Life Story 09

Death

He died, as was his wish, ‘in harness’, missing only one Lord’s Day’s preaching before falling asleep in Jesus on September 3, 1795. Right to the very last he had continued not only to preach but also to write hymns. Six hours before he died he was composing a hymn. Its final unfinished lines include these,

God of my life and my choice
Shall I no longer hear thy voice?
O let that source of joy divine
With raptures fill this heart of mine!

With various and malignant storms,
With ugly shaped and frightful forms
Thou openedst Jonah’s prison door
Be pleased O Lord to open ours.

Then will we to the world proclaim
The various honours of thy name
And let both Jews and Gentiles see
There is no other God but thee.

(Quoted partly in Rippon but found in full in a ms notebook at the Angus Library).
He had left a note saying there should be no funeral discourse but this was not discovered until later and so Benjamin Francis (1734-1799) of nearby Horsley in Shortwood preached. His text was Philippians 1:21 For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. The body was laid to rest in the yard outside the meetinghouse near the door. A large plaque on the wall of the present Baptist church in Bourton remains as a memorial to Beddome and his wife.
On page 158 of the Old Church Book, William Palmer, a deacon records the death of his pastor.

'On Thursday morning about Three O Clock September the third 1795 departed this life after fifty five years faithfull labours and unblemisht carracter and useful Services both to saints and sinners, In the Seventy Ninth year of his age That Great and Worthy man of God and Minister and Pastor of the Baptist Church and Congregation of Dissenters at Bourton on the Water the Revd Benjamin Beddome of Blessed Memory … Some of his last words were In my Father’s House are many mansions &tc; Also Is not this a Brand pluckt out of the Burning; Then fell asleep Aged 79 years.
(Cf Old Church Book, 159 and Holmes, 82, 83. Palmer was, understandably, ashamed of his handwriting and so rather than carrying on in the newer church book where Beddome’s copper plate hand had been making the entries up until his death, he went back to the smaller old book where entries recommence.)
Following Beddome’s death there was a split over whether to call Wilkins back or for Reed to become the main pastor. In the end it was agreed that it was better to go for an outsider and in April 1797 a Mr Uppadene began preaching. Wilkins’ name continued to be promoted, however, until in October 1801, they called their own former member, Thomas Coles.
 

[Pic Regent's Park College, Oxford, and The Angus Library]

Hymn The Fall and more 261

This succeeding hymn is also headed the Fall but really grows out of the protevangelium of Gen 3:15. The idea of pleasure in hell is paradoxical (mazy = labyrinthine). It gives a good setting, however, to the 'But' in the second half of verse 2. one imagines the laughter dying down as the demons realise what is afoot. (The idea of the heel being slightly hurt is legitimate). 'Whilst by his death, death’s empire ends' is a good line. We end on a high note - with Satan defeated by the resurrection.
 

261 The Fall LM

WHEN, by the tempter’s wiles betrayed,
Adam our head and parent fell,
Unknown before, a pleasure spread,
Through all the mazy deeps of hell.

2 Infernal powers rejoiced to see
The new-made world destroyed, undone;
But God proclaims his great decree,
Of grace and mercy through his Son.

3 ‘Serpent, accursed, thy sentence read,
Almighty vengeance thou shalt feel
The woman’s seed shall crush thy head,
Thy malice slightly bruise his heel.’

4 Thus God declares and Christ descends
In human form to bleed and die;
Whilst by his death, death’s empire ends,
And all the sons of darkness fly.

5 Rising, the King of glory deals
Destruction to his numerous foes;
His power the daring tempter feels,
And sinks oppressed beneath his woes.

Life Story 08

Final years
For the last eight years of his life Beddome lived frugally and apparently adopted the policy of giving away all of his stipend to charity. It is clear from his will (the original document of 1791 or 1792 is in the archive of the Angus Library with a photocopy and a typed record) that he had grown quite a wealthy man with several thousand pounds at his disposal, as well as property. In 1789, in his seventies, he attended his last Association meeting, at Evesham, and preached for the seventeenth and last time. To hear this man of God preach, even in his declining years, must have been a great privilege. In these final years he would preach sitting down and had to be carried to meetings in a chair. He had the habit of composing sermons, many of which were never preached. He began the general practice of destroying his sermon notes on the Monday after he had preached, perhaps to prevent him from preaching them again.
Hymn 721 is an 8 verser interestingly headed Old age. It begins 'Old age, with all its sickly train, Soon makes its dread approach’. Negatively, there is ‘Languor, debility and pain’, ‘Life’s gaieties’ having lost appeal, loss of eyesight, increase of griefs, death of friends and a rising ‘uncongenial’ generation. Positively, the darkness and woe is assuaged by grace and especially Jesus himself who will soon ‘bring your weary feet, To his eternal rest’
In 1792 he made a final visit to London to preach and to see his remaining children and friends. On October 25 he amended his will, rescinding his previous decision to provide for poor members of the Bourton congregation and poor ministers in nearby congregations. He also revoked his intention to leave part of his library and certain furnishings in the manse for the use of future ministers. The reason given is ‘the irritating Conduct I have met with after 52 years service’. (See Beddome’s will and the copy of it in the Angus Library.) Quite what provoked his evident ire is not clear though we have mentioned the difficulties with Wilkins. Back in 1750 when he was as close to the church as ever, he could only say in his letter to the Prescott Street Church, that they had ‘in general treated me with the greatest affection’.
It was at this time that Carey’s Enquiry was published and the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was just beginning. (William Carey 1761-1834 preached at Bourton on August 24, 1787, according to the Bourton Church Book 1765-1920, 67, preserved in the archive of the Angus Library). In a letter to Andrew Fuller in 1793 Beddome expressed his doubts as to the wisdom of mounting an overseas mission. (Cf Hymn 721, verse 4, on Old Age, which says ‘Minds uncongenial now appear, A race unknown before’). ‘Considering the paucity of well qualified ministers’ he believed it had a ‘very unfavourable aspect with respect to destitute churches’ in Britain, where ‘charity ought to begin’. (The quotations are from Chapter 2 of The Life of William Carey, Shoemaker and Missionary by George Smith 1833-1919, 1st ed 1909, Reprinted 1913, 1922. Available here). He lined up with the negative viewpoint found in Haggai 1:2, candidly confessing that the problem was perhaps his own lack of faith. He expressed the view that Carey might have succeeded him at Bourton but he realised that was now impossible. Beddome certainly cannot be accused of a complete lack of vision. Compare these lines

Where’er the sun begins its race
Or stops its swift career
Both east and west shall own his grace
And Christ be honoured there.

Also

Thus shall spread the glorious gospel,
To the earth’s remotest bound.
Distant empires, lands and nations,
Soon shall hear the solemn sound;
Darkness fleeing
Light shall everywhere abound.

(Hymn 702, verse 2 of 4 verses under the heading Triumphs of the Saviour. Hymn 707, verse 2 of 4, under the heading Rapid Spread of the Gospel. David Breed also cites Hymn 705, which begins ‘Ascend thy throne, Almighty King’. Breed, The history and use of hymns and hymn tunes, Chicago, Fleming H Revell, 1903, 150).
The truth is that a new era in God’s work was dawning and Beddome would not and could not be part of it. He was destined for another world.

Life Story 07

Later trials and tribulations
At this point we record some of the other trials and troubles Beddome faced, especially in the last 30 years of his life, and the grace of God that he knew. Beddome himself observed that

Unnumbered trials, doubts and fears
Attend us in this vale of tears;
But through the grace of God our friend
They shall in lasting triumphs end.
(Hymn 550, verse 1 of 3, under the heading Trials over-ruled for Good)

1765 was, in many ways, an encouraging year. It was in this year that the new enlarged chapel was erected and the Association (delayed for their sakes to August) met in Bourton, Beddome’s association letter receiving publication. By the January of 1766 Nathanael Rawlings (d 1809), a member at Bourton, was settled as pastor at the Back Street Chapel, Trowbridge.
However, tainting such joys was the death on February 4, 1765, of the Beddomes’ first son, John. He was only 15 (or was he 19, dying four years later?). Despite his youthfulness he apparently died well, giving evidence of a genuine faith in Christ. This must have been a comfort to Benjamin and Elizabeth as they committed themselves to God.
In 1777, Beddome turned 60. He was suffering increasingly from the painful arthritic condition of gout, which sometimes prevented him from carrying out his duties. It was decided that he should have an assistant. A number of men were considered but in the end on August 3 a William Wilkins (c 1752 - c 1812) from nearby Cirencester came. They shared the stipend from that point. He had trained for the ministry in Bristol and in Scotland. He remained for at least the next 15 years. This move was designed to ease Beddome’s burdens but, as we will see below, served in many ways to increase them.
Wilkins appears to have been, like Beddome, a son of the manse and yet another originally preparing for a medical career. Cf Rippon, 318. Wilkins came to have close ties with the Beddome family as, according to Samuel Beddome’s ms notebook, two of his sisters married Beddome sons. In 1786 Boswell Brandon married Anne Wilkins. Another brother, Samuel, had married Jane Wilkins. He appears to have set up a drapers’ business with Hewitt Fysh (c1767-1811) in Camberwell. Fysh was first married (1793) to yet another (rather older) sister, Mary Wilkins (c1756-1804).
Benjamin Junior had moved to Edinburgh to pursue the study of medicine. He was a gifted linguist and an all round scholar and had been accepted into the Edinburgh medical society at a young age. Later that year came the news that he had gained a doctorate from the University at Leyden in Holland for a thesis on the variety of human species and their causes, that went into at least a second edition. (Tentamen Philosophico-Medicum Inaugurale de Hominem Varietatibus et carum Causis. The Angus Library has a copy of the second edition). What an excellent future seemed to lay before him. But it was not to be.
At the turn of the year Benjamin junior took ill with ‘a putrid fever’ (typhus) and on January 4, 1778, he quite suddenly died. He was only 25. This happened in Edinburgh and so news of the untimely death did not reach the family immediately. However, it so happened that the day before the death Beddome preached aptly on Psalm 31:15 My times are in thy hand. The congregation had also sung his hymn (22 in the book and headed Resignation) beginning

My times of sorrow and of joy,
Great God, are in thy hand;
My chief enjoyments come from thee,
And go at thy command
It includes the appropriate closing fifth verse
Here perfect bliss can ne’er be found,
The honey’s mixed with gall;
Midst changing scenes and dying friends,
Be thou my all in all.

It was his practice to begin next Sunday’s preparation on the previous Sunday evening and he had also already made plans to preach the following Sunday on ‘full of eyes’ from Ezekiel 10:12. It is salutary to note his comment,

'But alas! How much easier is it to preach than practice! I will complain to God but not of God. This is undoubtedly the most affecting loss I have ever yet sustained in my family. Father of mercies, let me see the smiles of thy face, whilst I feel the smart of thy rod. Job 14:13. Thou destroyest the hope of man. (Memorial, xxiv).

In 1780 Wilkins married a Miss Alice North, a Presbyterian from Overthorpe, near Banbury, Oxfordshire. (According to one of the Bourton Church books she died May 8, 1798. Samuel Beddome’s ms notebook says Wilkins later married a Latitia Field from Hackney. We know that Wilkins was 59 when he died in 1812 having been ordained to the pastorate in Cirencester in 1795 and later pastoring at Naunton and Stow. Cf Holmes, 82). This seems to have been the catalyst for an easing of the previously strict requirements regarding qualifications for communion. There is evidence that Wilkins took an open view of communion rather than the strict view held in the church until this period. (Cf Holmes, 3, 73, 81; Naylor, Picking up a pin for the Lord: English Particular Baptists from 1688 to the early 19th Century, GPT, London, 1992, 60). There continued to be some tension over the matter. It was not the only source of unhappiness and on December 13, 1781, Wilkins angrily resigned his post. This led to something of a crisis, which is described over several pages in the church book (Bourton Church Book 1765-1920, 44-47).
The main cause of contention seems to have been Wilkins’ belief that, although very much Beddome’s junior, he should be given equal footing. A certain amount of envy, on Wilkins’ part, appears to have been at play here. It is clear that the sympathies of the congregation were very much with Beddome in this crisis, although they wanted to keep Wilkins on. Beddome clearly sought to be magnanimous but was hurt by Wilkins’ behaviour. Eventually Wilkins was brought to see that an equal financial split was not possible, as certain benefits had been given to Beddome in person. The crisis dragged on into 1782 and flared up again in 1784. Wilkins finally resigned in 1791. A Mr Reed appears to have assisted Beddome, following Wilkins’ departure.
From the beginning of 1783 Beddome was confined to his home by gout. In one week, early in April 1783, his brother-in-law and father-in-law both died. (Cf Samuel Beddome’s ms notebook reference to his uncle Richard Boswell dying, April 12, 1783). Then early in 1784 a fever was prevailing in the village and on January 21, his wife Elizabeth died. She was only 51. Contemporaries spoke of her as being ‘eminent for her unobtrusive piety’. They spoke also of the 'amiableness of her tongue and the sincerity and permanence of her attachment; while her patience under suffering excited the admiration of all.' (Memorial, xxiv) The church book says ‘No person could be more beloved or their loss more lamented’. (Bourton Church Book 1765-1920, 57). After some 34 years of happily married life, she must have been sorely missed. Early in 1784 Beddome composed the 4 verse Hymn 324 ‘If loads guilt oppress’, sung according to a ms notebook, January 11. Verse 3: ‘Supported by his arm, I need no other aid; If he but look on my distress, I will not be afraid’. Verse 4: ‘To him myself, my all I cheerfully resign; Thankful, if smooth the path I tread, If rough I’ll not repine.’
To add sorrow to sorrow, on October 20, 1784, his son Foskett drowned at Deptford as he was about to board ship. Like his brother Benjamin, and Beddome himself, he had been trained in the medical line. He was just 26. The other children appear to have lived to a good age.
In Samuel Beddome’s ms notebook, he notes that Richard died, 1795; Samuel, 1815; Boswell Brandon, 1816. Eliza married a Samuel Fawell and Josephus a Sophy Petrie. Their deaths are not recorded but by 1834 Josephus was dead as Thomas Coles mentions his widow, living in Leamington (Bourton Church Book 1719-1802, 20).
Thus in his later years Beddome had to face many trials that drove him back to the God of all grace.

The trial, awfully severe,
Will have a gracious end;
And though no helper now is near
The Lord will be thy friend.
Then will I humbly wait, till he
His kindly aid afford;
To his kind arm for succour flee
And trust his Holy Word.

(Hymn 548, the last two verses of a 3 verser headed The Christian in a Storm and beginning ‘Though lightnings flash and thunders roll, And tempests loudly roar, Take courage, oh my trembling soul, The storm will soon be o’er’).
It was not all trouble by any means. There were many opportunities for fellowship with other ministers at Association meetings and ordinations and although never a great one for preaching away from home he would still visit Bristol, Warwickshire, Abingdon and London to preach and to renew acquaintance with family and friends.
Entrance to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge was still very much barred to nonconformists at this time but in 1770 Beddome received an honorary Masters degree from the Senatus Academicus of far away Providence College, Rhode Island, New England (later Hope, then Brown University). A backwater Bourton may have been but news of its distinguished pastor had travelled far and wide.
There was also the continued support of people like William Snook (b 1730). Although not a church member, he was one of Beddome’s most valued moral and financial supporters. From his first arrival in Bourton he would give Beddome 5 and then 8 guineas a year. He later did something similar for Wilkins. (Cf Bourton Church Book 1765-1920, 47). He is described, after his death, as having ‘a great regard to Mr Beddome as a friend and minister’. In June 1751, Snook, a gentleman, had married Frances Seward (1732-1766), wealthy daughter of Benjamin and Elizabeth Seward (both died in 1753) of Badsey in Evesham. (Cf Marriages at Badsey 1750-1759 available here. There seems to have been a double wedding that day as a Grace Seward was also married – to a Josiah Roberts. Grace was the widow of William Seward and an aunt to Frances by marriage). In February 1753, her sister Eleanor Seward (1733-1780) married Richard Hall (1728-1801) who later moved to Bourton. Influenced no doubt by his friendship and family ties with Snook but especially by his regard for Beddome, Hall determined to live in Bourton too. (More on the Sewards in another post).

Hymn The Fall

Unusually in a hymn, this one begins by talking about Satan. the first three verses are all objective before the application comes in in verse 4. 'Wins the day' makes me a little nervous but you can see the point. The final line 'First he allures, and then destroys' is powerful.

260 The Fall LM

1 WHEN Satan saw his rebel host,
His cause, and heaven for ever lost,
Malice and wrath his mind possessed,
And fury burned within his breast.

2 He knew how vain the attempts to rise,
With impious rage against the skies;
But bent on ill, another way
He turns his arms, and wins the day.

3 ’Twas in a dark unguarded hour,
That our first parents felt his power;
Soft innocence and virtue fell
An easy prey to death and hell.

4 Yes sons of God, the tempter fly,
Nor the unequal contest try;
By promised bliss the fiend decoys,
First he allures, and then destroys.

Life Story 06

Progress and decline at Bourton
The church continued to grow after 1750 but with some variation. By recourse to the church books (now preserved in the Angus Library archive in Oxford) Brooks analysed the membership figures, observing that although by 1751 there were 180 members, the next 14 years were variable. The Association Letters speak in 1751 of ‘decay’ despite the ‘large auditory’, in 1753 of languor and in 1755 of ‘coldness yet a little strength’ (Bourton Church book 1719-1802). None were added from 1752 to 1754, bringing numbers down to 162. Then in 1755, some 22 were baptised. By 1759 there were 160 members. This too was followed by a dearth until 1764, when some 28 were added. Over 200 baptisms had taken place since Beddome’s coming by 1766 and the number of members had again risen to 196. It had been necessary to undertake a major enlargement of the premises in 1764 and 1765.

[Pic: Baptist chapel 1890 (built 1876)]

Over the next 30 years, however, there was a relative decline with only 53 added by baptism and six by letter. Some 105 died, 12 moved to other churches and two were excluded. One notes in the 1780s references in the church book to poorly attended church meetings and the need to revive the midweek meeting, suggestive of a measure of spiritual languor. At the prompting no doubt of former member John Ryland, in 1784 the church did agree to follow the example of the Northamptonshire Association and join in the concert for prayer but little seems to have come of this as far as Bourton itself was concerned. (For evidence of a post-millennial outlook in Beddome, see Hymn 707; see a further post). In over half of the 30 years, 1765-1795, there were no additions. From 1765-1772 there was only one year that saw any addition. In 1775, 1777, 1783 and 1786 there were again no additions and in 1790-1795, again only one year saw any increase. Brooks says that by 1786 they were down to a hundred members. (Cf note in Holmes, 62). By the time of Beddome’s death there were 123 members on the roll, although congregations apparently continued to be large with five or six hundred attending.

Hymn Forgiveness

Here is a helpful hymn of confession. A bit too much worm theology here for some but it sounds biblical to me. Conscience and law have their place and hypocrsiy is eschewed. I think the line 'Forgive my duties too' quite striking. The final verse seems to be alluding to Esther's experience.

433 Imploring forgiveness SM

1 ’TIS sin, that worst of ills,
Disorders all my frame;
Conscience it arms with deadly stings,
And fills my face with shame.

2 In vain, alas, I strive,
My wretchedness to hide
With filthy rags of righteousness,
Which my own hands provide.

3 The holy law condemns
To everlasting pain;
Vain is the hope I draw from thence
And all the comfort vain.

4 Oh hear thy servant, Lord,
And thy compassion show;
Pardon my aggravated sins,
Forgive my duties too.

5 Abashed and self-abhorred,
I at thy footstool lie
And should thy mercy be withheld
Here I’m resolved to die.

Life Story 05

Earlier trials
‘The wish’ was certainly answered but from 1750 Beddome had to face various trials not encountered in the past. Shortly after marrying, he became seriously ill and for six weeks was at death’s door. ‘Languor seized’ his ‘feeble frame’. He ‘mourned and chattered like a dove. (See Hymns 741, 742, both headed Recovery from sickness).
The church was much in prayer for him and did all they could to help him. Eventually, in the goodness of God, he made a full recovery. As he himself wrote of the Lord,

He spake, and lo, afflicting pains
My wasted limbs forsook;
Death threw his poisoned dart in vain,
For he repelled the stroke.
(Hymn 741, verse 4 of 5 verses)

It was a distressing time for Beddome and his new wife. Always writing poetry, he wrote doleful verses dreading his demise but later added more confident verses in the following vein.

‘If I must die’ - O let me die
Trusting in Jesus’ blood;
That blood which full atonement made
And reconciles to God.
(Hymn 778, verse 1 of 4 verses under the heading Death Inevitable)

The lines quoted before, have not been dated. They also say,

When sore diseases threatened death,
’Twas he restrained their power,
Did then prolong my fleeting breath,
My feeble frame restore.
(Hymn 741, verse 3)

As in so many dark providences, there was a beautiful outcome to this one. It served to endear the people to their pastor who they had so nearly lost with more than ordinary bonds of love.
This factor was to have an immediate effect in a trial of a quite different sort. In this same year Samuel Wilson died in London and in the November Beddome and his church received letters strongly urging that he come to pastor the Little Prescott Street church. (Written copies are preserved in the archive of the Angus Library. They are reproduced in Dix). That church feared its congregation would soon be scattered unless someone of Beddome’s stature came to them soon. It was London’s largest Baptist church at the time and to receive a unanimous call from such a church must have tempted Beddome to leave what was, despite many advantages, something of a backwater ('a place of little influence' he calls it in his letter. See Dix) to return to his father’s church and the place where he himself was baptised and called to the ministry. However, he declined to move unless the people at Bourton, many of whom had been converted under his own ministry, were willing.
For their part, the church unanimously felt that they could not comply. ‘Our great love and esteem for this our learned and faithful pastor would make the parting stroke very severe and unsupportable’ they argued. They were strengthened in their resolve not only by their pastor’s recent recovery from illness but also by the thought

'that we were destitute for many years, and not withstanding our many cries to Almighty God, he was pleased to withhold direct answers to prayers until at length he graciously raised up, eminently qualified, and unexpectedly sent, our dearly beloved and Rev. pastor, Mr Beddome, to become our pastor.'

It also weighed heavily with them that

'his endeavours have been wonderfully blessed for restoring decayed religion, the increasing of our church ... and the raising up of gifts for the help of other churches, some of which are fixed as pastors'. (All quotations from Dix. The letter is signed by 3 deacons and 37 male church members).
They felt it would be ungratefulness to God to allow him to go.
Such a firm refusal should have put an end to the matter but in February 1751, the London church wrote once more, imploring the Gloucester folk to think again. The members at Bourton were unshaken and immediately responded negatively, urging their brothers to reconsider where God’s Providence was leading them. Beddome also wrote acquiescing and quoting John Owen’s view that without the free consent of both churches involved it is unlawful for a minister to move from his charge. (Beddome appears to have owned several volumes by Owen. No doubt he had in mind at this point Chapter 6 of The true nature of a Gospel church and its government). He also felt Dr Gill was on his side. He wrote,

'If my people would have consented to my removal though I should have had much to sacrifice on account of the great affection I bear to them, yet I should then have made no scruple in accepting of your call; but as they absolutely refuse it, the will of the Lord be done. I am determined I will not violently rend myself from them; for I would rather honour God in a station much inferior to that in which he hath placed me, than to intrude myself into a higher without his direction.' (Cf Dix).

Apart from a last ditch attempt from a small group within the London church who wrote to Beddome at the end of 1751, that was the end of the matter. As Kenneth Dix observes, the whole incident reveals a man who was not concerned about himself and his own reputation.
It must have been an unsettling time for Beddome and his new wife. However, his singular commitment to his congregation impressed itself upon the members and led to a fresh appreciation of their pastor. This came to expression in increased material comforts for him and his family and the paying off of a debt of nearly £100 outstanding on their meetinghouse.
As well as the deaths of at least two infants in the early 1750s, further sadnesses in the earlier part of his ministry include the deaths of an older generation. His father died on Monday October 24, 1757, aged 83, (the funeral appears to have been the following Thursday, October 27) and in the following year there were three more deaths. On March 23, his mother, who was 62 and on September 17, Bernard Foskett, aged 74. On October 29 Elizabeth’s mother Hannah Boswell, aged 60, died from a fever.

Hymn Conversion

In this hymn Beddome again makes use of the idea of God commanding light - this time in connection with conversion. The first verse seems to be an allusion to the experience of blind Bartiameus. His third verse is informed by Ephesians 2 and similar passages.

486 Conversion LM

1 THAT was a time of wondrous love,
When Christ my Lord was passing by;
He felt his tender pity move,
And brought his great salvation nigh.

2 Guilty and self-condemned I stood
Nor thought his mercy was so near;
When he my stubborn heart subdued,
And planted all his graces there.

3 My eyes were sealed, the shades of night
O’er all my mental powers were drawn;
He spoke the word, ‘Let there be light,’
And straight the day began to dawn.

4 When on the verge of endless pain,
He gently whispered, I am thine,
I lost my fears and dropped my chain,
And felt a transport all divine.

5 Now he supports the work begun,
Strengthens my hands and guides my way.
To him be endless honours done,
Let heaven and earth resound his praise.

Hymn Dark Providence 436

Carl Trueman was asking some while ago what miserable Christians can sing. This post here refers to that. Benjamin Beddome would certainly have an answer, as seen in this hymn for someone going through a dark time. I can't imagine many modern hymnbooks having room for this.

 

436 Under Dark Providence CM

1 GREAT God, how deep thy counsels are,
To mortals quite unknown;
In vain we search with curious eye,
For darkness veils thy throne.

2 Yet would we wish for grace divine,
To guide our mental powers;
And midst perplexing scenes of life
To know that thou art ours.

3 ‘Let there be light,’ was once the word.
Oh be it so again!
What thou hast promised, Lord, we seek,
Nor let us seek in vain.

Life Story 04

Marriage and family
In Sharon James’ brief biography of Anne Steele, on the basis of a letter held in the Angus Library, she states that when Beddome was still 25 ‘he poured out his heart in a passionate proposal’ to Anne Steele (1717-1778). An invalid from her nineteenth year, Anne was born the same year as Beddome, and was also destined to later fame as a hymn writer. Unlike Beddome, despite other proposals, she never married. (Cf Haykin (ed), BPB Vol 3, Particular Baptist Press, Springfield, Missouri, 2003, 8, 9).
At first, Beddome lived outside Bourton in the home of a Mr Head in the nearby village of Lower Slaughter. However, in time he fell in love with a member of the congregation and that changed. Elizabeth Boswell (1732-1784) was the second daughter of Richard and Hannah (née Paxford) Boswell. Richard was a deacon and a stalwart of the Bourton church. Baptised in 1733, he was a wealthy jeweller. At his funeral he was called both father of the church and of the village too, according to Rippon, who says that Richard’s grandfather, also Richard, was a shopkeeper and a Parliamentary Army officer in the Civil Wars. Samuel Beddome says the other daughters, Mary and Hannah, married men surnamed Palmer, one son-in-law carrying on Richard’s business.
Nothing suitable being found for the new couple elsewhere, work began in 1748 on a fine new and commodious manse just the other side of the Windrush in Bourton itself. The cost was £324 17s 6 ½d, quite a sum. However, the Bourton congregation raised the bulk of it. Brooks says that subscriptions were all carefully recorded by Beddome and ranged from £45 from John Reynolds to 2/6 from ‘Molly Hanks the Mantua maker’ (mantua - a popular 18th century woman’s gown, fitted above the waist, with an open front and draped skirt to show the underskirt) and 2 shillings from ‘Nanny Strange, Joseph’s daughter’. Today it is a hotel, The old manse hotel and features the Beddome bar!
The chapel was also extended in the same year. Benjamin moved into the manse in September 1749 and on December 11 or 12 of the same year, aged 32, he married 17-year-old Elizabeth. Rippon says that ‘the nuptials’ were at nearby Hampnett. She was a girl of good nonconformist stock and a helpmeet to him for over 30 years to come. Rippon records that 'She was a person of strict piety; sincere in her friendships; affectionate in all her relations, scarcely ever seen out of temper.' (318).
Up until this point Beddome had had a relatively easy life. He was content in his work, happy to be living where he did, and now he had found a wife too. His happiness is reflected in the following lines, written at that time, under the heading ‘The Wish’,

Lord, in my soul implant thy fear,
Let faith and hope and love be there;
Preserve me from prevailing vice,
When Satan tempts or lusts entice.
Of friendship’s sweets may I partake,
Nor be forsaken, or forsake.
Let moderate plenty crown my board,
And God for all be still adored:
Let the companion of my youth
Be one of innocence and truth
Let modest charm adorn her face
And give her thy superior grace
By heavenly art first make her thine
Then make her willing to be mine
My dwelling place let Bourton be
There let me live and live to thee.

(Quoted in Dix; Rippon, 318, says it was composed about 1742. It is found copied in a ms notebook in the Angus Library).
On January 7, 1751, Elizabeth gave birth to a son, John Reynolds (who apparently died aged just 19). There seem to have been two more boys who died in infancy and, after that, another seven children, six boys and one girl, Elizabeth. Benjamin was born October 10, 1753, then between 1754 and 1758, Richard, Samuel, Foskett, Boswell Brandon, and lastly, after Eliza and another Joseph who died in infancy, Josephus. What hopes and fears must have been wrapped up in this growing family. What joy the children must have brought. In Hymn 568, under the heading The Family Altar, the third and final verse says, ‘Could I my wish obtain, My household, Lord, should be Devoted to thyself alone, A nursery for thee.’ This seems to have been the case. However, the domestic bliss was not to remain undisturbed.

A Map

Life Story 03

Early preaching at Bourton
It was during this period, in 1741, before he accepted a full call that, according to William Newman (1773-1835), there was "a great awakening in Beddome’s congregation at Bourton. Forty persons were brought to repentance at the same time, and Mr Ryland was among them." (William Newman, Rylandiana: reminiscences relating to the Rev John Ryland AM, London, George Whightman, 1835, 3). The reference is to John Collett Ryland (1723-1792), a young man who, despite his godly forbears, had shown no interest in the things of God until this point. He preferred playing cards to hearing sermons. However, the Lord saved him and he himself went on to be a leading Baptist minister. In October, 1742 he joined the church and in February 1744 began training for the ministry in Bristol.
He wrote in his diary for June 25, 1741, "'Surely Mr Benjamin Beddome is an instance of the existence of God and the truth of the Christian Religion. What could change his heart and induce him to leave his profession or trade - what could have him to stay at Bourton rather than to go to Exeter to which he was strongly solicited – what is it that moves him to preach, pray and be so active? Is it not the delight he finds in the work – ’Tis plain that it is not worldly interest." (Quoted, H Wheeler Robinson, London, Methuen, nd, from the Ryland Diary, 2, now in the Angus Library).
All this was while Beddome was still learning his craft as a preacher. He preached effectively but at times his tongue ran away with him so that he could not be understood and, like many a young preacher, he could be insensitive and abrasive and often over long. His father wrote to him on more than one occasion about this. ‘If you would make them shorter, and less crowded with matter’ he wrote of the sermons on May 17, 1742, ‘it would be more acceptable and edifying to your hearers, and more safe and easy for yourself.’ He says 'If you deliver the great truths of the gospel with calmness and with a soft, mellow voice, they will drop as the gentle rain or dew. For the good of souls, then, and for your own good, be persuaded to strive after this.' He wrote a few weeks later in the same vein, 'I ... carefully press you, to strive with all your might to soften your voice and shorten your sermons ... Let two hours be the longest time you spend in the pulpit at any place.’ (Brooks, 24, 25).
There were around 70 or 80 members at Bourton when Beddome first preached there, many coming in from the neighbouring villages, some from as far as 15 miles away, quite a distance to travel in inclement weather. Under this enthusiastic, if still immature, young preacher the congregation and membership grew markedly. In May 1743 some 48 new people joined the church, bringing the membership to 113. Shortly after that, the travelling backward and forward between the Cotswolds and Warwickshire came to an end and Beddome agreed to be the regular ‘teaching elder’ at Bourton.
He was ordained on Monday, September 23 of that year. Bernard Foskett preached the charge, from 1 Timothy 4:12, Let no man despise thy youth, and one of the most eloquent preachers of the day, Joseph Stennett (1692-1758), preached to the church from Hebrews 13:17 Obey them that have the rule over you. It seems that it was Stennett's church that licensed Beddome to preach in February, 1740. (Stennett was the grandson of Edward Stennett [d 1691], son of Joseph Stennett 1663-1713 and father of a fellow Bristol student of Beddome's Joseph Stennett 1717-1769 as well as Samuel Stennett 1727-1795. He began in Abergavenny and was in Exeter for about 16 years, taking a strong stand against Peirce and Hallet in what later became the Salters Hall controversy. In 1637 he moved to Little Wild Street. In 1754 Edinburgh university made him a DD).
Messers John Haydon (1714-1782) of Shortwood (later Tewkesbury), Edward Cooke (d 1770) of Pershore and William Fuller (d 1745) of Abingdon prayed. Beddome’s father was unable to be present but wrote promising his prayers and good wishes. The week before, the church had produced a formal written call to their ‘beloved brother Benjamin Beddome, to the office of teaching elder to us’. (Brooks, 24. See ms Bourton Church Book 1719-1802, 67, preserved in the archive of the Angus Library. Haykin has inadvertently written ‘preaching elder’, 172. The book says ‘teaching elder’ as do Brooks and Holmes). They also made quite clear that they would not stand in his way should there be a call from elsewhere. His duties included supplying the nearby church at Stow, which had recently come under the Bourton oversight when its membership had fallen below 25. According to Brooks there were soon a hundred members coming in from at least 20 parishes in the neighbourhood. (Brooks, 29. With Bourton and Stow, he mentions Barton, Broadwell, Burford, Clapton, Dunnington, Farmington, Hawling, Icomb, Longborough, Naunton, Salperton, Swell, Chipping and Hook Norton, Great and Little Rissington).
Brooks comments that ‘It was not a light thing, in a secluded village, to have secured for so many years the service of Benjamin Beddome’. (Brooks, 31. The rural nature of Bourton comes out in references in the church books to church meetings being postponed because of harvest. In 1787 there was no church meeting for three months due to the hay and corn harvests, Bourton Church Book 1765-1920, 67. Beddome’s hymn book contains 3 fine forgotten harvest hymns. Cf 728-730).
That same year Benjamin Beddome preached for the first time at the Midland Association meetings in Leominster. (The church always attended midland association rather than western association meetings to the south or Abingdon ones to the east. This is due to Bourton’s geography, it being in north Gloucestershire and its relatively early founding. In the period 1774-1788 a ‘double lecture’ was established six months in every year (with the churches at Abingdon, Cirencester, Coate, Fairford and Wantage). He went on to preach another 16 times at such gatherings over the next 46 years. He had obviously taken his father’s advice and was very often in demand as a preacher.
From Ryland’s diary, quoted above, we know that there had been a request to pastor in Exeter. In October 1748, his father had the idea of Benjamin coming to Bristol as his assistant. Benjamin knew Bristol well and his father employed all sorts of arguments, including the emotive ‘It would be a great comfort to your mother to sit under your ministry’ to try and entice him back to the big city. (See Dix). But his son would not be persuaded. As we shall see, this was not to be the last time he was asked to leave Bourton.

Two Pithy Sayings

Michael Haykin says here

It is the Puritans who are often remembered in Evangelical circles for their wisdom encapsulated in pithy sayings. But there is gold in the generation of men who succeeded them in the days of awakening and revival in the 18th century. Here are two gems from Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795), minister for fifty-five years or so of the Baptist work in Bourton-on-the-Water, now sometimes called the Venice of the Cotswolds:

“If the head be like the summer’s sun, full of light, the heart will not be like the winter’s earth, void of fruit”—very Edwardsean this statement!” [From a sermon on Luke 1:4]
“Love is the sacred fire within, and prayer the rising flame.” [From the hymn "prayer is the breath of God in man"]

Baptist Catechism

Beddome's Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism has recently been reprinted. It is available here.

Dr. James M. Renihan has said

The recent reprint of The Baptist Catechism has given families and study classes a helpful tool for memorizing the great doctrines of the Christian faith. Now, a hidden jewel, Benjamin Beddome's 'A Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism,' takes its place alongside the Catechism to give much needed assistance to the same families and classes. Beddome shows how the doctrines contained in the Catechism are founded upon Scripture, and explains them for all to understand. This is indeed a wonderful instrument to make skilled craftsmen from apprentices!

And Dr Tom Nettles

Beddome's exposition is particularlly helpful for doctrine classes in churches and can give substantial help to any leader that would want to convene such a study.

Dr Michael Haykin gives the background

During his early years at Bourton Beddome used Benjamin Keach's Baptist Catechism extensively, but felt the questions and answers needed to be supplemented so composed what was printed in 1752 as 'A Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism by Way of Question and Answer,' which basically reproduced the wording and substance of the catechism drawn up by Keach, but added various sub-questions and answers to each of the main questions.

It proved quite popular. There were two editions during Beddome's lifetime, the second of which was widely used at the Bristol Baptist Academy, the sole British Baptist seminary for much of the 18th Century. In the 19th Century it was reprinted once in the British Isles and twice in the United States, the last printing being in 1849.

Life Story 02

Preparation for the ministry
No sooner was Beddome converted than he felt called to the Christian ministry. His apprenticeship was now coming to an end and he began studies at the Baptist Academy, which was not only based in Bristol but under the stern but effective leadership of Bernard Foskett (1685-1758).

It would seem that for some reason the arrangement lasted only a year and Beddome then moved to London where he studied under Mr John Eames (1686-1744), Principal of the Fund Academy, an Independent academy at Tenter Alley, Moorfields.

(The Academy was founded 1695. In 1697 Thomas Goodwin 1600-1679 was appointed first tutor, followed by Chauncey 1701, Ridgely 1712 then Eames, 1734-1744. Jennings followed, 1744-1762, when it moved to Hoxton, making use of Daniel Williams’ house. There a later academy from Mile End superseded it in 1790 under Robert Simpson. That academy moved in turn to Highbury 1825, then merged with Coward and Homerton to form New College, Finchley Road, 1850).
Eames trained for the dissenting ministry but found himself wholly unsuited to the task and so switched to teaching classics and science in the academy. He was active in the Royal Society and was a friend of Isaac Newton. Isaac Watts described him as ‘The most learned man I ever knew’. He is buried in Bunhill Fields. (Memoir, xii).
Beddome began to attend the Baptist church at Little Prescott Street, Goodman’s Fields, whose pastor at this time was Samuel Wilson (1702-1750). Perhaps strange to say, Beddome was still unbaptised at this point but this was remedied when Wilson baptised him with five others on September 27, 1739. They used the baptistery of a church in the Barbican. (Haykin, BPB 1, 170). Thomas Brooks quotes from a letter sent from father to son at the time "I am pleased to hear that you have given yourself to a church of Christ, but more, in that I hope you first gave up yourself to the Lord to be his servant, and at his disposal. And now I would have you remember that when Christ was baptized, how soon he was tempted of the devil; and I believe many of his followers, in that, have been made conformable to their head. So also may you, therefore, of all the evils you may find working in your heart, especially beware of spiritual pride and carnal security." (Brooks, 23).
The following year, on January 9 and February 28, he preached before the church and was soon called by them to be a gospel minister. Another letter from Beddome Senior expressed concern that Wilson was acting with too much haste but added "The Lord, I hope, will help you to make a solemn dedication of yourself to him, and enter on the work of the Lord with holy awe and trembling." (Ibid).
It was in the spring of that same year, 1740, on his way back to Bristol, that Beddome Junior first preached at Bourton.
Puritans had met in the southern Cotswolds from the earliest times. (For a full and careful description of Bourton’s history before Beddome’s coming, cf Holmes, 1-19). A congregation seems to have been gathered before 1655 (the year that Bourton became one of seven founder members of the West Midland Association) and came to be pastored briefly, on an open membership basis, by the local clergyman, Anthony Palmer (1618-1678), who left the established church in 1660.
(Even earlier there was a Thomas Paxford, according to Ivimey, Vol II, 161. According to Brooks, Palmer’s book A Scripture Rule to the Lord’s Table, was in Beddome’s Library. A copy [London, 1654] is still in the Beddome Collection at the Angus Library. Ivimey, Vol II, 163-167, says it was written against a J Humphrey’s Treatise of free admission. He says Palmer authored 4 or 5 other books, the major one being The gospel new creature of 1658. A native of Worcestershire or Warwickshire and Oxford educated, he later ministered in London [at Pinners Hall according to Calamy]).
Later pastors may have included a John Dunce, also known as Wolgrave. At one point there may have been two ministers, Collett, a Paedo-baptist, and Joshua Head, a Baptist ejected from the Church of England in 1662. A chapel was built in 1701 for the Baptists, the Paedo-baptists having left to form their own congregation. Head died in 1719 and was succeeded by Thomas Flower, who led the congregation to constitute itself as a baptised church. Some 50 people, 24 men and 26 women, signed the covenanting document on January 30, 1720.
By 1740 Flower was dead and the church was eagerly looking for a new pastor. Before his coming to the village in 1740, Beddome described the church as one that had been ‘for a long time … unsettled and divided’. (Haykin, BPB 1, 168, quoting a letter to Prescott Street Baptist Church quoted in an article by Thomas Brooks in The Baptist Magazine). The church wanted Beddome to preach regularly for them, which he agreed to do. For some time, however, he also continued to preach at a church in Warwickshire.

Life Story 01

Background and conversion
Beddome was not only a Baptist minister himself but also the son of a Baptist minister. John Beddome (c 1674-1757) was born in Stratford on Avon but moved to London, where he became a member of the Baptist church, Horsley Down, Southwark, the church that called him to the ministry. (The minister at Horsley Down was Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), whom we want to refer to later on this blog in connection with catechisms and hymns. This is the church, of course, later pastored by John Gill 1697-1771 and C H Spurgeon 1834-1892 and that continues today as the Metropolitan Tabernacle.)

Warwickshire

In 1697 he moved back to Warwickshire where he became pastor of the Alcester Baptist church. He soon purchased a large property, a former inn, in nearby Henley-in-Arden. This served as a home to himself, his family and others and as a meeting place for the church.

Perhaps the source of the financial outlay involved was his wife Rachel Brandon (c 1676-1758). She was the daughter of Mercy Neckless (d 1726) and Benjamin Brandon, a London silversmith said to be in an illegitimate line from Charles Brandon, first Duke of Suffolk and brother-in-law by marriage to Henry VIII (Cf Haykin, British Particular Baptists Vol 1, 169; Rippon, 314). She received a good education at a boarding school in Nantwich, Cheshire, due to the generosity of an aunt for whom she was named and from whom she later inherited a fortune. (The Aunt, Rachel Spilsworth and on remarrying Rachel Cope, married twice but had no children. She died March 2, 1731 in Hanham near Bristol. Her first husband appears to have been a wealthy timber merchant and her second had previously been married to the Puritan John Flavel’s sister). The author of a nineteenth century memoir describes Benjamin Beddome’s mother as ‘amiable and accomplished’ (Memoir, x). John Beddome was said to be ‘remarkable for his spiritual winning discourse, especially to young converts and enquirers (Roger Hayden, quoted Haykin, BPB Vol 1, 169, from Evangelical Calvinism among 18th Century British Baptists with particular reference to Bernard Foskett, Hugh and Caleb Evans and the Bristol Baptist Academy, 1690-1791, unpub PhD, University of Keele, 113, 114. Now available as a book).
John and Rachel had at least five children who survived infancy. (According to Benjamin’s grandson Samuel, whose ms genealogical notebook is preserved in the archive of the Angus Library, Regents Park College, Oxford, Benjamin’s brother Joseph (1718-94), was an American merchant in Bristol. He died a Quaker in Philadelphia, leaving at least three daughters. Two sisters (Mary and Martha) lived in Bristol, married respectably and had families. The Angus Library also has a ms notebook, c 1807, that appears to be a copy of a poem by Benjamin Beddome, headed ‘The Letter’ and addressed to a sister, or possibly a sister-in-law).
Benjamin, the first child, was born to John and Rachel on January 23, 1717 (Memoir, ix). He spent his first seven years in Warwickshire, where his father ministered from 1697 in Henley, Alcester and Bengeworth, near Evesham, Worcestershire. Beddome Senior originally assisted John Willis, d 1705, a blacksmith and Alcester’s first Baptist minister (from 1660). Willis (with a man called John Higgins) had been a messenger to the assembly in London in September, 1689.

Bristol

In 1724 the family moved southwest to Bristol, where John became assistant to William Bazley (1673-1757), pastor of the Pithay church, 1723-1736. (This is the church pastored 1677-1721 by the learned Andrew Gifford 1642-1721 and his son Emmanuel 1705-1723. A grandson, also Andrew Gifford 1700-1784 pastored Eagle Street Church, London and is buried in Bunhill Fields.) Bazley had moved there a short time before, just prior to the death of Emmanuel Gifford in 1723. Bernard Foskett (1685-1758) had moved to Bristol to teach in the Academy and to co-pastor the Broadmead Church with Peter Kitterell (d 1727) shortly before in 1720 (following the departure to the church in Exeter of the unsatisfactory Caleb Jope who had been trained by the church in London and Trowbridge from 1707 and had come in 1714).
Broadmead was the smaller of the two Particular Baptist churches and had its meeting place just 200 yards from the Pithay building. (They apparently shared a burial ground in Redcross Street). Foskett and Beddome had known each other in London and had been co-pastors in Warwickshire, 1711-1720. Thus an old friendship was strengthened, the two apparently living in the same house once again. Foskett remained a close friend of the family and, later in life, Benjamin gave the name Foskett to one of his sons. Beddome senior and Foskett eventually shared the same grave.
Thus at an impressionable age Beddome came to live in the bustling seaport of Bristol, Britain’s second city at the time. In his Tour Through England and Wales, c 1720, Daniel Defoe (1661-1731) speaks of Bristol as ‘... the greatest, richest and best port of the trade in Great Britain, London only excepted. The merchants of this city not only have the greatest trade, but they trade with a more entire independency upon London, than any other town in Britain. … the Bristol merchants as they have a great trade abroad, so they have always buyers at home, for their returns and that such buyers that no cargo is too big for them.’ This was the end of the era of men such as Edward Colston (1636-1721) and John Pinney I (1686-1720) whose wealth came chiefly from the flourishing slave trade.
Following schooling in the city, Beddome was apprenticed to a surgeon apothecary (Francis Labee). He seems to have taken well to this and it is said that he never lost his love for things medical. Two of his sons trained in the same field and he himself, it seems, carried on some form of medical practice in Bourton. It is said that he would often turn to the world of medicine for an apt illustration in his preaching. (Remarks in Memoir, xi, which reveals that Foskett also had a medical training).
Benjamin and John were clearly close. Benjamin continued to sit under his father’s ministry throughout his teenage years. He made no profession of faith, however, until he was 20. (He later wrote at least 4 hymns [see Hymns 717-720] that plead with youths to give God ‘the morning of your days,’ ‘your early bloom’. He came to believe that ‘Youth is the most accepted time, To love and serve the Lord’. He saw disease and death, passions, worldliness, ‘vanities of time and sense’, sinful ways, sin’s power to increase its hold and thoughtless presumption as the chief barriers to seeking truth and a heavenly crown.) The Baptist Register speaks of how ‘the bent of his mind affected and afflicted his parents several years’ (Rippon, 316).
On Wednesday August 7, 1737, a Mr Ware of Chesham was the visiting minister (Joshua Ware d 1739 it turns out to be - see here). He preached on Luke 15:7, I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety nine just persons which need no repentance. Beddome wrote that it was with that ‘sermon I was, for the first time, deeply impressed’. It made him weep, not just then but, it would seem, for some weeks afterward. He would often hide himself away in a quiet corner of the chapel gallery, making the excuse that he wanted to sit somewhere where he could slip in or out easily which he sometimes had to do in his capacity as a medical practitioner. (Cf Rippon, 316; Haykin, 170, quoting S A Swaine, Faithful men; or, Memorials of Bristol Baptist College and some of its most distinguished alumni¸ London, Alexander and Shepherd, 43). He was later to write,

Lord, let me weep for nought but sin,
And after none but thee
And then I would - O that I might -
A constant weeper be.

(The third and final verse of Hymn 520, Why, O my soul, why weepest thou?). He found relief in reading the Scriptures and was soon brought to Christ.

Biographical Sources

Biographical details concerning Beddome can be gleaned from Michael Haykin's essay; Thomas Brooks, Pictures of the past: the history of the Baptist Church Bourton–on-the-water (London, Judd and Glass, 1861) [see here]; John Rippon (1751-1836), The Baptist Annual Register 1794-1797, 2:314-326; Joseph Ivimey (1773-1834), A History of the English Baptists Volume IV, (London, Isaac Taylor Hinton/Holdsworth and Ball, 1830, pp 461-469); the memoir, pp ix-xxviii, in Sermons printed from the manuscripts of the late Benjamin Beddome (London, William Ball, 1835).There are also details in Ken Dix, Thy will be done A study in the life of Benjamin Beddome, Strict Baptist Historical Society Bulletin No 9, 1972; Derrick Holmes, The Early Years (1655-1740) of Bourton-on the-Water Dissenters who later constituted the Baptist Church, with special reference to the ministry of the Rev Benjamin Beddome AM 1740-1795, (Unpublished Cert Ed Dissertation, St Paul’s College, Cheltenham, 1969); J R Watson, The English Hymn A critical and historical study, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1999).

British PBs

The best brief life of Beddome currently available is by Canadian church historian Michael Haykin. See Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795), The British Particular Baptists Volume 1 1638-1910, Particular Baptist Press, Springfield, Missouri. It was published in 1998 and is part of a three volume set. Michael Haykin was overall editor.

It has more recently been re-issued as a five volume set. See here.

Old Manse

The Old Manse Hotel in Bourton gets its name from the fact that for most of his time in Bourton this is where Beddome lived.

Bourton on the Water

Bourton-on-the-Water, just south of Stow-on-the-Wold, has a population today of 2,700. This is vastly swollen in the tourist season by thousands coming to see what an article in The Times in the summer of 1996 described as ‘arguably the most beautiful village in the Cotswolds’. In Beddome’s time there were more sheep than people and the houses huddled either side of the River Windrush formed what really was an out of the way place. Here Beddome ministered for nearly 55 years.

Beddome's Sermons

Books of sermons by Beddome can be accessed at google books.

Twenty discourses adapted to village worship Volume 1 is here and Volumes 2 and 3 can also be found online. The first volume was published in 1807.

 

A much larger book of 67 sermons with a biographical memoir is found here. This one is from 1835. 

 

[Pic: The Baptist Church Bourton on the Water today]

Beddome's Hymns

The complete text of Beddome's hymns can be downloaded from google books here.

The book was published in 1818. It contains some 830 hymns and various indexes and a preface by Robert Hall.

ODNB Entry

The entry for Beddome in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is by Wesleyan Methodist W B Lowther and was revised by Karen E Smith. It is as follows:

Beddome, Benjamin (1717–1795), Particular Baptist minister and hymn writer, the son of John Beddome (d 1757), Baptist minister, and Rachel Brandon, was born at Henley in Arden, Warwickshire, on 23 January 1717. He was baptized in 1739 at the Baptist church at Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, London, by Samuel Wilson. He studied under Bernard Foskett at Bristol Academy, where he established a close friendship with Caleb Evans and John Ash, and later at the Independent academy at Mile End in Middlesex. In 1740 he became pastor at the Baptist church in Bourton on the Water, Gloucestershire, where he remained for 55 years. He was ordained in 1743, when Joseph Stennett preached the sermon and Bernard Foskett gave the charge. On 11 December 1749 he married Elizabeth Boswell (1732–1784), daughter of Richard Boswell, Baptist deacon of Bourton, at Gloucester; they had three sons, John, Benjamin, and Foskett, all of whom predeceased him. [and others who lived]

Beddome is best-known as a writer of hymns, of which he composed more than 800, published as Hymns Adopted to Public Worship or Family Devotion in 1818. His hymns were intended to be sung after his sermons, as they illustrated the truths on which he had been preaching. He was a noted preacher, whose labours were ‘unremitted and evangelical’, and, ‘though his voice was low, his delivery was forcible and demanded attention’ (Rippon, 320–21). He was a leader in the Midland Baptist Association and wrote an association letter in 1765. He also wrote an Exposition on the Baptist Catechism (1752; repr. 1776). Three posthumous volumes of his sermons were also printed. In 1770 he was awarded an MA degree by Providence College in Rhode Island in recognition of his literary gifts.

Beddome died at Bourton, the scene of his lifelong labours, on [Wednesday] 23 September 1795, aged seventy-eight years, and was buried in the Baptist meeting-house graveyard there. According to the Cambridge Intelligencer (12 September 1795), which noticed his death, he was a BD.*

The Cambridge Intelligencer was a weekly newspaper, appearing from 1793-1803, and edited by Benjamin Flower. It has been called "the most vigorous and outspoken liberal periodical of its day" and was more like a national paper than a provincial one. Olinthus Gregory who married Beddome's daughter Anne in 1809 was editor for six months in 1798.

Cyberhymnal Entry

The excellent hymntime site takes notice of Benjamin Beddome here. They list 76 of his hymns by title, 10 of which are available at the site. They say of Beddome:

Born: Jan­u­a­ry 23, 1717, Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, Eng­land.
Died: Sep­tem­ber 23, 1795, Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, Eng­land.
Buried: Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, Eng­land.

Son of Bap­tist min­is­ter John Bed­dome, Benjamin was ap­pren­ticed to a sur­geon in Bris­tol, but moved to Lon­don in 1739 and joined the Bap­tist church in Pres­cott Street. At the call of his church, he de­vot­ed him­self to the work of Christ­ian min­is­try, and in 1740 be­gan to preach at Bour­ton-on-the-Wa­ter, Glou­ces­ter­shire. For ma­ny years he was one of the most re­spect­ed Baptist min­is­ters in west­ern Eng­land. He was al­so a man of some lit­er­ary cul­ture. In 1752, he wrote A Scrip­tur­al Ex­po­si­tion of the Bap­tist Cat­e­chism, by Way of Quest­ion and An­swer. In 1770, Beddome re­ceived a MA de­gree from Prov­i­dence Coll­ege, Rhode Is­land.
It was Bed­dome’s prac­tice to write a hymn week­ly for use af­ter his Sun­day morn­ing ser­mon. Though not orig­in­al­ly in­tend­ed for pub­li­ca­tion, he al­lowed 13 of these to ap­pear in the Bris­tol Bap­tist Col­lect­ion of Ash and Ev­ans (1769), and 36 in Rippon's Se­lect­ions (1787). In 1817, a posthu­mous col­lect­ion of his hymns was pub­lished, in Hymns Adapted to Pub­lic Wor­ship or Family Devotion, con­tain­ing 830 piec­es.

Rob­ert Hall wrote of Bed­dome’s hymns:
"The man of taste will be gra­ti­fied with the beau­ty and orig­in­al turns of thought which ma­ny of them ex­hi­bit, while the ex­per­i­ment­al Christ­ian will of­ten per­ceive the most se­cret move­ments of his soul strik­ing­ly delineated, and sen­ti­ments pour­trayed which will find their echo in ev­e­ry heart."

It is this piece that is reproduced at Wikipedia (or is it the other way round?)