Rev Samuel James Hitchin 1716-1773

The Rev. SAMUEL JAMES was born August 4, 1716, at Curborow. a small village near Litchfield, in Staffordshire. His father, the Rev. Philip James, was a native of Llandilo Tal-y-bont, in Glamorganshire, upon the bank of the river Llwchwr, and was born in the year 1664. He was the son of a wealthy farmer, and an only child. Being intended for the church, he was sent to Oxford, where meeting with some Baptists, he embraced their sentiments, for which he was disinherited by his father, who never afterwards noticed him. Thus cast upon the world, he went to Liverpool, and, as an assistant to one Mr. Fabus, pursued the bent of his inclination in the study of medicine. When he first began to preach is not known, though it is said to have been at Swansea, but about 1705, he was elected pastor of the baptist church at Warwick, from whence he removed to Coventry, afterwards to Curborow, and finally, about 1721, removed to Hemel Hempsted, in Hertfordshire, where he continued to fulfil the duties of his high vocation until the year 1784, when he died, at the advanced age of eighty-four. From his knowledge of medicine, which he practised gratuitously, he was commonly called Doctor James, but whether he obtained a degree is not to be ascertained. He married Anna, the youngest daughter of Lawrence Spooner, who died in 1764, aged sixty-four years, leaving five children, Timothy, Philip, Anna, Samuel (the subject of the present memoir), and Caleb. 

When a child, Samuel James experienced two signal deliverances from death. Once his parents took him to see a newly purchased horse, which, catching him up by the hair, galloped several times round the orchard with him, till a little dog biting the horse’s heels, obliged the animal to drop him. Another time, walking out with his sister, he fell into a deep pond, and no one was near, except a woodman, and he so deaf as unable to hear his sister’s cries. At last turning, providentially, and seeing her distress, he ran and hooked him out with his bill, when he had risen to the surface for the third time. Supposing him dead, he hung him over his shoulder by the leg, and carried him home: happily by this means the water drained from his mouth, and he soon recovered.

In 1721 his father removed to Hemel Hempsted, to take the pastoral charge of the Baptist Society there: he likewise taught the classics; and among his pupils was Daniel Turner, the late venerable pastor of the baptist church at Abingdon. Mr. Turner became tutor to Mr. Samuel James, and instructed him in reading Virgil and other authors. Mr. James was afterwards removed to Dr. William King's, at Chesham, in Buckinghamshire, where he was first a learner, and then an assistant in teaching some of the classics. In 1732, the King's Head Society, having been formed about two years, admitted into their communion two paedobaptists, Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Gender, and Mr. James Webb; and two baptists, Mr. Morgan Griffiths, and Mr. Samuel James, who at that time was but sixteen years of age. His diffidence was so great. at the time of his examination, that nothing could be elicited from him, until the Rev. John Sladen, of Back Street, Horsleydown, taking him into another apartment, drew from him, by his peculiar facility of address, the very secrets of his soul, and was fully satisfied as to his piety and parts. He was then, with Mr. Conder, placed under the pastoral care of the Rev. Samuel Parsons, of Clerkenwell, where they boarded, and where they remained till that gentleman removed to Witham in 1735. The Academy was then removed, under the care of Dr. Abraham Taylor, to Deptford

Shortly after Mr. James left, and joined in communion with the church in Goodman's Fields, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. Samuel Wilson, by which church he was called out on the 27th of March, 1740, and preached to their entire satisfaction. In 1741 he was supplying at Wisbech, where he resided with a Captain Norris. In May he received an invitation to Warwick, and in June, to Hemel Hempsted, to assist his aged father; having several times preached both there and at Dunstable with great acceptance; as he had also at Boston, to which place he was invited in January 1742. He, however, gave the preference to an invitation to Hitchin, where the Rev. and learned John Needham was in a declining state of health; and he preached there, for the first time, on the 31st of October, l742, though he still resided at Hemel Hempstead, dividing his labours between the two places. On the 10th of February, 1742-3, Mr. Needham died, and the church unanimously agreeing in the choice of Mr. James, he, with the consent of his father, who gave the charge, was ordained pastor on the 13th of July: and here he continued to minister, a blessing to the church, until his decease. although he had afterwards invitations to remove to many and more lucrative situations.

At his settlement the communicants were an hundred and eight, and at his death an hundred and fifty-six. On the 20th of August, 1744, he married Mary, the eldest daughter of his respected predecessor, and sister to the Rev. John Needham of Bristol. They were united at Little Wymondley, (where the independent academy now is.) by the same clergyman who had officiated there at the marriage of the late Mr. Needham. Mrs. James was a woman of great mental endowments, had a mind richly furnished by reading and observation, and possessed true piety, free from ostentation. Her constant closet companions were Clark’s Annotations and Concordance, Bennet’s Christian Oratory. and the writings of Watts and Doddridge.

On new year’s day, 1748, Mr. James commenced the expounding of the New Testament on Sabbath mornings. This course he continued to his death, and the people found it edifying. As he had, however, no turn for the study of the more obscure prophecies, he sometimes expressed a feeling of dread at the thought of commenting on the Book of the Revelation; but his fear was needless, for he was taken away not long before he came to that sublime but mysterious book.

On the 3rd of March, 1751, he began a. diary, which he denominates, "Observations on the State of my Flock, and Frame of my own Heart." This he continued to Lord’s day morning, May 1, 1763, when it breaks off abruptly. It embraces many excellent observations on the state of his own mind, and also that of his people. He always mentions the day of his birth and marriage with peculiar thankfulness, and relates many interesting circumstances of various kinds. Indeed the whole diary exhibits, in a most striking manner, a faithful portraiture of a genuine christian pastor.

In 1756 the Rev. Mr. Roe, of Stotfold, Bedfordshire, having circulated a manuscript against the dissenters, Mr. James replied to it, and that in so masterly a manner, that his opponent acknowledged his superiority, and courted his friendship. So much preferable is cool reasoning to angry inventive. Early in 1760 he published his “Abstract," concerning which, in a letter to Mr. Needham, of Bristol, Nov. 22, 1759, he says, “I have already between five and six hundred subscribers, which I think is pretty well for a young beginner. Well, I wish God may be glorified, and his people refreshed and comforted by this design, and then I shall have no cause to repent of the undertaking. Indeed I cannot but hope that it will, under a divine agency, be both profitable and pleasant to pious minds, as there is something in the accounts not only very serious but very entertaining. He presented each of his children with a copy, having their name inscribed on the binding, except his son lsaac. who had been for some time in a languishing state, and for whom there was entertained no hopes of recovery: but the good Lord has seen fit to raise up this son to occupy the position which the father has retired from, and enlarge the work he was never expected to have seen.

The meeting-house, erected in 1692, for Mr. Wilson, and enlarged in 1715, for Mr. Needham, was enlarged again in 1762, the congregation having greatly increased under Mr. James. Towards the end of 1764 Mr. James was brought exceedingly low by a nervous fever. In August 1767 he gave a charge at the ordination of the Rev. Joshua Symonds, at Bedford, from l Tim. iv. 16, which was printed. This and the “Abstract" are his only publications.

In December, 1769, his health was in so declining a state, that he was compelled to abstain from preaching for some time. In a letter to Mr. Symonds. Feb. 28, 1770. he says, “Through God's great goodness to a poor, worthless, yet proud, haughty worm, my health and strength are wonderfully restored; insomuch that I preached twice last Lord’s day, (one of the brethren praying before sermon,) and when I came home, it seemed as if I had not been engaged at all, so little did I feel fatigued. What reason I have, beyond many, beyond most, to call upon myself, and say, Bless the Lord, oh my soul, etc. But, alas, l find it exceedingly hard to be thankful for any thing. The sin of ingratitude is so deeply sown in this base and abominable heart of mine: though, if my heart deceives me not. I have real gratitude in desire, and prayer too. Yes, I would be thankful to the God of my mercy, who has lately so remarkably prevented me with his goodness. I was brought low, and he helped me; yea to the very brink of death and the grave, and he bid me live. O what shall I render for all his benefits," &c.

About this time he was obliged to abandon the Bendish lecture, which he had supplied, once in four weeks, for many years. Bendish is a retired village about five miles from Hitchin, in the parish of Paul’s Walden, where preaching had been regularly continued from the times of the puritans. It had a large pew for the ministers to sit in, out of the sight of the informers, and from which, on an alarm, they could escape into an adjoining lane. In 1787, the building being ruinous, a new chapel was erected at Coleman Green, to which the original pulpit, long used by John Bunyan and the ejected ministers, was removed.

On the 5th of September, 1770, the Baptist College, in Rhode Island, conferred on Mr.James the degree of M. A. His health declining apace, in June, 1772, he went to Bristol, to try the efiicacy of the waters, and so far rec0vered as to be able to resume his labours twice every Lord’s day for some time after his return. But in April, 1773, he was only able to supply one service, having even then one of the brethren to engage in prayer. Before the end of June his more public ministrations were finished but he would still ride to the meeting and administer the Lord's supper. His last exercise was speaking at the funeral of a young woman named Sutton; when from the table-pew he gave a solemn warning to his auditory to prepare for that great change to which he himself was so rapidly hastening. He now seemed desirous to leave to his flock some memorial, as an evidence of his unceasing attachment to them. He left, in his own handwriting, the following title-page of a work, not intended to be printed, which shews the state of his mind in the near approach of death. It is to be supposed his weakness of body incapacitated him from putting his design into execution:— "Certain Cases of Conscience briefly resolved by way of question and answer. Drawn up by Samuel James, and designed as a a small token of his hearty, unfeigned love and respect to that dear flock, over which he would humbly hope the Holy Ghost hath made him overseer, bishop, or pastor of their souls, and amongst whom he has now laboured for upwards of thirty years, though, alas, with much frailty and weakness, many sins and short comings, from the beginning to this day: for which he Would be humbled in the dust before God.-— Perhaps some may be at the trouble of transcribing these Cases, and lay them by for their own particular private use. And he heartily wishes that those of his friends who may survive him, may reap sweet consolation from them, when he is dead and laid in the dust, which be some. times thinks may not be long, especially when he considers those late bodily infirmities that have attended him, and do still attend ; which be desires may be a means of reminding him daily that he must soon put off the earthly house of this tabernacle.”

His disorder, the dropsy, increasing, he was attended by Baron Dimsdale: medical aid, however, availing little, he got worse and worse, but was patient and resigned. A few days previous to his decease, a gloom gathered over his spirits, so that he was very desirous of perusing Sibb’s “Soul's Conflict," and particularly described both the hook and the place where it stood in his study, but no one could find it. When his son Isaac returned from school, which he did soon after, he was sent to search, having been much in the habit of looking over his father’s books, but he sought in vain, and his father never saw it.

“The last day or two of his life (to use Mr. Wallin's words) his head was too much affected for regular converse; but even then, at intervals, he knew his family, expressed his love to them, and endeavoured to comfort them. He also dropped many things that denoted a solid and unshaken hope in his Saviour.” In his latest moments the spirit of adoption was upon him; and he frequently called upon God under that endearing character, "My Father! My Father!" And it appears that the very last words he articulately uttered, and which he spoke with no small emphasis, were these triumphant expressions, “Victory! Victory!” He entered on his eternal sabbath, on the Lord’s day morning, August 22, 1773. That same day his son Isaac, going into his father's study, discovered in the first volume he fixed his eyes upon, Sibb’s "Soul’s Conflict,” which the deceased had so urgently desired to see: but then his conflict had been crowned with victory, and he needed no such assistance. His pulpit was supplied that day by the Rev. John Ryland, Jun. of Northampton, who communicated to the church their bereaved and widowed state.

He was interred on Friday, August 17, when the Rev. John Ryland, Sen. spoke at the grave. The funeral sermon was delivered by the Rev. Benjamin Wallin, M. A. from Psalm Xvi. 11, which was printed.

An altar tomb was placed over his remains with the following inscription:—

“This monument, sacred to the memory of the Rev. Samuel James, A. M., is erected to transmit to posterity, what cannot be erased from their memory who knew him, that he was an afl'ectionate husband, tender parent, faithful friend, exemplary christian, and able minister of the gospel. For thirty years he humbly, cheerfully, disinterestedly, and successfully served this church as their pastor. and amidst the tears of a sorrowful family, and an afflicted people, he sweetly fell asleep in Jesus, Aug. 22, 1773. Aged 57."

“Also here lies interred Mary his wife, daughter of the Rev. John Needham, formerly pastor of this church. In every relation she shone with peculiar lustre, and after a long illness, which she bore with exemplary patience, died in London. November 12, 1779. Aged 65 years.”

Little need be said concerning his character. Those who knew him best esteemed him most; and his memory is still cherished among the aged christians in the counties of Hertford and Bedford. His sentiments were Calvinistic, but in his preaching he was rather practical than doctrinal, but not to the neglect of the latter. His library embraced a rich collection of old puritan divinity. He lived on the most friendly terms with his independent brethren at Hitchin, namely, the Rev. James Webb (once his fellow student) and his successor the Rev. Edward Hickman as he did also with the Rev. Mark Hildersley, D. D., the vicar, afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man, and the justly celebrated John Howard, Esq. Among his contemporaries, by whom he was highly esteemed, may be mentioned, Mordecai Andrews, Beddome, Booth, Brewer, Conder, Gibbons, Gill, Hitchin, Stennett, Symonds, Wallin, &c. &c. The church, over which he was pastor, had, from its first establishment, adopted John Bunyan's principles of mixed communion, and for this practice Mr. James was a rigid advocate, though a strenuous supporter of his opinions as a baptist. He was in the constant habit of visiting his flock, to converse and pray with them, riding on horseback to those who lived at any distance. In his diary he repeatedly mentions calling upon nearly twenty in a day. He was also a frequent preacher in the villages. In his family his discipline was strict. In person he was handsome and dignified, but free from all appearance of pride: and with the meanest of his flock was as familiar as they could wish. He studied to inculcate cleanliness among the poor, saying, sometimes, he could scarcely bring himself to believe that dirtiness and godliness could go hand in hand.

He had eleven children, seven of which survived him. Mary Needham, the eldest, married Mr. William Burder, a worthy deacon of the church in Fetter Lane and a firm but liberal-minded dissenter: brother to the Rev. George Burder, the late respected pastor. Their eldest; son, Samuel,afterwards joined the Establishment. He is the author of " Oriental Customs, ” and various other works. The second daughter, Anna, married, in 1776, the Rev. William Button, who, in 1762, was put under the tuition of Mr. Ryland, at Northampton, by whom he was baptized in the river Nen, near that town, in 1767, with Mr. Ryland’s son John, afterwards Dr. Ryland. On the death of Mr.Jarnes he was invited to‘supply the church at Hitchin. Here his ministry was so unanimously approved, that he would have been elected their pastor, had it not been for his conscientiously refusing to admit of open communion. Shortly after he was invited to Dean Street, Southwark, where he sustained the pastoral office for above forty years. Mr. James was succeeded, in 1775, by the Rev. John Geard, M. A. the fourth pastor.