Response to the Death of Oliver Hatch

Oliver Hatch, my fourth great-grandfather through the line of my grandfather, Ed Sprott, was a London merchant with a thriving business. His sudden death in 1828, when he was middle aged, inspired a sermon at St. Andrew Holborn, his London parish church. Here I have included excerpts from the sermon (which was later printed as a type of religious tract). The entire sermon is presented in a separate post.

Luke xii. 35, 36. 

Let your loins be girded about and your lights burning; and

ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their Lord, when

he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and

knocketh they may open unto him immediately.

The repeated warnings given by our Lord of the

uncertainty of life, and the consequent necessity

of habitual readiness for death, are so important

in themselves and so interesting to the best feel-

ings of our nature, that, how lightly soever we may

be disposed to regard them while “careful and

troubled about many things,” they cannot be for

ever excluded from our thoughts.

The very circumstances in which our life is

passed, the daily occurrences to which we are ex-

posed, and the unexpected calamities we are com-

pelled to witness, all conspire to remind us of the

uncertain tenure of our present existence, and to

re-echo in our ears the imposing and solemn ad-

monition of the Prophet “prepare to meet thy

God.”

When we see a man in the summer

of his years, flourishing in all the external signs of

health and vigour, fallen as in a moment, by the

stroke of death, who among ourselves shall pre-

sume to hope that his continuance here is more

secure? — Which of us can think it safe to put off

for a more “convenient season” those indispensable

duties on which eternal happiness depends, and

which, if neglected now, many never be accom-

plished?

Surely, my Christian Brethren, if ever there

were a season peculiarly fitted for pressing this

consideration upon your notice, it is the present.

When you reflect that one from among yourselves,

who, when I last addressed you, occupied his usual

place in this assembly, mingling his prayers with

yours, — has since been summoned to the assembly

of the “just, made perfect,” that ere another sab-

bath dawned upon the earth his soul had entered

into an eternal Sabbath, you cannot be surprised,

if with the earnestness of one whose duty it is to

“watch for souls,” I seize the opportunity, of ex-

horting you, “as you love your own salvation,'” to

take heed “lest that hour overtake you unawares;”

that you will, after the example of that worthy

man, “let your loins be girded about, and your

lights burning; and ye yourselves like unto men

that wait for their Lord, when he will return from

the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh,

they may open unto him immediately.”

“A double-minded man,” saith St James, “is

unstable in all his ways.”

Such was not the character of him whose ex-

ample we have now to consider. His mind had

its “loins girt about,” in the strictest sense, with

all necessary and saving “truth.” His religious

sentiments were carefully collected, and securely

fixed in the sound principles of our venerable

Church. Convinced that she was the authorised

and faithful interpreter of the Sacred Oracles, he

received her doctrines, not, indeed, with the blind

attachment of a bigot, but with the unaffected re-

verence, rational humility, and heart-felt gratitude

of one who delighted to know “the truth as it is

in Jesus.” Feeling, therefore, that any deviation

from her doctrines and discipline must be as dan-

gerous as it was needless, he shunned, with a pious

dread, every attempt at religious innovation, per-

fectly content to “worship the God of” his “fathers”

in the same pure and orthodox faith in which the

“glorious company of the apostles, the goodly

fellowship of the prophets,” and “the noble army

of martyrs,” had lived and died.

A man thus alive to the paramount claims of

religion, and thus attached to the sacred forms

which it assumed in the earliest and purest ages

of the Church, was not likely to waste much time

in canvassing new opinions, and to risque the sal-

vation of his soul in a masse of futile speculations.

It was enough for him to know that the Church,

of which he was so sound a member, was in all

its essential properties, a constituent part of the

"Catholic and Apostolic Church;” and that every

individual in it, whose faith was evidenced by a

holy, just, and charitable life, would, by the grace,

of God in Christ Jesus, undoubtedly be saved.

“Why, then,” he would often argue, “why should

we let our minds wander over the wide ocean of

controversy, in doubt and uncertainty, while the

truth is to be found ‘in the ark of Christ's Church?’”

Such singleness of heart, such firmness of re-

solution, and steadfastness of purpose, as our la-

mented friend uniformly exhibited, might proba-

bly make him appear, in the eyes of worldly wis-

dom, too rigid and uncompromising for the present

state of society; but those who knew him best had

the best reasons for believing, that, in maintaining

through “evil report and good,” those principles

which he deemed the soundest, he was as free as any

man from the bitterness of party-spirit, and was

actuated only by the deepest convictions of a well-

regulated understanding. In him they could, with

heartfelt satisfaction, recognise “an Israelite in-

deed, in whom" was " no guile ;" who, having em-

braced the truth, was too honest to use any am-

biguous or equivocal expressions in declaring his

sentiments, and too candid to have recourse to

bye-ways or plausible artifices in discharging his

duty. This open and manly conduct, while it

secured the confidence of friends, afforded no just

ground for the resentment of enemies. Indeed,

among those who most materially differed from

him in principle, there were few, I believe, who

did not regard him as a generous and upright

Christian, whose character was entitled to the re-

spect of every one.

The light of the true Christian is not

confined to the sanctuary. He carries it with him

“whithersoever he goeth” and even though en-

gaged in a daily round of worldly occupations,

can make those very occupations the means of

glorifying his “Father which is in heaven.”

Of this we have a most convincing instance, in

the case of our lamented friend.

If any one might plead excuse for neglecting

the momentous concerns of religion, or limiting

his attention to it, within the narrow bounds of

the Sabbath and the sanctuary, it would be one

whose extensive mercantile connections seemed

to demand his incessant care. But he had early

learned to ponder the important question of his

Redeemer, “what shall it profit a man if he shall

gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”

And estimating rightly the incomparable difference

between the gain and the loss, he gladly conse-

crated his secular employments to the service of

his heavenly Master, and though never “slothful

in business,” was always “fervent in spirit serving

the Lord.” While he relied with humble confi-

dence on the merits of Jesus Christ for acceptance

with God, and confessed that when he had done

all he could he was “an unprofitable servant,”

yet that reliance did not relax but rather stimu-

lated his exertions to abound in “all the fruits of

righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the

glory and praise of God.” “Pure religion and

undefiled” shone so manifestly in the daily trans-

actions of his life, that without making it the sub-

ject of formal professions, or needlessly introduc-

ing it into common conversation, it was suffi-

ciently evident to all who had the happiness of

familiarity with him, that he “used this world as

not abusing it,” and valued it only so far as it

afforded him the means of attaining to a better.

While many, with much inferior means, are

constantly aiming at a show of greatness which

they do not possess, and with a culpable emula-

tion of their superiors, straining every nerve to

keep up a fictitious splendour, insomuch that they

have nothing left wherewith to “lay up treasures

in heaven;” this good Christian, actuated by that

charity which “vaunteth not itself, is not puffed

up,” was content to “renounce (according to his

baptismal covenant) the vain pomp and glory of

the world,” that he might “have to give to him

that needeth.” His many acts of charity were in

the purest sense disinterested. Situated as he was,

it is impossible to conceive him to have been in-

fluenced by the hope of any other benefit or re-

ward than what he has been called to receive.

How many hundreds—aye thousands, of poor chil-

dren in this metropolis--)and some hundreds of

them are now before us,) owe it to his exertions,

under, divine Providence, that they have been

taught the way of salvatiom, and “brought nigh

unto God*!” How many “poor, and blind, and

maimed,” and destitute, of his fellow-creatures

have obtained by his means, relief and comfort!

These were the objects of his unceasing attention.

And though ever ready to :use hospitality with-

out gruding,'” to his “friends and rich neigh-

bours,” who could make him “a recompence,”—

he never forgot that these poor members of Christ’s

body were recommended to him by the head of

the Church, for this special reason, “they cannot

recompense thee, but thou shalt be recompensed

at the resurrection of the just.”

* The indefatigable and extensive exertions of Mr. Hatch,

as Treasurer to the City National Schools, are too well known

to need any detailed account of them here. That a layman

in his situation should devote himself, as he did, to the pro-

moting of Religious Education among the children, of the

poor, is perhaps no more than might have been expected from

one who felt as he did the value of religious knowledge.

Neither is it surprising that, attached as he was to our vener-

able Establishment, he should prefer that system of education

which unites them to the faith and worship of the Church of

England. But it may be interesting to those who do not feel

quite so strongly upon these points as our departed friend did,

to know that in addition to his religious motives, which were

ever predominant, he was influenced in the support of these

Schools by the fullest conviction that if ever the education of

the poor is to be made a national benefit, it must be under the

conduct and superintendence of the National Clergy.

The same faith which made

him instruct the ignorant, clothe the naked, and

succor the destitute, made him “worship God

in spirit and in truth,” not only by attending the

outward forms, of religion, and “walking in all

the commandments and ordinances of the Lord

blameless” himself, but by carrying religion into

the bosom of his family, and like the Father of

the faithful, commanding “his children and his

household after him, to keep the way of the Lord,

to do justice and judgment.”

He was not content with allowing his domes-

tics, if they wished, to be religious, but consi-

dered himself bound in duty both to them and to

his Saviour, to exert the influence and authority

with which Providence had invested him, to make

them so.

Every opportunity therefore which was afforded

him, he gladly devoted to the moral and religious

improvement of himself and his family, resolving

with the pious Psalmist to “walk in” his “house

with a perfect heart,” discountenancing every kind

of deceit and wickedness, and suffering none but

such as would “lead a godly life” to be his “ser-

vant*.”

Thus throughout his short but useful career,

godliness and charity might be observed mutually

succeeding and aiding each other, with so much

constancy and perseverance, that where the duties

of the one ceased, there the exercise of the other,

began.

Sudden, therefore, and untimely as his depart-

ture is to us, to him it could never prove surprise

ing. His “light” was always “burning:” he

was in that blessed state of readiness that when

his Master came and knocked, he could “open

to him immediately.” And it is a fact which

must ever afford consolation to those who love his

memory, that the herald of his Judge found him

not “overcharged with surfeiting and drunken-

ness, and cares of this world,” but labouring in

the cause of charity+. Suitable to such a life were

the manner and circumstances of his death. It

pleased the Lord to carry away his servant, as in

a moment, from the discharge of that work in

which he delighted, to the enjoyment of its re-

ward. He escaped, by divine mercy, from the

pains of a protracted illness. The garment of

mortality easily dropt off, and the soul fled to his

eternal rest.

+After having attended divine service on Ash-Wednesday,

Mr. Hatch presided at the Committee of the City National

Schools, from whence he went home, under an apparently

slight indisposition: the following Saturday terminated his life.

“Mark the perfect man, and behold the up-

right, for the latter end of that man is peace.”

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,—

they rest from their labours, and their works do

follow them.” May the memorial of that righteous

man remain for ever with us ! May it stimulate

our piety, enlarge our charity, and awaken us to

an active, steady, unceasing exercise of every

Christian duty; that while we remember how well

he lived, and how suddenly he died, we may learn

to be “ready also,” seeing that “at such an hour

as we think not, the Son of Man cometh.”