A False and a True Saint
By J.P. Thackway
Divine guidance and supply in the life of J.H. Newman and George Müller
It might seem that John Henry Newman and George Müller have nothing in common. Fundamentally this is true. Newman was an Anglican turned Roman Catholic who did much to further its heresies in the England of the 19th century. Müller was a Plymouth Brethren preacher and evangelist, whom the Lord used in the conversion of multitudes. He also co-founded the Scriptural Knowledge Institution for Home and Abroad, and five Orphanages which cared for 10,024 orphans during Muller’s lifetime. He also trusted in the Lord alone for everything needed to support these great works.
No one would put dear Mr. Müller next to J.H. Newman unless it was to draw instructive comparisons and contrasts. And this is what I hope to do in this article. Placing the two men side by side brings out some fascinating and important lessons for us who live much later. We will do this regarding the subject of divine guidance and the Lord’s provision. Here, faith is sometimes tested, but in true Christians it shines forth as a compelling example to others.
The two men lived at around the same time, almost spanning the 19th century: Newman from 1801 until 1890, and Müller from 1805 until 1898. Their spheres of influence were in distinct parts of the United Kingdom: Newman’s mainly in Oxford and Birmingham (also Ireland), and Müller’s mainly in Bristol, but also in later life visiting the Continent, the Middle East, America, Australia, India, China and Japan.
Saints
Both these men were “saints.” Newman was pronounced so by pope Francis on October 13, 2019. This sainthood, of course, means nothing in scriptural terms, but Romanism accords this to certain outstanding individuals who, following an elaborate series of qualifications, are finally canonised.
In the case of George Müller, his sainthood happened the moment he was born again and savingly united to Christ, around 1825. He was numbered among the scriptural saints of the New Testament, like those to whom Paul wrote in Rome: “beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7)
Scriptural
Scriptural saints like Müller are called so because they are set apart for God (Psalm 4:3) and are holy by gracious contact with Him (Psalm 86:2). Then begins their progressive sanctification in heart and life. The Lord does this through the inworking of the Holy Spirit (2 Thessalonians 2:13), the application of God’s word (John 17:17), providential dealings (Romans 8:28,29), and divine chastening (Hebrews 12:6,10). To all which J.H. Newman was a stranger, because these only belong to the true children of God.
Unlikely
George Müller was an unlikely convert and leader of the Plymouth Brethren. Born in Kroppenstädt, a village in Prussia, he quickly learned the way of the wicked. He was a thief, a liar and a gambler. He confessed to stealing money from his father at just 10 years old. At fourteen, while his mother was dying, he was drinking and playing cards with friends. At the age of 16 he spent five weeks in prison for non-payment of hotel bills. He was released only when his Father sent the money to settle the debt.
His father wanted him to be a Lutheran clergyman with a good standing and income. Entering the University of Halle divinity hall, Müller’s life gave no evidence of any concern for the things of God.
I was as careless as ever. I had no Bible and had not read any Scripture for years. I seldom went to church; and, out of custom only, I took the Lord’s Supper twice a year. I never heard the gospel preached. Nobody told me that Jesus meant for Christians, by the help of God, to live according to the Holy Scriptures (Autobiography, Whitaker House, 1984, pages 14,15).
However, in 1825 Müller’s friend Beta invited him to the home of Johann Wagner, who conducted meetings there. The group met to sing, pray, and read the word of God and a printed sermon. That evening Müller was so affected that he wrote, “I have no doubt … that He began a work of grace in me. Even though I scarcely had any knowledge of who God truly was, that evening was the turning point in my life.”
From Germany he came to London and from there to Devon, and afterwards to Bristol, where his main life’s work began.
Tragic
John Henry Newman was a tragic figure who converted to Roman Catholicism. He began with spiritual advantages, but was lured by this satanic system that took them all away, and with them his immortal soul. He was born into a middle-class family, to a mother of Huguenot descent. Like most families of that time, the Newmans were members of the Church of England. John Henry, the eldest of six children, was no stranger to the Bible from an early age, especially through his mother’s influence.
When aged 15, during his last year at school, Newman professed evangelical conversion, of which he was “still … more certain than that I have hands and feet,” (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, or Defence of my Life, page 4). One of his teachers, Walter Mayers (who had been converted two years earlier in 1814) lent him books by evangelical and Calvinistic authors: William Law, William Romaine, William Beveridge and Thomas Scott (The Force of Truth); one even by Thomas Newton which taught that the pope is the Antichrist! And he was local secretary of the Church Missionary Society. Newman seemed firmly in the Faith: the fruit of the Evangelical Revival from the previous century.
We are left asking, “What might have been?” However, Newman gradually moved away from the gospel, finally rejecting the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith, upon which the true church, in Luther’s words, stands or falls. As a Church of England clergyman, he became disillusioned with its status quo, and joined men like E.B. Pusey and John Keble to publish “Tracts for the Times” seeking, in their view, “a better Reformation.”
These pamphlets tried to show that the Church of England was compatible with Roman Catholicism, from which it had (in their view) erroneously departed at the Reformation. Its spiritual renewal lay in reviving Roman Catholic doctrines and rituals, and thus restoring the Church. Between 1833–41 ninety tracts were published, and Newman wrote about one third of them. “Tractarianism” was also known as “The Oxford Movement” because it was centred there.
Newman’s attempt in Tract 90 to give a “Catholic” interpretation to the Thirty-Nine Articles brought a storm of protest, forced an end to the series, and compelled him to leave his church in Oxford. In his own words,
I have, whether rightly or wrongly, resigned St. Mary’s; but because I think the Church of Rome the Catholic Church, and ours not part of the Catholic Church, because not in communion with Rome; and because I feel that I could not honestly be a teacher in it any longer (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, page 221).
The influence of the tracts, however, was strong and gave rise to the “Anglo-Catholic” movement within Anglicanism. For Newman himself, however, he must go all the way, and in 1845 he was received into the Roman Catholic church, and in 1879 he was made a cardinal.
Compare
We have glanced at the lives of George Müller and J.H. Newman. Now we can compare their approach to an aspect of Christian experience that interests us all: that of divine guidance and the Lord supplying our needs. In this exercise, we show what we are spiritually made of. Our approach to the Lord’s sovereign will and our meek continuance in it is revealing. Dr. Lloyd-Jones once said: “There is nothing which so certifies the genuineness of a man’s faith as his patience and his patient endurance, his keeping on steadily in spite of everything.” How do these two men compare when it comes to this? For an answer let us see how they each react to difficult and trying situations.
Newman
First comes Newman. In 1833, while still an Anglican priest, he was on a trip to the Mediterranean island of Sicily. While there, he became seriously ill and was close to death for ten days. Having recovered, and well enough to sail home, he had to endure a frustrating delay. In his own words,
Before starting from my inn, I sat down on my bed and began to sob bitterly. My servant, who had acted as my nurse, asked what ailed me. I could only answer, ‘I have a work to do in England.’ I was aching to get home, yet for want of a vessel I was kept at Palermo for three weeks. I began to visit the churches, and they calmed my impatience, though I did not attend any services. At last, I got off in an orange boat, bound for Marseilles. We were becalmed for a whole week in the Straits of Bonifacio, and it was there that I wrote the lines, ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’ which have since become so well known. I was writing verses the whole time of my passage. At length I got to Marseilles, and set off for England (Apologia Pro Vita Sua, page 35).
Newman’s “work to do in England” was, of course, his Tracts for the Times mentioned earlier. Yet, he speaks of petulantly sitting down and bitterly sobbing, complaining about being prevented from doing his “work,” of being impatient, of visiting churches to feel calmer yet not attending any means of grace, and resorting to writing poetry during a further delay.
In this quotation, we look in vain for any mention of God’s sovereignty, submission to His will and time, of patient waiting for the Lord. Such gracious reactions belong only to true saints. Real godliness shines in the most difficult divine dispensations, but where there is none, carnal nature can only “kick against the pricks.”
George Müller
Turning to saintly George Müller we are in a different world. There are many instances where Providence sorely tried him, but where grace shone so brightly. Here are some instances, taken from his biography by A.T. Pierson (George Muller of Bristol, James Nisbet, 1901).
For example, in the closing months of 1838 God seemed purposely putting them to a severe test, whether they (Müller and his helpers) did trust Him alone. The orphan work was in continual straits: at times not one half-penny was in the hands of the matrons of the three houses. But not only was no knowledge of such facts allowed to leak out, or any hint of the extreme need ever given to outsiders, but even those who inquired with intent to aid, were not informed.
One evening, a brother ventured to ask how the balance would stand when the next accounts were made up, and whether it would be as great in favour of the orphans as when the previous balance-sheet had been prepared. Mr. Muller’s calm but evasive answer was: ‘It will be as great as the Lord pleases.’ This was no intentional rudeness. To have said more would have been turning from the one Helper to make at least a direct appeal to man for help; and every such snare was carefully avoided lest the one great aim should be lost sight of: to prove to all men that it is safe to trust only in the Living God (page 160).
As always, a faithful God met the need. However,
In November 1839, when the needs were again great and the supplies very small, he was kept in peace: ‘I was not,’ he says, ‘looking at the little in hand, but at the fulness of God’ (page 164).
In July 1845, the year that Newman joined the ranks of Antichrist, George Muller gave this testimony,
Though for about seven years, our funds have been so exhausted that it has been comparatively a rare case that there have been means in hand to meet the necessities of the orphans for three days together, yet I have been only once tried in spirit, and that was on September 18, 1838, when for the first time the Lord seemed not to regard our prayer. But when He sent help at that time, and I saw that it was only for the trial of our faith, and not because He had forsaken the work, that we were brought so low, my soul was so strengthened and encouraged that I have not only not been allowed to distrust the Lord since that time, but I have not even been cast down when in the deepest poverty (page 168).
Such calm and gracious witness to God’s sovereign faithfulness is a blessing to us. Muller learned in every situation to cast his burden quietly and peacefully upon the Lord, and he was sustained. We can do this as well, for Muller’s God is our God and he will be our Guide (Psalm 48:14).
Here is another instance of Muller’s deep sense that the Lord is over all and is kind and wise in His dealings. This is what he writes about prayer,
How truly precious it is that everyone who rests alone upon the Lord Jesus for salvation, has in the living God a father, to whom he may fully unbosom himself concerning the most minute affairs of his life, and concerning everything that lies upon his heart!
Go for yourself, with all your temporal and spiritual wants, to the Lord. Bring also the necessities of your friends and relatives to the Lord. Only make the trial, and you will perceive how able and willing He is to help you. Should you, however, not at once obtain answers to your prayers, he not discouraged, but continue patiently,
and believingly, perseveringly to wait upon God: and as assuredly as that which you ask would be for your real good, and therefore for the honour of the Lord; and as assuredly as you ask it solely on the ground of the worthiness of our Lord Jesus, so assuredly you will at last obtain the blessing. I myself have had to wait upon God concerning certain matters for years, before I obtained answers to my prayers; but at last they came. At this very time, I have still to renew my requests daily before God, respecting a certain blessing for which I have besought Him for eleven years and a half, and which I have as yet obtained only in part, but concerning which I have no doubt that the full blessing will he granted in the end … The great point is, that we ask only for that which it would he for the glory of God to give to us; for that, and that alone, can be for our real good (page 457).
Different
These breathe a different spirit from the writings of Newman. There is no denying that Newman was a towering figure among the men of the 19th century. He was an intellectual, an original thinker, a literary and poetical genius, and rose to eminence accordingly. His writings were voluminous and covered a staggering breadth of subjects and genres – so much that they are prized, analysed and studied by academics and scholars to this day. There is even in them some relics of his evangelical profession of faith.
However, this is different from writings that are gracious, spiritual and experiential like those of George Muller. Here, we find scriptural, godly, meek, Christlike and Holy Spirit-blessed words of truth and edification that feed the souls, and nourish the godliness, of countless true saints to this day and until our Lord shall come. This is because they were first experienced by Muller and then passed on to us.
Concluding thoughts
Let us draw some concluding thoughts from comparing and contrasting these two men.
1] George Muller knew God in a way that Newman did not.
“The orphan’s friend” enjoyed access to the Father, and he delighted in God. His service was perfect freedom. Newman seemed to be struggling in his soul and mired in controversy amid the turbulence of church and state. There is no doubt who, in the world’s eyes, is the more “famous” (1 John 4:5). Yet, it was Muller who is “approved in Christ” (Romans 16:10) and one of “the elders (who) received a good report” (Hebrews 11:2).
2] Satan does not give his servants a restful trust.
Unless it is in delusion: “There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked” (Isaiah 48:22). Muller on the other hand, enjoyed a calm confidence in the Lord that enabled him to pray and quietly wait for every answer from heaven, assured of the wisdom, kindness and power of His heavenly Father.
3] What a legacy George Muller left behind!
By his death in 1898, five orphan houses testified to the faithfulness of God, together with schools, not to mention the Bibles and tracts distributed everywhere, together with his gracious writings. And when the end came, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15). His example and life remain an inspiration to this day.
4] Newman’s legacy warns us of the danger of apostasy.
To give up justification by faith alone is to forfeit Christ, “the LORD our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). It is to turn away from salvation by grace, reconciliation to God, the adventure of the Christian life, and eternal life. Newman did not re-Romanise the Anglican Church, nor did he improve the Roman Church. Ironically, although the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Established church remains, the rest of it is nigh-apostate, awash with the spirit of the age, and shot through with theological liberalism. And the Roman Catholic Church is as apostate and antichrist as ever.
5] The perseverance of the saints is what counts.
The Puritan John Whitlock said, “Here is the Christian’s way and his end … His way is holiness. His end happiness.” Muller and Newman separate
here as light does from darkness, summed up in Proverbs 4:18: “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.” In the end there is no comparison.
The contrast was even visible. One of the last photographs of Newman is of a shrivelled, pinch-faced, expressionless old man sitting in a throne-like chair. A last photograph of Muller is of a man standing, his countenance shining in a look of sweet and peaceful joy. The more one knows the Lord Jesus the more it shows even in the outward appearance (Proverbs 16:31).
May the Lord keep us faithful to the truth and to real religion in these dark days. And help us to live to prove the faithfulness of God in all matters of guidance and the supply of our needs. This alone brings rest and quietness to the soul and honour and glory to His name. And when we “depart,” may it be to have “an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” – where true saints are eternally glorified, their sanctification complete, to His eternal praise.