“He preached without notes,” says his friend, Dr. Stonehouse, “excepting that he had before him a small leaf of paper, on which were written, in short-hand, the general heads and particulars of the sermon, which he sometimes looked at, and sometimes not. He was very regular in his plans, nor was he very long; from thirty to forty minutes was his usual time; rarely longer. His weakness rendering him, for several months before his death, incapable of speaking any length of time to his congregation, he shortened his discourses, and took a most useful method of inculcating his instructions. After he had expounded his text, and divided his sermon into two or three heads, he would speak briefly, and, at the conclusion of each head, enforce what he had said by a pertinent text of Scripture, desiring his congregation to turn to their Bibles, and double down that text. ‘Now,’ he added, ‘my dear brethren if you forget my sermon, you cannot forget God’s word in this text, unless you wilfully throw aside your Bibles. Show this to your children, or the absent part of your family, when you return home.’ Then he gave a striking exhortation, and, at the end of it, another text for them to double down; so that they always had three texts, in order to their finding of which he paused in the pulpit for two or three minutes. This method had another good effect; it obliged the generality to bring their Bibles along with them, for those who were without Bibles lost the benefit of the texts, and were unemployed, while the great majority, who had theirs, were busy looking for the texts referred to in the sermon.”
“My acquaintance with Mr. Hervey,” writes the Rev. Dr. Haweis, “was only of one day. He was removing from his ministerial labours, just as I was ready to enter upon mine; and, being very desirous of seeing him before his departure to glory, I rode from Oxford to Weston-Favel, a distance of about fifty miles, for that purpose. I found him tall and much emaciated. His preaching was purely evangelical, and very similar to his writings, in beautiful comments on the Scriptures he quoted; but his manner of delivery, in the tone of voice and action, far from the elegance I expected. His church was very small; and, though full, was not remarkably crowded; but the people were very attentive to hear him.”
These are mere glimpses of Hervey as a preacher; but they are of some importance, as being furnished by those who saw and heard him.
Hervey had become famous, and some of his friends wished for a formal recognition of the fact. The following refers to this, and also to Wesley’s strictures on his “Theron and Aspasio”:—
“Now for the affair, relating to Mr. Ogilvie’s proposal. Tell our amiable and benevolent friend, that, I am deeply sensible of his kindness; but I must beg of him to lay aside all thoughts of procuring for me so undeserved a distinction. I assure you, it would make me blush, and give me much uneasiness, to be addressed under the character of doctor. Never, no never, should I have taken as much as a master’s degree, if I had not been obliged to it, in order to hold what we call ecclesiastical preferment. Preferment? Yes, if rightly understood, it is rightly so called. For what can be a more honourable or exalted office, than to labour for Christ? O that my brethren and I may always understand the word preferment in this truly precious and noble sense!
“It is a great uncertainty, whether I shall be enabled to add another volume. I am told, a very formidable attack is going to be made upon ‘Theron and Aspasio,’ by a hand not well affected to the imputed righteousness of our Lord, but remarkably zealous for the inherent righteousness and perfection of man.”[249]
In this world, no man basks in unclouded sunshine. Upon the whole, the reviews of Hervey’s “Theron and Aspasio,” had been favourable; those of his later publications[250] had been otherwise.
“Have a care,” he wrote, in a letter, dated November 21, 1757, “Have a care, you do not depreciate your works by inserting anything of mine. My poor character is going to execution. The Reviewers have already put the halter about its neck; if, therefore, you would obtain distinction, or are a candidate for fame, stand clear and detached from such a contemptible scribbler.”
Besides this, he suffered increasingly from enfeebled health.
“Incessant and insuperable languors,” he wrote, “unfit me for every business; render every enjoyment unrelishing; and, what is more deplorable, make my temper like the sore, inflamed, ulcerated flesh. Anything that comes unexpected, alarms me; anything that goes cross, vexes me: I am sadly inclined to a peevish humour.”