- Home
- Speakers
- Frederick W. Robertson
- Godliness
Frederick W. Robertson
Frederick W. Robertson (February 3, 1816 – August 15, 1853) was an English preacher and Anglican clergyman whose brief but impactful ministry transformed pulpit oratory in Victorian England with its depth and humanity. Born in London, England, to Frederick Robertson, a retired army captain, and Mary Isabella Beatson, he was the eldest of six children in a military family that moved to Le Havre, France, in 1818, then settled near Cheltenham, England, by 1821. Educated privately due to frail health, he excelled at Brasenose College, Oxford (B.A. 1840), where he was influenced by evangelicalism and the Oxford Movement, ordained a deacon in 1840 and priest in 1841. Robertson’s preaching career began as curate in Winchester (1840) and Cheltenham (1842–1846), followed by a brief stint in Oxford (1846–1847), before his defining role as incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton (1847–1853). His sermons—delivered to overflowing crowds of artisans, aristocrats, and doubters—blended intellectual rigor with emotional appeal, tackling faith, doubt, and social justice, later published posthumously as Sermons Preached at Brighton (1855–1872). Physically frail, he served as a military chaplain in Portugal (1841) and traveled Europe seeking health, but his Brighton tenure cemented his fame. Married to Helen Denys in 1842, daughter of a Cheltenham surgeon, they had three children—Helen, Frederick (died infancy), and Albert—before her death in childbirth in 1849. Robertson died at age 37 in Brighton, England, from a brain abscess.
Download
Topic
Sermon Summary
Frederick W. Robertson preaches about the dangers of worldliness, emphasizing the need to detach from outward, transitory, and unreal things in the world. He explains that love for the inward, eternal, and true aspects of life must replace the love for worldly pleasures, as one affection will naturally displace the other. Robertson highlights that experiencing the kingdom within leads to a fading love for superficial emotions and a shift towards true blessedness. He stresses that encountering the beauty of the King and embracing truth transforms one's perspective on worldly pursuits, making them insignificant in comparison to the everlasting love of the Father.
Godliness
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15). Worldliness then consists in these three things:--Attachment to the Outward--attachment to the Transitory--attachment to the Unreal: in opposition to love for the Inward, the Eternal, the True: and the one of these affections is necessarily expelled by the other. If a man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. But let a man once feel the power of the kingdom that is within, and then the love fades of that emotion whose life consists only in the thrill of a nerve, or the vivid sensation of a feeling: he loses his happiness and wins his blessedness. Let a man get but one glimpse of the King in His beauty, and then the forms and shapes of things here, are to him but the types of an invisible loveliness: types which he is content should break and fade. Let but a man feel truth--that goodness is greatness--that there is no other greatness--and then the degrading reverence with which the titled of this world bow before wealth, and the ostentation with which the rich of this world profess their familiarity with title: all the pride of life, what is it to him? The love of the Inward--Everlasting, Real--the love, that is, of the Father, annihilates the love of the world.
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download
Frederick W. Robertson (February 3, 1816 – August 15, 1853) was an English preacher and Anglican clergyman whose brief but impactful ministry transformed pulpit oratory in Victorian England with its depth and humanity. Born in London, England, to Frederick Robertson, a retired army captain, and Mary Isabella Beatson, he was the eldest of six children in a military family that moved to Le Havre, France, in 1818, then settled near Cheltenham, England, by 1821. Educated privately due to frail health, he excelled at Brasenose College, Oxford (B.A. 1840), where he was influenced by evangelicalism and the Oxford Movement, ordained a deacon in 1840 and priest in 1841. Robertson’s preaching career began as curate in Winchester (1840) and Cheltenham (1842–1846), followed by a brief stint in Oxford (1846–1847), before his defining role as incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton (1847–1853). His sermons—delivered to overflowing crowds of artisans, aristocrats, and doubters—blended intellectual rigor with emotional appeal, tackling faith, doubt, and social justice, later published posthumously as Sermons Preached at Brighton (1855–1872). Physically frail, he served as a military chaplain in Portugal (1841) and traveled Europe seeking health, but his Brighton tenure cemented his fame. Married to Helen Denys in 1842, daughter of a Cheltenham surgeon, they had three children—Helen, Frederick (died infancy), and Albert—before her death in childbirth in 1849. Robertson died at age 37 in Brighton, England, from a brain abscess.