Remembering Ryland on the anniversary of his death, July 24: a guest post by Garrett Walden

This is a guest post by Garrett Walden, who is a pastor at Grace Heritage Church in Auburn, Alabama. He’s married to Kat, and they have four children. In addition to his regular preaching ministry at his church, he’s an editor for The London Lyceum and has a ThM from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

232 years ago, on July 24, 1792, the Particular Baptist minister of Northampton, John Collett Ryland departed this world. To those who knew him, he was unforgettable and we honor his usefulness to Christ’s kingdom by remembering him.

The elder Ryland is best known for his alleged rebuke of young William Carey: “Sit down, young man! When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your help or mine!” Interpretations of this event differ, but those who have looked into Ryland’s life and work recognize him as a man of extraordinary intellect, piety, and service to the church.

In August of 1792, a month after his death, Ryland’s last published work went to the press, entitled, Select Essays on the Moral Virtues. It contains an explanatory note from his son, Herman Witsius Ryland (1760–1838). The note explains that the work is not Ryland Sr.’s best work, but that it demonstrates “the last efforts of a great mind, unnerved by the rapid decay of nature.”[1] But just as important was the son’s narrative of his father’s decline in health. He related that in December 1791, his father’s health “received a sudden shock which reduced him to a state of bodily and even mental weakness from which he never recovered.”[2] He could occasionally get to public worship at the church by carriage, and he continued to lead in family worship at home, but besides that, he remained confined to his bedroom. Even still, “his understanding appeared, at times, to possess its wonted vigor, and an ardent and irresistible desire to improve mankind, actuated him to the very last.”[3]

Ryland died on June 24, 1792, at his home in Enfield. He had planned for his final words to be, “Christ is Jehovah God, my righteousness and strength.” But when the moment finally came, he responded to a question from William Newman about his frame of mind, “Happy, happy, happy! O what ease of body! O what ease of soul!”[4] He had requested to be buried at Bunhill Field alongside “the three great Johns, as he used to call them”: John Owen, John Gill, and John Brine. However, he was actually buried at the end of the baptistry at College Street Church in Northampton, and a brass plate on the wall reads:

Sacred

to the Memory of the

REV. JOHN RYLAND, A.M.

who was eminently blessed and qualified

for raising the Interest of God his Saviour,

which was exceedingly reduced[5] in this place,

where his ministrations were so successful

that this House was twice enlarged.

The warm Pathos, the vivid Zeal, the striking Manner

of his delivering the Truths of the everlasting Gospel,

need no Encomium; as they stand amply recorded

in the Hearts of his beloved Flock.

after being xxxii Years their Pastor,

he was gathered unto his People

July 29, 1792.

Aged 69.[6]

In a letter dated September 8, 1823, Robert Hall Jr. writes of John Collett Ryland, “He was a most extraordinary man, and rarely, if ever, has full justice been done to his character.”[7] I believe this is true both of his personal character and this theological writing. Theologically, Ryland was an orthodox Calvinist in the stream of John Gill; however, his love for the revivalist George Whitefield, for the writings of Jonathan Edwards, and the growth of his churches in Warwick and Northampton (while many other Baptist churches of the time were in decline) make Ryland Sr. difficult to categorize. He is most certainly not the frigid, anti-missional, hyper-Calvinist he is often made out to be.

At the death of Ryland, the Charles Buck (1771–1815), a young Anglican lawyer who later became an Independent minister and notable author, wrote in a letter to a friend:

I find that great man of God, Mr. Ryland, is gone home. I cannot say, but that I experienced some emotions of sorrow when I heard it, because I respected him as a man of grace as well as intellect. Where was the man that possessed such a capacious understanding; such a rich genius, such unaccountable fire and zeal, and a soul filled with the noblest ideas of God; with such hatred to sin, with such love to holiness, with such unbounded desire to promote the glory of Christ? Though his body was debilitated, and he for some months rendered incapable of attending to public duty, yet I never was in his company, but I was sure to find something profitable; yea, what he has said I believe will not be easily erased from my mind, while I am this side of the grave. But he is gone, and that to dwell with Him whom he ardently loved, and now incessantly adores. O let us be anticipating the happy time when we also shall be called away, to enter into that rest which remains for the people of God.[8]

Endearing remarks from men like Buck who knew Ryland personally are invaluable to help distinguish fact from legend, especially for a figure like Ryland whose legacy has been (unjustly) shadowed by a dark cloud of negative information.

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[1] John Ryland, Select Essays, on the Moral Virtues, and on Genius, Science, and Taste, Interspersed with Striking Facts. Being the Author’s Last Present to the Public, in the Seventieth Year of His Age (London: H.D. Symonds, 1792), i.

[2] Ryland, Select Essays on the Moral Virtues, i.

[3] Ryland, Select Essays on the Moral Virtues, i.

[4] Rippon, The Gentle Dismission of Saints, 50.

[5] The interest of the Savior being “reduced” in the church means that the vitality of the church had reached a low point. The church was spiritually unhealthy when Ryland arrived.

[6] Newman, Evangelical Magazine for 1800, 405. It is curious that the plate includes his years at Enfield in his years as their pastor, and that they date his burial date as the time when he was “gathered unto his People.”

[7] Newman, Rylandiana, 198.

[8] Charles Buck, Letter 14, dated August 8, 1792, in Styles, The Memoirs and Remains of the Late Rev. Charles Buck, 160.