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.
“It is gospel; it is God's word, and is faithful and true; see Rev. xix. It is a good word, and well worthy of all acceptation; it brings us glad tidings. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ, the anointed Saviour, the Messiah promised and expected.”
“Quotations are here borrowed from two prophecies--that of Isaiah, which was the longest, and that of Malachi, which was the latest (and there were above three hundred years between them), both of whom spoke to the same purport concerning the beginning of the g…”
“His baptism was the dawning of the gospel day; for, 1. In John's way of living there was the beginning of a gospel spirit; for it bespoke great self-denial, mortification of the flesh, a holy contempt of the world, and nonconformity to it, which may truly be c…”
“Repentance for the remission of sins, was what the apostles were commissioned to preach to all nations, Luke xxiv. (3.) He preached Christ, and directed his hearers to expect him speedily to appear, and to expect great things from him. The preaching of Christ …”
“He comes after me in time, but he is mightier than I, mightier than the mighty ones of the earth, for he is able to baptize with the Holy Ghost; he can give the Spirit of God, and by him govern the spirits of men. [3.] The great promise Christ makes in his gos…”
“He also appointed him, (1.) To show himself to the priest, that the priest by his own judgment of this leper might be a witness for Christ, that he was the Messiah, Matt. xi. (2.) Till he had done that, not to say any thing of it to any man: this is an instanc…”
“But Christ taught as one that had authority, as one that knew the mind of God, and was commissioned to declare it. There is much in the doctrine of Christ, that is astonishing; the more we hear it, the more cause we shall see to admire it.”
“(3.) He in effect acknowledgeth that Christ was too hard for him, and that he could not stand before the power of Christ; " Let us alone; for if thou take us to task, we are undone, thou canst destroy us. " This is the misery of those wicked spirits, that they…”
“Thus, when Christ by his grace delivers poor souls out of the hands of Satan, it is not without a grievous toss and tumult in the soul; for that spiteful enemy will disquiet those whom he cannot destroy.”
“Observe, How Christ was flocked after in a private house, as well as in the synagogue; wherever he is, there let his servants, his patients, be. And in the evening of the sabbath, when the public worship is over, we must continue our attendance upon Jesus Chri…”
“He prayed, prayed alone; to set us an example of secret prayer. Though as God he was prayed to, as man he prayed. Though he was glorifying God, and doing good, in his public work, yet he found time to be alone with his Father; and thus it became him to fulfil …”
“His address is not in the form of prayer, yet Christ answered it as a request. Note, Affectionate professions of faith in Christ, and resignations to him, are the most prevailing petitions for mercy from him, and shall speed accordingly. (1.) Christ was moved …”
“8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. What the New Testament is--the divine testament, to which we adhere above all that is human; the new testament, which we advance above that which was old. It is the gospel o…”
“What to do when we have received mercy from Christ. We must with his favours receive his commands. When Christ had cured him, he strictly charged him; the word here is very significant, embrimesamenos -- graviter interminatus--prohibiting with threats.”
“His calling of Matthew from the receipt of custom, and his eating, upon that occasion, with publicans and sinners, and justifying himself in so doing,”
“The presenting of a poor cripple to him, to be helped by him. The patient was one sick of the palsy, it should seem not as that, Matt. viii. 6 , grievously tormented, but perfectly disabled, so that he was borne of four, was carried upon a bed, as if he had be…”
“Thy sins are forgiven thee. Sin is the procuring cause of all our pains and sicknesses. The word of Christ was to take his thoughts off from the disease, which was the effect, and to lead them to the sin, the cause, that he might be more concerned about that, …”
“This was a suitable argument in itself. He could not have cured the disease, which was the effect, if he could not have taken away the sin, which was the cause. And besides, his curing diseases was a figure of his pardoning sin, for sin is the disease of the s…”
“However, Christ called him to follow him. Paul, though a Pharisee, had been one of the chief of sinners, and yet was called to be an apostle. With God, through Christ, there is mercy to pardon the greatest sins, and grace to sanctify the greatest sinners.”
“Fitly did he make the day of his espousals to Christ a festival day. This was also to testify his respect to Christ, and the grateful sense he had of his kindness, in snatching him from the receipt of custom as a brand out of the burning. That many publicans a…”
“How is it, that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? Note, It is no new thing for that which is both well- done, and well- designed, to be misrepresented, and turned to the reproach of the wisest and best of men. Christ's justification of himself…”
“His disciples from the first inured themselves to hardships, and thus found it easier to bear strict and frequent fasting, but it was not so with Christ's disciples; their Master came eating and drinking, and had not bred them up to the difficult services of r…”
“Weak Christians must take heed of over-tasking themselves, and of making the yoke of Christ otherwise than as it is, easy, and sweet, and pleasant. He justifies them in plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath day, which, I will warrant you, a disciples of the…”
“This, it is said, David did in the days of Abiathar the High-Priest; or just before the days of Abiathar, who immediately succeeded Abimelech his father in the pontificate, and, it is probable, was at that time his father's deputy, or assistant, in the office;…”
“The sabbath is a sacred and divine institution; but we must receive and embrace it as a privilege and a benefit, not as a task and a drudgery. First, God never designed it to be an imposition upon us, and therefore we must not make it so to ourselves. Man was …”