Matthew Henry Was Robbed

Crime affects everyone, even a Puritan Biblical scholar was not immune from it. The singular example of what happened to Matthew Henry one day (near the end of his life) and how he responded to a hard providence has been reported before. His diary records the event thus (J.B. Williams, Memoirs of the Life, Character, and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry, pp. 187-188):

1713. March 8th. Lord's-day. In the evening I went to London. I preached Mr. [Samuel] Rosewell's evening lecture, Psalm lxxxix. 16. -- the joyful sound. As I came home I was robbed. The thieves took from me about ten or eleven shillings. My remarks upon it were, -- 1. What reason have I to be thankful to God, who have travelled so much, and yet was never robbed before? 2. What a deal of evil the love of money is the root of, that four men would venture their lives and souls, for about half a crown a piece. 3. See the power of Satan in the children of disobedience. 4. See the vanity of worldly wealth; how soon we may be stripped of it. How loose, therefore, we should sit to it.

Somewhere along the way, his meditations upon the event were reported as a prayer, the accuracy of which I cannot confirm, although the sentiment is fully in accord with the apostolic injunction to "in everything give thanks" (1 Thess. 5.18):

Lord, I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse they did not take my life; third, because although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.