Westgate Chapel, Wakefield

Westgate Chapel in Wakefield is an attractive nonconformist place of worship from the middle of the Georgian period (1752). It has been Unitarian since the close of the eighteenth century, which means that for over two centuries it has denied the deity of Jesus Christ and the divine inspiration of the Bible. One of its signs describes it as ‘a non-credal religion without any doctrine’ which is, of course, utter nonsense; one cannot deny the divinity of Christ without having some other christological doctrine in its place (eg ‘He was just an ordinary man’). Another sign declares it to represent ‘a world-wide liberal faith open to all’. Such claims chime with the times, though I do not know whether such agreeable slogans see the chapel filled to the rafters each week.

Unitarianism and its drab alternative to the supernaturalism and revelation of the Biblical gospel was not the original theology of this chapel. Founded by the ejected puritan vicar of Wakefield, Joshua Kirby, he united with others to commence a Presbyterian congregation, which held sound doctrines and fidelity to scripture. One source notes:

He would publicly pray for King Charles in exile in the days of the Commonwealth, and he would not pray at all out of the prayer-book in the days of the Monarchy.

He was clearly a man whose principles were unyielding, even when they were unpopular. Furthermore, some verses he wrote have survived, thanks to the Johnson-Bryan family researchers:

It yields joy now, and will do evermore,

To go to prison on my Master's score;

Whose honourable cause and pleasant face

Made me forget a prison was disgrace.

I never knew what Heaven was till I knew

The favours which in prison God does throw.

Prisons declare what pulpits are forbid

And truth breaks out the more, the more 'tis hid.'

Shall I recant, and wheel about and turn,

That I may say, unworthy right hand burn?

Shall I deny my Lord, in hope that I

May go with Peter, and weep bitterly?

Shall I, the fury of a man to shun,

Under the terror of Jehovah run?

Shall I, when God says preach, and men say nay,

Take time to study whether to obey?

Shall I, to feed a carcase (sic) that must die,

Nourish a worm to all eternity?

Here was a man who stood for truth, something for which future generations of his congregation would reject with all the hauteur of people who know much, much better.