There can be very few, if any, ministers who have been locked out of their own church buildings. The great Charles Simeon (1759-1836) had this experience. Appointed Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge by the bishop, but against the wishes of most of the congregation, he struggled for twelve years before being able to exercise his ministry properly. First the church wardens locked the pews, then the church itself to prevent him from holding the evening service. In spite of this he persevered until finally he won over not only the congregation but also the town and the university. This, of course, was achieved, not by church politics, but by the powerful preaching of the gospel.
He had been born into a well-off family and he went to Eton College before going on to King’s College, Cambridge. It was here that he was converted around Easter time in 1779. On his arrival, he discovered that he was expected to take part in Holy Communion only three weeks later. This filled him with dread and he set about preparing for it by reading all the books he could find. It was thus that he became convinced of his unfitness to partake and was led to Christ.
The rest of his life, eminently interesting and worthy of careful attention, was devoted to his parish and also many and varied causes. Many students were influenced by him. These young men, called ‘Simeonites’ or ‘Sims’, were the forerunners of the Cambridge, and then national and even international, Christian unions. Many of them became evangelical Anglican clergymen. Simeon developed a system of expository preaching, based on a work by a Frenchman, Jean Claude, which became a model for the young men who surrounded him.
Simeon’s influence was not limited to Cambridge or even England. One student, Henry Martyn, is remembered as a vastly influential missionary to India and beyond. Simeon’s journeys around the country to preach took him to Scotland with striking long-term effects, including the conversion of the great missionary to India, Alexander Duff. Anxious that young preachers should not have to go through the same trials that he had, he set up The Simeon Trust, which, (strangely to non-conformist ears, but very effective) bought up ‘advowsons’ – the right to present a man to a vacant living. Thus the trustees could, and still do, ensure that evangelicals were placed in vacant, often strategic, parishes.
Theologically, Simeon worked according to what he called ‘the principle of balance’. He was adamant that the preacher must not distort the meaning of a text to make it fit into his system. This admirable principle, wrongly applied, led him to argue that there was a balance to be found between Calvinism and Arminianism. He seems to have been unaware that the elements of Arminianism that he wanted to include in his balance, such as ‘free agency’ and the reality of biblical warnings against apostasy, were already part of true Calvinism (as distinct from hyper-calvinism).
I just have one real reservation about this biography: the sub-title. Simeon was certainly a man of ‘extraordinary influence’, but an ‘ordinary pastor’ – never.
John Legg
book link
http://www.christianbook.com/charles-simeon-ordinary-pastor-extraordinary-influence/derek-prime/9781846253133/pd/253133
http://www.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_109_4_Chapman.pdf