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
“For the cause of the oppressed and for the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the LORD. “I will bring safety to him who yearns.”
“(2.) It is effectual: I will set him in safety, or in salvation, not only protect him, but restore him to his former prosperity, will bring him out into a wealthy place ( Ps. lxvi.”
You, O LORD, will keep us; You will forever guard us from this generation.
“In the worst of times God has his remnant, and in every age will reserve to himself a holy seed and preserve that to his heavenly kingdom.”
The wicked wander freely, and vileness is exalted among men.
“Bad men are base men, the vilest of men, and they are so though they are ever so highly exalted in this world. Antiochus the illustrious the scripture calls a vile person, Dan. xi.”
How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
“(1.) God's unkindness; so he construed it, and it was his infirmity. He thought God had forgotten him, had forgotten his promises to him, his covenant with him, his former lovingkindness which he had shown him and which he took to be an earnest of…”
Consider me and respond, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death, lest my enemy say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes rejoice…
“We should never allow ourselves to make any complaints but what are fit to be offered up to God and what drive us to our knees. What his petitions are: Consider my case, hear my complaints, and enlighten my eyes, that is, (1.)”
But I have trusted in Your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me.
“His faith in God's mercy filled his heart with joy in his salvation; for joy and peace come by believing, Rom. xv. Believing, you rejoice, 1 Pet. i.”
All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
“They have gone aside from the right of their duty, the way that leads to happiness, and have turned into the paths of the destroyer.”
who has no slander on his tongue, who does no harm to his neighbor, who casts no scorn on his friend,
“If an ill-natured character of his neighbour be given him, or an ill-natured story be told him, he will disprove it if he can; if not, it shall die with him and go no further. His charity will cover a multitude of sins.”
who despises the vile but honors those who fear the LORD, who does not revise a costly oath,
“He honours such, esteems them very highly in love, desires their friendship and conversation and an interest in their prayers, is glad of an opportunity to show them respect or do them a good office, pleads their cause and speaks of them with veneration, rejoices…”
I said to the LORD, “You are my Lord; apart from You I have no good thing.”
“It is the duty and interest of every one of us to acknowledge the Lord for our Lord, to subject ourselves to him, and then to stay ourselves upon him. Adonai signifies My stayer, the strength of my heart.”
The lines of my boundary have fallen in pleasant places; surely my inheritance is delightful.
“Those whose lot is cast, as David's was, in a land of light, in a valley of vision, where God is known and worshipped, have, upon that account, reason to say, The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; much more those who have…”
You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.
“If the heart rejoice in God, out of the abundance of that let the mouth speak, to his glory, and the edification of others.”
May my vindication come from Your presence; may Your eyes see what is right.
“(2.) Sincerity dreads no scrutiny, no, not that of God himself, according to the tenour of the covenant of grace: Let thy eyes behold the things that are equal.”
Show the wonders of Your loving devotion, You who save by Your right hand those who seek refuge from their foes.
“This prayer is both a prediction of the preservation of Christ through all the hardships and difficulties of his humiliation, to the glories and joys of his exalted state, and a pattern to Christians to commit the keeping of their souls to God, trusting him…”
They have closed their callous hearts; their mouths speak with arrogance.
“They wallow in pleasure, and promise themselves that to-morrow shall be as this day. And therefore with their mouth they speak proudly, glorying in themselves, blaspheming God, trampling upon his people, and insulting them." See Rev. xiii.”
from such men, O LORD, by Your hand— from men of the world whose portion is in this life.
“(2.) They have abundance of the world. [1.] They have enlarged appetites, and a great deal wherewith to satisfy them: Their bellies thou fillest with thy hidden treasures.”
As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied in Your presence.
“Some make him, in this, a type of Christ, who was perfectly innocent, and yet was hated and persecuted, but, like David, committed himself and his cause to him that judgeth righteously. Sincere and Importunate Prayer.”
As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied in Your presence.
“With the prospect of that he concluded the foregoing psalm, and so this. That happiness is prepared and designed only for the righteous that are justified and sanctified.”
I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.
“He sets himself to magnify the deliverances God had wrought for him, that he might be the more affected in his returns of praise.”
They confronted me in my day of calamity, but the LORD was my support.
“But, in the midst of his troubles, the Lord was his stay, so that he did not sink. Note, God will not only deliver his people out of their troubles in due time, but he will sustain them and bear them up under their troubles…”
For all His ordinances are before me; I have not disregarded His statutes.
“Constant care to abstain from that sin, whatever it be, which most easily besets us, and to mortify the habit of it, will be a good evidence for us that we are upright before God.”
To the faithful You show Yourself faithful, to the blameless You show Yourself blameless; to the pure You show Yourself pure, but to the crooked You show Yourself shrewd.
“Those that show mercy to others (even they need mercy, and cannot depend upon the merit, no, not of their works of mercy) shall find mercy with God, Matt. v. 7 .”
For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?
“There is a God, and who is God save Jehovah? That God is a rock, for the support and shelter of his faithful worshippers; and who is a rock save our God?”
You have given me Your shield of salvation; Your right hand upholds me, and Your gentleness exalts me.
“God had given him victory over his enemies, the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, and all that fought against Israel: those especially he means, yet not excluding the house of Saul, which opposed his coming to the crown, and the partisans of Absalom and Sheba, who would…”
When they hear me, they obey me; foreigners cower before me.
“Thus the Son of David, though he sees not yet all things put under him, yet knows he shall reign till all opposing rule, principality, and power shall be quite put down.”