Voices and influences
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.
Summary
This site quotes Matthew Henry 7,276 times across 66 books, and lists 2 works.
- Lived 1662 to 1714, Welsh.
- Quoted here most in Psalms: 748 of 7,276.
Matthew Henry
- Lived
- 1662 to 1714
- Nation
- Welsh
- Tradition
- Puritan
- Body
- Presbyterian
5 of 7,276 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Matthew Henry died in 1714 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
When things are at the worst they will begin to mend; and he will give them to see the glorious perfection of their deliverance; for, as for God, his work is perfect.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
The rest of the quotation
He that in the beginning finished the heavens and the earth, and all the hosts of both, will finish all the blessings of both to his people. When he begins in ways of mercy he will make an end.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. BSB
(2.) We must love mercy; we must delight in it, as our God does, must be glad of an opportunity to do good, and do it cheerfully.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
The rest of the quotation
Justice is put before mercy, for we must not give that in alms which is wrongfully got, or with which our debts should be paid.
Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? BSB
Though all are sinners, yet some are greater sinners than others. The men of Sodom were sinners of the first magnitude, sinners before the Lord, that is, impudent daring sinners; they were so to a proverb.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Genesis 13:13 But the men of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against the LORD. BSB
Note, Some sins, and the sins of some sinners, cry aloud to heaven for vengeance. The iniquity of Sodom was crying iniquity, that is, it was so very provoking that it even urged God to punish.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Genesis 18:20 Then the LORD said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great. Because their sin is so grievous, BSB
It is justice, as well as wisdom, to do thus, in perptuam rei memoriam--that the circumstance may be perpetually remembered.
Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710
Genesis 21:30 He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from my hand as my witness that I dug this well.” BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Matthew Henry 7,276 times across 66 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
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.
2 works
How to read this voice
An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments
1710
Not quoted on this site yet
Directions for Daily Communion with God
1712
Not quoted on this site yet
Their whole shelf sits at Matthew Henry Commentary (CCEL) and Blue Letter Bible - Matthew Henry.
7,276 quotations across 66 books
Where this voice is quoted
But I have not run away from being Your shepherd; I have not desired the day of despair.
“Note, Those that are employed for God, though their success answer nor their expectations, must not therefore throw up their commission. but continue to follow God, though the storm be in their faces. He kept up his affection to the people.”
This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; and stand at…
“These verses are a sermon concerning sabbath-sanctification. It is a word which the prophet received from the Lord, and was ordered to deliver in the most solemn and public manner to the people; for they were sent not only to reprove sin, and to press…”
This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and stand at the gate of the people, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; and stand at…
“The people had asked ( ch. xvi. 10 ), What is our iniquity, and what is our sin? as if they could not be charged with any thing worth speaking of, for which God should enter into judgment with them; their challenge was answered there…”
Yet they would not listen or incline their ear, but they stiffened their necks and would not listen or receive My discipline.
“Where sabbaths are neglected all religion sensibly goes to decay. What blessings God had in store for them if they would make conscience of sabbath-sanctification.”
If, however, you listen carefully to Me, says the LORD, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day, and keep the Sabbath day holy…
“This is made an instance of their prosperity. Then a people truly flourish when religion flourishes among them.”
But if you do not listen to Me to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load while entering the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then…
“This was fulfilled by the army of the Chaldeans, ch. lii. The profanation of the sabbath is a sin for which God has often contended with a people by fire.”
At any time I might announce that a nation or kingdom will be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed.
“It was Nineveh's case, and we wish it had oftener been Jerusalem's; see 2 Chron. vii. It is an undoubted truth that a sincere conversion from the evil of sin will be an effectual prevention of the evil of punishment; and God can as easily…”
But they will reply, ‘It is hopeless. We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”
“They call it liberty to live at large; whereas for a man to be a slave to his lusts is the worst of slaveries.”
Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Inquire among the nations: Who has ever heard things like these? Virgin Israel has done a most terrible thing.
“Note, It is a horrible thing, enough to make one tremble to think of it, that those who have made their condition sad by sinning should make it desperate by refusing to reform.”
I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity.”
“Our calamities may be easily borne if God look towards us, and smile upon us, when we are under them, if he countenance us and show us favour; but if he turn the back upon us, if he show himself displeased, if he be deaf…”
Then some said, “Come, let us make plans against Jeremiah, for the law will never be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the wise, nor an oracle to the…
“The wicked plots against the just. Caiaphas, and the chief priests and elders, did so against our blessed Saviour himself. The opposition which the gates of hell give to the kingdom of heaven is carried on with a great deal of cursed policy.”
Attend to me, O LORD. Hear what my accusers are saying!
“They would not regard a word he said, would not admit his complaints, nor take any notice of his grievances; but, Lord (says he), do thou give heed to me.”
Should good be repaid with evil? Yet they have dug a pit for me.
“(2.) It was very grievous to him, as the like was to David. 4 , For my love they are my adversaries. Thus disingenuously do sinners deal with the great intercessor, crucifying him afresh, and speaking against him on earth, while his blood is speaking…”
This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take some of the elders of the people and leaders of the priests,
“He must confirm this, and endeavour to affect his hearers with it, by a sign, which was the breaking of an earthen bottle, signifying that they should be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel,”
And in this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem.
“Note, There is no fleeing from God's justice but by fleeing to his mercy. Those that will not make good God's counsel, by humbling themselves under his mighty hand, shall find that God will make void their counsel and blast their projects, which they think…”
I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies…
“This was threatened in the law as an instance of the extremity to which the judgments of God should reduce them ( Lev. xxvi. 53 ) and was accomplished, Lam. iv.”
Then you are to shatter the jar in the presence of the men who accompany you,
“In the explication of this sign he must inculcate what he had before said, with a further reference to the place where this was done, in the valley of Tophet. As the bottle was easily, irresistibly, and irrecoverably broken by the Chaldean army,”
and you are to proclaim to them that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: I will shatter this nation and this city, like one shatters a potter’s jar…
“They depended much upon the firmness of their constitution, and the fixedness of their courage, which they thought hardened them like a vessel of brass; but the prophet shows that all that did but harden them like a vessel of earth, which, though hard, is…”
Then Jeremiah returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the courtyard of the house of the LORD and proclaimed to all the…
“It is certain that the greatest of men is less than the least of the ordinances of God.”
The next day, when Pashhur released Jeremiah from the stocks, Jeremiah said to him, “The LORD does not call you Pashhur, but Magor-missabib.
“It seems to be a proverbial expression, bespeaking a man not only in distress but in despair, not only in danger on every side (that a man may be and yet by faith may be in no terror, as David, Ps. iii.”
And you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, will go into captivity.
“Thus far is the doom of Pashur. Let persecutors read it, and tremble; tremble to repentance before they be made to tremble to their ruin.”
You have deceived me, O LORD, and I was deceived. You have overcome me and prevailed. I am a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.
“Thus our Lord Jesus, on the cross, was reviled both by priests and people; and the revilings of each had their peculiar aggravation. And what was it that thus exposed him to contempt and scorn?”
For whenever I speak, I cry out; I proclaim violence and destruction. For the word of the LORD has become to me a reproach and derision all day long.
“Note, It is sad to think that, though divine revelation be one of the greatest blessings and honours that ever was bestowed upon the world, yet it has been turned very much to the reproach of the most zealous preachers and believers of it.”
For I have heard the whispering of many: “Terror is on every side! Report him; let us report him!”
“Here is an account of the temptation he was in under this affliction; his feet were almost gone, as the psalmist's, Ps. lxxiii. And this is that which is most to be dreaded in affliction, being driven by it to sin, Neh. vi.”
Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me never be blessed.
“It seems to be a relation of the ferment he had been in while he was in the stocks, out of which by faith and hope he had recovered himself, rather than a new temptation which he afterwards fell into, and it should come in…”