At Walthamstow the most considerable dissenter was William Coward (d. 1738) [q. v.], a man of benevolence and wealth, who in extreme old age developed some eccentricities. Doddridge, who was anxious to secure from Coward a benefaction for his academy, learned from Farmer that the old man was cooling towards moderate theologians, and merely civil to himself, but had engaged him ‘to preach for him next winter.’ This is the basis of Kippis's statement that Farmer was Coward's chaplain. There may be some foundation for the ‘pleasant story’ that one evening, when Coward's house was closed, according to rule, at six o'clock, Farmer was shut out; but the story, as told by Kippis, requires some adjustment. Humphreys tells it somewhat differently. Both make it the occasion of Farmer's introduction to the Snells, but this is incorrect.
In 1740 a new meeting-house was built for Farmer on a piece of ground given by Snell. Farmer's preaching drew a rather distinguished congregation; Kippis remembered seeing ‘between thirty and forty coaches’ in attendance at the meeting-house door. He continued to reside with the Snells as a permanent guest, and spent most of his professional income (never large) in books. In 1759 his congregation relieved him of some duties by appointing as afternoon preacher Ebenezer Radcliffe, who remained his colleague till 1777. Thomas Belsham [q. v.] was invited to succeed him, but declined.
The first use which Farmer made of his leisure was to prepare his treatise on the temptation (preface dated 23 June 1761). Immediately afterwards he accepted the post of afternoon preacher at Salters' Hall, vacated by the promotion of Francis Spilsbury to the pastorate; this was a presbyterian congregation, but Farmer never ceased to be an independent. Except that of James Fordyce [q. v.] of Monkwell Street, his auditory was the largest afternoon congregation among the presbyterians of London. In 1762 he was elected a trustee of Dr. Williams's foundations, a rare honour for an independent; he was also elected a trustee of the Coward trust. About the same time he was chosen one of the preachers at the ‘merchants' lecture’ on Tuesday mornings at Salters' Hall.
Farmer's pulpit power depended upon the instructiveness of his expositions of scripture, and the excellence and freshness of his delivery. ‘Never raise a difficulty without being able to solve it’ was his frequent advice to young preachers. He censured the rashness of Priestley's publications. Strongly conservative in his religious feelings, he was keenly alive to the thorny places of doctrinal systems, and avoided them. Kippis observes that ‘there was a swell in his language that looked as if he was rising to a greater degree of orthodoxy in expression than some persons might approve; but it never came to that point.’ The nearest approach to a definition of his own position is given in his recommendation, ‘Sell all your commentators and buy Grotius.’ Here he echoes the remark which he had heard in Doddridge's classroom, but without Doddridge's qualification.
Farmer's disquisitions have the merits of considerable learning, great acuteness, and a plain and vigorous style. He exercised a decisive influence on the current of opinion in liberal dissent. He is the champion of the divine sovereignty, both as excluding from the physical world the operation of any other invisible agents, and as authorising the production of ‘new phænomena’ which remove ‘the inconveniences of governing by fixed and general laws.’ Farmer maintains that the proof of the divinity of a doctrine is the fact that its enunciation has been followed by a miracle. Farmer's positions were eagerly adopted by the rationalising section of dissenters; but in the long run his strong assertions of the fixity of natural law overcame his argument for miracle, and his disciples soon denied the existence of invisible agents, whose operation he had banished from the phenomenal world.
Farmer resigned his Sunday lectureship at Salters' Hall in 1772; he delivered the charge at the ordination of Thomas Tayler at Carter Lane in 1778, but declined to print it; he resigned the merchants' lectureship in 1780. At the same time he resigned the pastorate at Walthamstow, but continued to preach in the morning until a successor was appointed. In 1782 he resigned his place on the Coward trust, but was re-elected later. His health was failing, and he usually wintered at Bath. He overcame two severe attacks of stone, but in 1785 was threatened with blindness (his father had been blind for six years before his death). An operation restored to him the use of his eyes, and his last days were devoted to study. He died on 5 Feb. 1787, and was buried in the parish churchyard at Walthamstow, in the same grave with his friend Snell.
No portrait of Farmer was ever taken; he is described as tall, spare, and dark-complexioned, with small, near-sighted eyes, and a prominent nose and chin, which gave him a nutcracker face when he lost his teeth. In conversation he was brilliant and vivacious, apt in paying compliments, and highly sensitive. He never married. His elder brother, John, a strict Calvinist and a good
