We Need More of These, Lord

The True Disposition of a Pastor’s Heart—Charles Simeon (1759 – 1836)
When he was vicar of Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge, a whole generation of evangelical pastors looked to Charles Simeon for godly leadership. One writer says he was a man “who was a sinner like you and me, who was a pastor, and who, year after year, in his trials, ‘grew downward’ in humility and upward in his adoration of Christ.”1 Here Simeon describes the godly man’s true demeanour as he waits before God:

Repentance is in every view so desirable, so necessary, so suited to honour God, that I seek that above all. The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears. I long to be in my proper place, my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust . . . I feel this to be safe ground. Here I cannot err . . . I am sure that whatever God may despise . . . He will not despise the broken and contrite heart.2