Henry, MATTHEW

Henry, MATTHEW, Nonconformist divine, the son of Philip Henry, one of the 2000 ministers who left the Church of England on the passing of the 'Act of Uniformity,' was born at Broad Oak farmhouse, in Flintshire, October 18, 1662. In 1687 he became pastor of a congregation of dissenters at Chester, where he remained until May 1712, when he removed to a charge at Hackney, near London. He died of apoplexy, June 22, 1714, at Nantwich, while on his return from a visit to his old friends at Chester. His principal work is an Exposition of the Old and New Testament, in 5 vols. folio (1710 and repeatedly since), which was carried down only to the Acts of the Apostles. The remainder was completed after Henry's death by various ministers, whose names are given in some of the editions. This commentary is not a critical work, but rather practical and devotional in its aim, and as such occupies a high place amongst works of its class. Henry wrote several other books, which were published at London in 1830. There are biographies of him by Tong (1716), J. B. Williams (1865), Davies (1844), Hamilton (1853), and Chapman (1859); and see the Diaries and Letters of Philip Henry, edited by Matthew Henry Lee (1883).