“True, doctor, true; the only valuable treasures are in heaven. What would it avail me now to be Archbishop of Canterbury? Disease would show no respect to my mitre. The Gospel is offered to me, a poor country parson, the same as to his grace. Christ makes no difference between us. Oh! why then do ministers neglect the charge of so kind a Saviour, fawn upon the great, and hunt after worldly preferments with so much eagerness, to the disgrace of our orders? These, these are the things, not our poverty or obscurity, which render the clergy so justly contemptible to worldlings. No wonder, the service of our Church, grieved I am to say it, is become such a formal lifeless thing, since it is, alas! too generally executed by persons dead to godliness in all their conversation; whose indifferent religion, and worldly-minded behaviour proclaim the little regard they pay to the doctrines of the Lord, who bought them.”
The day before his death, in walking across his room, he fainted, and, to all appearance was dead. On reviving, his brother William said, “We were afraid you were gone”; to which he answered, “I wish I were.” And well he might, for, besides the utter exhaustion of his strength, his bones were so intensely sore, that, he shrank from the touch of his attendants, when it was necessary to alter his position; but, in the midst of weakness and of pain, he was unceasingly praising God for His boundless mercies, and never received even a piece of lemon to moisten his parched mouth, without uttering thanks.
On December 25, the day he died, he complained of a great inward conflict, and, as he sat in his easy chair, (for he was not able to lie in bed,) almost constantly had his eyes lifted towards heaven, and his hands clasped in prayer. “O let me spend,” said he, “my last few moments in adoring our great Redeemer! ‘Though my flesh and my heart fail me, yet, God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.’” He then proceeded to expatiate on the words of St. Paul, “All things are yours,—life and death,—for ye are Christ’s.”
“Here,” said he, “is the treasure of a Christian. Death is reckoned in this inventory. How thankful am I for death. It is the passage through which I pass to the Lord and giver of eternal life. It frees me from all this misery which I now endure, and which I am willing to endure, as long as God thinks fit. These light afflictions are but for a moment; and then comes an eternal weight of glory. O! welcome, welcome death! Thou mayest well be reckoned among the treasures of the Christian. To live is Christ, but to die is gain.”
Being raised a little in his chair, he exclaimed, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy Word; for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.” “Here,” he continued, “is my cordial. What are all the cordials given to support the dying, in comparison of that which arises from the promises of salvation by Christ? This, this supports me.”
About three o’clock in the afternoon, he remarked, “The great conflict is over. Now all is done:” after which the only words he articulated intelligibly were, “Precious salvation.” Between the hours of four and five on Christmas-Day, 1758, James Hervey tranquilly fell asleep, in the forty-fifth year of his age.
Three days afterwards, his body was buried under the Communion table of Weston-Favel Church, in the presence of a large congregation. By his own desire, the pall used, on the occasion, was that employed in covering the coffins of his poor parishioners. Deep was the distress of the assembled crowd. Some wept in silence; others sobbed; and others were even more violently affected. The devout Rector was where “the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
Funeral sermons were preached, and printed, in London, by Romaine, the Lecturer of St. Dunstan’s; and by Cudworth, the dissenting minister, in Margaret Street. Charles Wesley, also, poured out the affection of his lyric soul, in one of his glowing hymns, from which the following stanzas are extracted:—
“He’s gone! the spotless soul is gone