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Herbert Henry Farmer
Herbert Henry Farmer (November 27, 1892 – January 13, 1981) was a British preacher, theologian, and academic whose ministry within the Presbyterian Church of England blended pastoral preaching with scholarly insight across six decades. Born in Highbury, London, to William Charles Farmer, a journeyman cabinetmaker, and Mary Ann Buck, he was the youngest of four sons in a working-class family. His academic talent emerged early at Owen’s School in Islington, earning him a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated with first-class honors in Moral Sciences in 1914. A pacifist during World War I, he worked on a farm near Cambridge instead of serving in the military, later pursuing theological studies at Westminster College, Cambridge, where he was ordained in 1919. Farmer’s preaching career began with pastorates at Stafford (1919–1922) and New Barnet (1922–1931), where his heartfelt yet intellectually rigorous sermons gained notice, calling hearers to an obedient relationship with a God of both judgment and grace. In 1931, he joined Hartford Seminary in the United States, serving until 1935, when he returned to England as Barbour Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster College, Cambridge (1935–1960). He later held the Norris-Hulse Professorship of Divinity at the University of Cambridge (1949–1960), preaching and lecturing on divine-human encounters and Christian ethics, notably in his Gifford Lectures (1950–1951), published as Revelation and Religion (1954) and Reconciliation and Religion (1951). Author of works like The World and God (1935) and The Servant of the Word (1941), he shaped countless ministers through his teaching. Married with family details unrecorded, he passed away at age 88 in Birkenhead, England.
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Herbert Henry Farmer emphasizes the significance of considering the lilies of the field as a reflection of God's nature. He delves into how Jesus valued the chance words and small, unnecessary acts of individuals as indicators of their true character, much like the beauty of flowers revealing God's essence. Farmer highlights that beauty in creation, like the lilies, is an overflow of God's heart, an unnecessary yet delightful superfluity that eloquently speaks of the Divine mind.
The Nature of the Heart
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these" (Matt. 6:28-29). The beauty of the flowers reveals something about the nature of God. You remember that Jesus used to set great store by the chance words of men. "Every idle word that men shall speak," he said, "they shall give an account thereof." "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaketh." The unstudied word, the word which we let slip out without thinking and to serve no particular end, the small change of daily intercourse, which we could quite easily dispense with so far as the immediate business of living is concerned,--these, almost more than anything else, reveal the inner man, and are the index of his true quality. So also are the little, superfluous, unnecessary acts of daily life. Most of us manage to do with some grace the necessary things, the things which clamant human need or coercive public opinion demands; but the man who throws little, unnecessary, beautiful acts into his daily conduct, he it is who reveals a truly beautiful soul. The superfluities, the things which flow, not so much out of the pressure of the external situation, as out of the internal pressure of a tender and generous spirit, these declare the man. Now it is the same with beauty as a revelation of God. Beauty in creation is the overflow of God's heart; it is the unstudied Divine word uttered, apparently for no particular purpose and to serve no particular end; an unnecessary, delightful superfluity; therefore, more eloquent of the Divine mind almost than anything else.
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Herbert Henry Farmer (November 27, 1892 – January 13, 1981) was a British preacher, theologian, and academic whose ministry within the Presbyterian Church of England blended pastoral preaching with scholarly insight across six decades. Born in Highbury, London, to William Charles Farmer, a journeyman cabinetmaker, and Mary Ann Buck, he was the youngest of four sons in a working-class family. His academic talent emerged early at Owen’s School in Islington, earning him a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated with first-class honors in Moral Sciences in 1914. A pacifist during World War I, he worked on a farm near Cambridge instead of serving in the military, later pursuing theological studies at Westminster College, Cambridge, where he was ordained in 1919. Farmer’s preaching career began with pastorates at Stafford (1919–1922) and New Barnet (1922–1931), where his heartfelt yet intellectually rigorous sermons gained notice, calling hearers to an obedient relationship with a God of both judgment and grace. In 1931, he joined Hartford Seminary in the United States, serving until 1935, when he returned to England as Barbour Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster College, Cambridge (1935–1960). He later held the Norris-Hulse Professorship of Divinity at the University of Cambridge (1949–1960), preaching and lecturing on divine-human encounters and Christian ethics, notably in his Gifford Lectures (1950–1951), published as Revelation and Religion (1954) and Reconciliation and Religion (1951). Author of works like The World and God (1935) and The Servant of the Word (1941), he shaped countless ministers through his teaching. Married with family details unrecorded, he passed away at age 88 in Birkenhead, England.