Hanmer William Webb-Peploe

Hanmer William Webb-Peploe was born in 1837, in England.

He was the vicar (clergyman of a chapel) of St. Paul’s in Onslow, England and prebendary (honorary senior parish priest) of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. These were part of the evangelical branch of the Anglican Church.

When asked about his favorite Bible verse, he replied in writing:

A very large number of texts have been, in my lifetime, of special service to me, through the goodness of God; but that if I have to choose one out of the whole book which has been of special help to me, I should mention the words in II Corinthians 12:9: ‘My grace is sufficient for thee,’ which were made by God’s mercy at a time of special trial a blessing of remarkable force to my soul. It is now twenty-six years since this message was given to me.

It had pleased God to remove my youngest child under circumstances of peculiar trial and pain, and I had just laid my little one’s body in the church yard when, on returning home, I felt it my duty to preach to my people on the meaning of trial, and finding that this text was in the lesson for the following Sunday, I chose it as my Master’s message to them and myself; but, on trying to prepare my notes, I found that in honesty I could not say that the words were true and therefore knelt down and earnestly asked God to ‘Let His grace be sufficient for me,’ and while I was thus pleading I opened my eyes and saw a framed illuminated text, which my mother had given me only a few days before, and which I had told my servant to place upon the wall during my absence at the holiday resort where my little one was taken away from us. I did not notice the words on returning to my house, but as I looked up and wiped my eyes, the words met my gaze, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee.’ The ‘is’ was picked out in bright green, while the ‘my’ and the ‘thee’ were painted in another color. In one moment the message came straight to my soul, as a rebuke for offering such a prayer as ‘Lord let thy grace be sufficient for me:’ for the answer was almost as an audible voice, ‘You fool, how dare you ask for that which is? God cannot make it any more sufficient than he has made it: get up and believe it and you will find it true, because the Lord says it in the simplest way: “My grace is (not shall be or may be) sufficient for thee.”’

‘My,’ ‘is,’ and ‘thee’ were from that moment, I hope, indelibly fixed upon my heart; and I (thank God) have been trying to live in the reality of the message from that day forward to the present time. The lesson that came to me, and which I seek to convey to others, is, Never turn God’s facts into hopes or prayers, but simply use them as realities and you will find them powerful as you believe them.

Rev. Peploe (as he called himself) was one of the most prominent personalities of Keswick, being absent only twice in 47 years and serving as the principal speaker. He always wore a white bow-tie, instead of the clerical collar. He stood erect and commanded deep respect, personifying the conferences. His voice was powerful, and his knowledge of Scripture was unsurpassed, quoting verses from memory, word perfectly. He would stand with open Bible in hand, and like a torrent, pour forth the teaching of Scripture.

He was a speaker at the spiritually rich Northfield Conferences at Moody, along with F.B. Meyer, G. Campbell Morgan, W. Graham Scroggie, W.H. Griffith Thomas, A.T. Pierson, C.I. Scofield, James M. Gray, R.A. Torrey, A.C. Gaebelein, H.A. Ironside, etc.

Speaking of the Northfield Conference and Webb-Peploe's addresses, A.T. Pierson, wrote in the introduction of a book that recorded them, The Victorious Life, the following:

Prebendary Webb-Peploe is well known in Great Britain as the head of the Evangelical or Low Church party in the Anglican Church, and one of the chief promoters of the Keswick movement, which has been so closely associated with the advance of spiritual life as to come to represent almost a new era of practical religious thought and experience ….

This remarkable man, Prebendary Webb-Peploe, is yet living, and words which might be fitting to utter of the dead, lack delicacy and propriety, when they anticipate such departure for the higher sphere. But it is no fulsome compliment to say that God has given him a very remarkable and unusual combination of elements, which together constitute the teaching faculty. The Bible is his great text-book, and of that book he is as thorough a master as any man living. His long a laborious studies of the Word of God, joined to a peculiarly keen and subtle power of analysis, and a really phenomenal memory, enable him to outline a whole book and cite chapter and verse in rapid succession, as he traces the development of a doctrinal or practical truth from Genesis to Revelation.

But best of all, his teachings are illustrated and illuminated by an experience which gives unique authority and unction to his utterance. There is that nameless charm which always invests the speech of one who speaks what he knows and testifies what he has seen.

There is also a personal practical grip to his teaching. It takes hold and will not let go. It seems so reasonable, Scriptural, resistless, that the hearer feels himself as in a vise. The will cannot easily escape vital decisions. Unbelief is rebuked and made to seem both too wrong and too absurd to be longer cherished.

He died on July 19, 1923.

Sources

Frederick Barton, Favorite Scripture Texts of Famous People (Redding, California: Pleasant Places Press, 2005) page 195.

George G. Houghton, “Lewis Sperry Chafer, 1871-1952.” Dallas Theological Seminary, Bibliotheca Sacra Volume 128 (Dallas Theological Seminary, 1971; 2002) Oct. 1971; Vol. 128, p. 293.

Herbert F. Stevenson. Keswick’s Authentic Voice (Redding, California: Pleasant Places Press, 2009), p.  26.