William Grimshaw (1708–63) is not as well known as John Wesley or George Whitefield, but in the 18th century he was a preacher mightily used by God in the Great Awakening Revivals.
Grimshaw was born in the village of Brindle in Lancashire County in northwest England on September 3, 1708. Nothing is known about his parents, but he did have a brother who was also a minister.
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He attended a public school in nearby Blackburn and then graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1731 as a priest in the Church of England.
Grimshaw served at Rochdale and then Todmorden for 11 years. He wasn’t diligent in his duties and spent much time in worldly pursuits. He finally became concerned about his own soul and decided to reform, praying four times a day as well as fasting.
He married a young widow, Sarah Sutcliffe, with whom he had a son and a daughter. He was overcome with sorrow when she died in 1739.
Embracing Christ ‘only for my all in all’
Then he read a book by Puritan author John Owen called, “The Doctrine of Justification by Faith.” He wrote, “I was now willing to renounce myself … and to embrace Christ only for my all in all … . What a taste of the pardoning love of God!”
In 1742 Grimshaw moved to Haworth in West Yorkshire. His congregation consisted of a dozen regular parishioners, and within a year the number grew to 1,000. Grimshaw wrote to a friend, “Souls were affected by the Word, brought to see their lost estate by nature, and to experience peace through faith in the blood of Jesus.”
Grimshaw worked diligently, preaching 20 and often 30 times in a week in Haworth and nearby towns and villages. He was a man of rare character: benevolent in helping the poor, a peacemaker who led others to reconcile their differences, and above all, a person of humility. He wrote, “What have we to boast of? What have we that we have not received? Freely by grace we are saved.”
His last sermon was March 10, 1763 — he had contracted typhus and died on April 7. As he requested, Grimshaw was buried in ordinary clothes and in a plain coffin. The words of Philippians 1:21 were inscribed on it: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
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