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.
“They are children of the covenant ( Acts iii. 25 ), children of those that clave unto the Lord, and therefore it may be hoped that they will tread in the steps of their fathers' constancy. Note, God's people are children that will not lie; for those that will …”
“He is the angel of the covenant, God's messenger to the world, Mal. iii. He is the angel of God's face, for he is the express image of his person; and the glory of God shines in the face of Christ. He that was to work out the eternal salvation, as an earnest o…”
“This refers especially to those calamities that were of late brought upon them by their captivity in Babylon for their idolatries and other sins. That which is both the original and the great aggravation of their troubles was that God was turned to be their en…”
“Herein he was a type of Christ the good shepherd, that lays down his life for the sheep, which was more than Moses did for Israel, though he did a great deal for them. [2.] He put his holy Spirit within him; the Spirit of God was among them, and not only his p…”
“If God make us a way, he will make it plain and level; the road he opens to his people he will lead them in. Thirdly, To complete the mercy, he brought them up out of the sea,”
“Some good interpreters think this prayer looks further, and that it expresses the complaints of the Jews under their last and final rejection from God and destruction by the Romans; for there is one passage in it ( ch. lxiv. 4 ) which is applied to the grace o…”
“The most prevailing arguments in prayer are those that are taken from God himself; such these are. Where is thy zeal and thy strength? God has a zeal for his own glory, and for the comfort of his people; his name is Jealous; and he is a jealous God; and he has…”
“Now this they complain of, as their great misery and burden, that God had for their sins left them to this, had permitted them to err from his ways and had justly withheld his grace, so that their hearts were hardened from his fear. When they ask, Why hast tho…”
“"Though we are the people of thy holiness, distinguished from other people and consecrated to thee, yet we are soon dislodged." But this they might thank themselves for; they were, in profession, the people of God's holiness, but it was their wickedness that t…”
“This God's people desire and pray for, that they themselves having the satisfaction of seeing him though his way be in the sea, others may be made to see him when his way is in the clouds. This is applicable to the second coming of Christ, when the Lord himsel…”
“The day will come when nations shall be made to tremble at the presence of God, though they be ever so numerous and strong. The plea is that God had appeared wonderfully for his people formerly; and thou hast, therefore thou wilt, is good arguing at the throne…”
“They confess themselves to be sinful and unworthy of God's favour, and that they had deserved the judgments they were now under,”
“The provision he has made for the safety and happiness of his people, even of all those that seek him, and serve him, and trust in him, is very rich and very ready, so that they need not fear being either disappointed of it, for it is sure, or disappointed in …”
“Observe where the happiness of this people is bound up; it is what God has prepared for them, what he has designed for them in his counsel and is in his providence and grace preparing for them and preparing them for, what he has done or will do, so it may be r…”
“It is well for us that our hopes of salvation are built not upon any merit or sufficiency of our own (for in that there is no certainty, even Adam in innocency did not abide), but upon God's mercies and promises, for in those, we are sure, is continuance.”
“True penitents cast away their idols as filthy rags ( ch. xxx. 22 ), odious in their sight; here they acknowledge even their righteousness to be so in God's sight if he should deal with them in strict justice. Our best duties are so defective, and so far short…”
“We have all by sin become not only obnoxious to God's justice, but odious to his holiness; for sin is that abominable thing which the Lord hates, and cannot endure to look upon. Even all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.”
“Yet this was not all: Thou hast consumed us because of our iniquities. This is the same complaint with that ( Ps. xc. 7, 8 ), We are consumed by thy anger; thou hast melted us, so the word is.”
“(1.) Prayer was in a manner neglected: " There is none that calls on thy name, none that seeks to thee for grace to reform us and take away sin, or for mercy to relieve us and take away the judgments which our sins have brought upon us." Therefore people are s…”
“Foolish and careless as we are, poor and despised and trampled upon as we are by our enemies, yet still thou art our Father; to thee therefore we return in our repentance, as the prodigal arose and came to his father; to thee we address ourselves by prayer; fr…”
“It is but in a little wrath that God hides his face. They pray that they may not be dealt with according to the desert of their sin: Neither remember iniquity for ever. Such is the evil of sin that it deserves to be remembered for ever; and this is that which …”
“The cities of Judah were destroyed by the Chaldeans and the inhabitants of them were carried away, so that there was none to repair them or take any notice of them, which would in a few years make them look like perfect deserts: Thy holy cities are a wildernes…”
“(2.) It was the place where their fathers praised God with their sacrifices and songs; what a pity is it that that should lie in ashes which had been for so many ages the glory of their nation!”
“With what pleasure does the great God here speak of his being sought unto, and how does he glory in it, especially by those who in time past had not asked for him! For there is joy in heaven over great sinners who repent. God shall anticipate their prayers wit…”
“When Christ was crucified his hands were spread out and stretched forth, as if he were preparing to receive returning sinners into his bosom; and this all the day, all the gospel-day. He waited to be gracious, and was not weary of waiting; even those that came…”