The Voices
Matthew Henry
The Chester nonconformist who rose before dawn for ten years to write a whole-Bible commentary plain enough for a farming family to read at the table.
Short bio
Matthew Henry was born on October 18, 1662, at Broad Oak in Flintshire, on the Welsh border — a few months after the Act of Uniformity threw his father out of the Church of England. Philip Henry was one of roughly two thousand ministers ejected in 1662 for refusing to conform. He lost his living, kept preaching where he could, and taught his children at home. Matthew was a sickly boy who is said to have been reading Bible chapters aloud with comment at three years old. He grew up in a house where family worship happened twice a day and where nonconformity had a price attached to it. He studied under Thomas Doolittle at an academy for dissenters, then went to London in 1685 to read law at Gray's Inn — a sensible career for a man whose religion barred him from the universities. He gave it up. In 1687, at twenty-four, he was privately ordained and went to Chester as minister of a Presbyterian congregation. He stayed twenty-five years. He preached twice on Sunday, catechized the children, lectured on weeknights, visited constantly, and preached in the surrounding villages and in the county jail. The congregation grew to some hundreds of communicants and built a chapel in Crook Street. He began the commentary in November 1704. His method was ordinary and brutal: rise at four or five in the morning and write before the day's work, then take up the evening after it. He wrote for the family table — for a farmer reading aloud to his household, not for a scholar. The result is not technical. It is the text explained clause by clause and then pressed home, with a gift for the memorable line that has kept it quoted for three hundred years. In 1712 he moved, reluctantly, to a congregation at Mare Street, Hackney, in London. On June 22, 1714, riding back toward Hackney after preaching in Chester, he was thrown from his horse near Nantwich. He died that night at Tarporley, aged fifty-one. He had finished through the end of Acts. Thirteen fellow ministers completed Romans through Revelation from his notes and papers, and the whole *Exposition of the Old and New Testaments* was published in six volumes. It has never gone out of print. Its readers make the case for it better than any summary can. George Whitefield read it through four times, the last time on his knees. Spurgeon told his students in *Commenting and Commentaries* that every minister ought to read it entirely and carefully through at least once. John Wesley abridged it for his people. It sits on more shelves, in more languages, than any other commentary written in English. Sources: Matthew Henry, *An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments*; J. B. Williams, *Memoirs of the Life, Character and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry*; C. H. Spurgeon, *Commenting and Commentaries*; *Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry*, ed. Matthew Henry Lee.
Notable works
2 listed
| Title | Year | Description |
|---|---|---|
| An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments | 1710 | — |
| Directions for Daily Communion with God | 1712 | — |
Where to find them
Their words on MannaFest
14,170 quotes across 66 books
Where this voice speaks on the site — each quote links to the verse it was chosen for.
“The danger they were in if they yielded to the temptation. He gives them fair warning: it was at their peril if they forsook God to serve idols. If they would not be bound and held by the precepts of the covenant, they would find that the curses of the covenan…”
“A most solemn and dreadful denunciation of the wrath of God against such persons as promise themselves peace in a sinful way,”
“15 , where he is in like manner cautioning us to take heed of those that would seduce us from the Christian faith; they are the weeds or tares in a field, which, if let alone, will overspread the whole field. A little of this leaven will be in danger of infect…”
“And such an ensnaring sin is idolatry. [3.] God's just severity against him for the sin, and for the impious affront he put upon God in saying he should have peace though he went on, so giving the lie to eternal truth, Gen. iii. There is scarcely a threatening…”
“And ( lastly ) All this according to the curses of the covenant, which are the most fearful curses, being the just revenges of abused grace. (2.) Idolatry would be the ruin of their nation; it would bring plagues upon the land that connived at this root of bit…”
“As that valley, which had been like the garden of the Lord for fruitfulness, was turned into a lake of salt and sulphur, so should the land of Canaan be made desolate and barren, as it has been ever since the last destruction of it by the Romans.”
“A thousand pities that such a good land as this should be made desolate, but this is not all; it is this holy land, the land of Israel, a people in covenant with God; it is Immanuel's land, a land where God was known and worshipped, and yet thus wasted. It is …”
“Note, God never forsakes any till they first forsake him. But those that desert the God of their fathers are justly cast out of the inheritance of their fathers.”
“So that, how dreadful soever the desolation was, the Lord was righteous in it, which is acknowledged, Dan. ix. "Thus" (says Mr. Ainsworth) "the law of Moses leaves sinners under the curse, and rooted out of the Lord's land; but the grace of Christ towards peni…”
“But if any ask further why God would be at such a vast expense of miracles to form such a people, whose apostasy and ruin he plainly foresaw, why he did not by his almighty grace prevent it, or what he intends yet to do with them, let such know that these are …”
“That captivity effectually cured them of idolatry; and then God planted them again in their own land and did them good. Some think that it is yet further to be accomplished in the conversion of the Jews who are now dispersed, their repentance for the sin of th…”
“The righteousness of faith set before them in the plainness and easiness of the commandment that was now given them,”
“(2.) It consists in sincere conversion. The effect of the consideration cannot but be godly sorrow and shame, Ezek. vi. But that which is the life and soul of repentance, and without which the most passionate expressions are but a jest, is returning to the Lor…”
“Against sinners that go on in sin God has indignation ( ch. xxix. 20 ), but on those that repent and bemoan themselves he has compassion, Jer. xxxi. True penitents may take great encouragement from the compassions and tender mercies of our God, which never fai…”
“One of the Chaldee paraphrasts applies this to the Messiah, explaining it thus: The word of the Lord shall gather you by the hand of Elias the great priest, and shall bring you by the hand of the king Messiah; for this was God's covenant with him, that he shou…”
“Undique ad cælos tantundem est viæ--From every place there is the same way to heaven. This promise Nehemiah pleads in his prayer for dispersed Israel, Neh. i. It is here promised, (1.) That God would have compassion upon them, as proper objects of …”
“Note, Penitent sinners are not only delivered out of their misery, but restored to true happiness in the favour of God. The land they are brought into to possess it is , though not the same, yet in some respects better than that which our first father Adam pos…”
“It is the heart and soul that God looks at and requires; he will have these or nothing, and these entire or not at all. [4.] It must be universal: According to all that I command thee,”
“It is promised, The Lord will make thee plenteous in the fruit of thy cattle and land, for good. Many have plenty for hurt; the prosperity of fools destroys them. Then it is for good when with it God gives us grace to use it for his glory.”
“This is the purport of the covenant of grace, it leaves room for repentance in case of misdemeanour, and promises pardon upon repentance, which the covenant of innocency did not. How the repentance is described which is the condition of these promises.”
“If they would love God, and evidence the sincerity of their love by keeping his commandments--if they would make conscience of keeping his commandments, and do it from a principle of love--then God would do them good, and they should be as happy as his love an…”
“Observe, It is not for every failure in the particulars of their duty that ruin is threatened, but for apostasy and idolatry: though every violation of the command deserved the curse, yet the nation would be destroyed by that only which is the violation of the…”
“And, (3.) Of their expectations from him in performance of that promise: "Love God, and serve him, that thou mayest dwell in that land of promise which thou mayest be sure he can give, and uphold to thee who is thy life and the length of thy days. " All these …”
“Note, It is a great encouragement to a people when, instead of some useful instruments that are removed, God raises up others to carry on his work. He ensures their success.”
“He gives him the same assurances of the divine presence, and consequently of a glorious success, that he had given the people. God would be with him, would not forsake him, and therefore he should certainly accomplish the glorious enterprise to which he was ca…”