289 |
|
33 |
ii 46 |
69 „ |
353 |
|
34 |
129 |
70 18 |
33 |
LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
|
Vol. |
page. |
Vol. |
page. |
||
|
Hymn 71 |
18 |
65 |
Hymn no |
22 |
4 |
|
72 |
„ |
97 |
in |
)> |
33 |
|
73 |
» |
161 |
112 |
,, |
65 |
|
74 |
» |
193 |
«3 |
» |
97 |
|
75 |
„ |
225, 257, |
114 |
„ |
129 |
|
289, |
"5 |
» |
161 |
||
|
76 |
„ |
321, 353 |
116 |
)» |
193 |
|
77 |
19 |
33 |
117 |
„ |
225 |
|
78 |
„ |
65 |
118 |
» |
257 |
|
79 |
„ |
97 |
119 |
„ |
289 |
|
80 |
Hi |
129 |
Sup. i |
„ |
321 |
|
81 |
,, |
161 |
21 |
II |
353 |
|
82 |
» |
193 |
23 |
23 |
33»65 |
|
83 |
,, |
225 |
24 |
,, |
97 |
|
84 |
j> |
289 |
25 |
„ |
129 |
|
85 |
„ |
321 |
26 |
» |
161 |
|
86 |
„ |
353 |
27 |
„ |
i93» 225» |
|
87 |
2O |
5 |
257 |
||
|
88 |
„ |
33 |
28 |
„ |
289 |
|
89 |
» |
65 |
29 |
» |
321,353 |
|
90 |
„ |
97 |
30 |
24 |
34 |
|
9i |
)> |
129 |
31 |
» |
65 |
|
92 |
„ |
161 |
32 |
M |
97 |
|
93 |
» |
193 |
33 |
„ |
129 |
|
94 |
„ |
225 |
34 |
» |
161 |
|
95 |
M |
257 |
35 |
„ |
193 |
|
96 |
a |
289 |
36 |
H |
225 |
|
97 |
„ |
321 |
37 |
„ |
257 |
|
98 |
ii |
353 |
38 |
M |
289 |
|
99 |
21 |
4 |
39 |
» |
321 |
|
100 |
H |
33»65 |
40 |
» |
353 |
|
IOI |
„ |
97 |
39 |
25 |
9 |
|
102 |
n |
129 |
41 |
„ |
41 |
|
103 |
n |
161 |
42 |
„ |
74 |
|
104 |
n |
J93 |
44 |
»> |
140 |
|
J°5 |
n |
225 |
45 |
,, |
237 |
|
1 06 |
„ |
257 |
46 |
n |
275 |
|
107 |
» |
289 |
47 |
„ |
305 |
|
108 |
„ |
321 |
48 |
» |
342 |
|
109 |
M |
353 |
49 |
26 |
75 |
|
Sup. |
50 |
Vol. 26 |
page. 239 |
Sup. 61 |
|
54 |
it |
303 |
62 |
|
|
55 |
27 |
III |
64 |
|
|
56 |
259 |
|||
|
57 |
28 |
97 |
66 |
|
|
58 |
n |
301 |
67 |
|
|
59 |
„ |
321 |
68 |
|
|
60 |
29 |
75 |
APPENDICES. 113
Vol. page.
29 129
30 153, 181
33 22 » 77 » 225
34 29
35 201
APPENDIX V
REFERENCES IN DR. JULIAN'S DICTIONARY OF HYMNOLOGY, REVISED EDITION, 1908.
The following hymns by Hart have special paragraphs devoted to them in the Rev. Dr. Julian's work : —
i Julian p. 244 79 Julian p. 869
4 „ 246 90 „ 2
8 „ 1075 96 „ 691
56 „ 673 100 „ 254
73 „ 808 Sup. 82 „ 366
75 » 6°3
INDEX
"All for Love," 35
Anderson (Rev. William) 95
Anecdotes : —
Kinsman and the Rioters, 29 ; Ro- maine and the Prodigal, 51 ; Hart keeps his pulpit chaste, 76 ; Dr. Johnson and Hart's Hymns, 70 ; I know myself to be a child of God, 90.
Barbican, Rev. John Towers' Chapel
in, 102, 107 Barbican Chapel, New North Road,
107 Baxter (Rev. A. J.) Essays on Hart's
Hymns, 60, 61, iti Belcher (Mr. H) quoted, 99 Benson (Dr. George) 13 Bible, Hart's Pulpit, 76 Blake (William) 104 Blue Cockades, 86 Brine (Rev. John) 77, 95 Brook (Rev. W. J.) of Brighton, 72 Buck (Mr. Herbert) his tribute to
Hart, 99
Bunhill Fields, 91 Bunhill Memorials, by J. A. Jones,
Preface xi. Bunyan (John) 45 Burford (Rev. Samuel) 95 ' ' But they that in the Lord confide "
46. 89
Cennick (John) 28 Chandler (Rev. Dr.) 64, 95 Chorlton (Rev. Thomas) preaches
Funeral Sermon for Rev. John
Hughes, 93, 100
" Christ is the Friend of Sinneis " 52 Clarke (Rev. Wm. Nash) 95 "Come, Holy Spirit, come," 40, 60 Cramer (Rev. Thos.) 62.
Dates of Hart's Hymns, 42
" Descend from Heaven, Celestial
Dove," 40, 60 Durham Yard, 48 Durham, (Bishop of) quoted, 98
Editions of the Hymns ; —
ist, 57 ; 2nd, 68 ; 3rd, 68 ; 4th, 70 ;
5th, 70 ; subsequent editions, 106 Ellis (Rev. William), Missionary,
107, 1 08 " Experience," Hart's, 54, 68
Flavel (Rev. John) 63 Ford (Dr. John) 78, 90, 102
Gill, John (Rev., D.D.) 75, 77,95 Gambold (Rev. John) 39 Genealogical Table of Hart Family,
no
George II., Death of, 64 Gibbons (Dr.) 64 Gifford (Dr. Andrew) 77
Hart (Joseph) birth, i ; teaches the Classics, 2 ; in soul trouble, 2 ; lapses into sensuality, 2 ; writes The Unreasonableness of Re- ligion, 7 ; becomes a Humanist, 13; translates Phocylides, 15; and Herodian, 18 ; marriage, 26 ; alarmed by a sermon preached by Whitefield, 30 ; his vision, 34 ; writes Hymn i, 34; he becomes acquainted with Whitefield, 38 ; at the Moravian Chapel in Fetter Lane, 38 ; influenced by Watts, 43, 60 ; his first sermon, 50 ; at home, 48 ; his Experience, 54 ; ist edition of his Hymns, 57; makes the ac- quaintance of Rev. Andrew Kins*
INDEX.
Hart (Joseph) continued: —
man, 61 ; pastor of Jewin Street Chapel, 62 ; and edition of Hymns, 68 ; 3rd edition. 68 ; 4th edition with appendix, 70 ; 5th edition, 70 ; Hart as a preacher, 74 ; his sermon The King of the Jews, 79 ; Hart as a letter writer, 61, 83; death, 90; funeral, 91; bibliography, 106 ; his descendants, 107.
Hart (Mary) 26 ; left a widow with five children, 88 ; dies, 101.
Hart, (Mary Mercy) Hart's daughter, 108, no.
" Hearty (Mr.) " of Shrubsole, 3, 101
Herodian, 18
Hervey of Weston Favell, 33, 54
Hoddy (Mr. Robert) 99
Horace quoted, 16
Hughes (Rev. John) 26 ; referred to, 77 ; quoted, 86 ; he preaches Hart's funeral sermon, 94 ; his death, 100
Huntington (Rev. Wm.) on Election, IT ; a criticism by, 53 ; his King- dom of Heaven, 56 ; Life of Wm. Huntington, 74 ; Differences with Kinsman, 101 ; and Terry, 102.
Hymns, Hart's, ist edition, 57 ; 2nd edition, 68 ; 3rd edition, 68 ; 4th edition, 70 ; 5th edition, 70 ; sub- sequent editions, 106.
Ivimey (Rev. Joseph) History of the English Baptists, 95
Jacks (Mr. Robert) 78 enkyn (Rev. Wm.) 62 ewin Street Chapel, 62 ustis (Mr.) 71, 90 ohnson (Dr.) 70
ulian (Dr.) Dictionary of Hymnology "3
Katterns (John) 74; has Hart's
Bible, 76
Katterns (Sarah) 74, 77 Keppel (Admiral) 65 King of the Jews, The 79 Kinsman (Rev. Andrew) 27 ; makes
Hart's acquaintance, 61 ; delivers
an oration at Hart's grave, 91 ;
bis death, 101
Lamb, Sign of the, 48 Latham (Rev. W. J.) quoted, 99
Letter by Hart to his nephe Liford (Mr.) 18, 19
w, 83
Madan (Rev. Martin) 77 Martin (Mr. W. J.) quoted, 98 Monthly Review, advertisement in,
95
Monument, Hart's 103 Moor (Mary Mercy, Mrs. Ellis) 108,
no
Moor (Miss L. R.) no Moravian Chapel, Fetter Lane, 38
Nephew, Hart's 84
Noble (Rev. Daniel) 64
" Notion's the harlot's test," 63
Ockenden Family, 109
Old Meeting House, St. John's Court,
Bermondsey, 51 Ovid, quoted, 79
Philpot (Rev. J. C.) his tribute to
Hart. 56, 98 Phocylides, 15
Popham, (Rev. J. K.) quoted, 99 Prodigal, The, 51 Pulpit Bible, Hart's 76
Romaine (Rev. William) 51, 77, 78 Ruskin, quoted, 17
Scott (Rev. Thomas) 45 Seven Years' War, The, 32 Shrubsole (William) the elder, his
Christian Memoirs, i, 3, 13, 14,
30, 31, 100 Shrubsole (William) the younger,
hymn-writer, 101 Smart (Rev. Daniel) referred to, 84 ;
his tribute to Hart, 98 Smith (Thorpe) i, 54, 105 Stennett (Rev. Dr. Samuel) 64, 77,
95 Stevens (Rev. John) of Meards
Court, 47 Styles, (Rev. W. Jeyes) quoted, 57,
98.
Tabernacle in Moorfields, 27, 38 Terry (Garnet) ' ' Onesimus, ' ' takes
down Hart's sermon in Shorthand,
79; death, 102 Thelyphthora, Rev. John Towers'
answer to, 102
LIFE OF JOSEPH HART.
Thornton (John) "The Great," 31 Thorold (Benjamin) 108, no Thucydides quoted, 25 Toplady (Rev. Augustus) 76 ; his
tribute to Hart, 97 Tottenham Court Chapel, 32, 38 Towers, (Rev. John) preaches funeral
sermon for Hart, 95 ; tribute to
Hart, 97 ; death, 102
Vision, Hart's, 34
Watts (Dr. Isaac) 43, 60
Wesley (Rev. John) 4 ; his Bristol
sermon, 5 ; attacked by Hart, 7. Whitefield (Rev. George) 4, answers
Wesley's Bristol Sermon, 5 ; at
Plymouth, 27 ; alarms Hart, 30 ;
becomes acquainted with Hart, 38 ;
death, 100
Whittome (Mr. Joseph), 77 Wilkes (John) 67, 68, 87 Wilson (Walter) His History of
Dissenting Churches, 62 Woodgate (Rev. Richard) 107
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"We heartily recommend this volume. It is absorbingly interesting."— Aberdeen Free Press.
" . . . At last a full, truthful, good biography of him has been written, well written. The stately volume before us is, as far as we are able to judge, an exhaustive life of one of whom many foolish and hurtful things have been written. In a sense he needed no vindication, his praise is in all the Churches; but some gracious people may feel glad to see the character of the man of God cleared in regard of certain things said to his prejudice. The paper, the print, the general get up of the book are excellent."— Gospel Standard.
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