Hervey’s text, on this occasion, was, “God forbid, that, I should glory,” etc. (Gal. vi. 14); and the sermon was the first he published. Though not remarkable for either learning or argument, it was thoroughly evangelical and faithful; and, unless the belief and practice of the clergy there assembled were exceptional, it must have been somewhat startling. It was the sermon of a Methodist; and Methodist sermons then were seldom heard in the Established Church.
Preaching it was a duty; publishing it was an act of charity. Hence the following:—
“1753, May 19. I have lately been somewhat busied in preparing a sermon to be preached before the clergy, at our Archdeacon’s visitation; and, to my weak nerves and languid spirits, a little business is a toil. A commentator, with whom I wish you may long be unacquainted, has taught me the meaning of Solomon’s description, ‘The grasshopper shall be a burden.’ The sermon, though perfectly plain and artless, is in the press. It is printed for the relief of a poor afflicted child, as a short advertisement will inform the world. The person, to whose management it is consigned, has given orders for an impression of two thousand; besides a hundred and fifty, which I have bespoken for myself.”
Printed sermons have seldom been popular; but the adventure, in this instance, succeeded. “I have no business going forward with the printer,” wrote Hervey, in a letter to Lady Frances Shirley, on July 15, 1753.
“My last little essay would have remained in the obscurity of shorthand, if the father of the afflicted youth had not importuned me to send my sermon on a begging errand. I gave it him as a kind of lottery ticket, not without some hopes and many prayers, that it might meet with success, and come up a prize. Nor have I reason to repent; for, though he printed two thousand, he tells me they are almost all sold.”
An extract from another letter may be welcome. It refers, not only to this visitation sermon, but to Hervey’s parochial labours.
“Weston-Favel, October 28, 1753.
“I have, this afternoon, been preaching to a crowded audience. You would be surprised, and, I believe, every body wonders that I am able to officiate for myself. I am so weak that I can hardly walk to the end of my parish, though a small one; and so tender, that I dare not visit my poor neighbours, for fear of catching cold in their bleak houses. Yet, I am enabled, on the Lord’s-day, to catechise, and expound to my children in the morning, and to preach in the afternoon. Every Wednesday evening (hay-time and harvest only excepted) I read prayers, and give them a lecture-sermon in Weston church. This is the Lord’s doing, or, as your favourite book expresses it, this is owing to ‘the good hand of my God upon me.’
“God has been pleased to pity the poor youth, for whose relief the visitation-sermon, I preached at Northampton, was printed. An edition of two thousand is disposed of; and the manager, for the distressed object, is venturing upon another edition. See, dear sir, if God will bless, who can blast? If He will further, what can obstruct? A feather, a straw, if He pleases to command, shall be a polished shaft in His quiver. Trust not, therefore, in eloquence or argument, in depth of thought or beauty of style, all of which are confessedly wanting in the present case; but ‘trust ye in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength.’”
Another glimpse of Hervey, in the midst of his rustic congregations, is furnished by a letter written by one of Whitefield’s preachers.