Hester quotes and Conclusion

Hester concludes by saying:

The following sentences are taken from the second volume of his sermons:
"Despondency clips the wings of desire, and cuts the sinews of exertion; but hope is a spur to activity, and an antidote against fainting."
"Diligence without dependence is folly and madness; dependence without diligence is presumption and arrogance."
"Guilt drives wicked men from God, but good men nearer to Him."
"We are not the less willing because we are made so in the day of His power. That which is an act of power with regard to the Holy Spirit, is a voluntary act with regard to the human will."
"The atonement of Christ was necessary for our pardon, and a continual application of it is necessary to our purity."
"Submission without conviction will neither bring honour to the preacher, nor profit to the hearer."
"Grace turns the serpent into a rod; but sin turns the rod into a serpent. The former turns poison into a remedy; but the latter turns the remedy into poison."
"Sinners on earth are always punished less, and in hell never more, than their iniquities deserve."
"The forbearance and long-suffering of God towards sinners is truly astonishing. He was longer destroying Jericho than in creating the world."
The following striking sayings are from a sermon on the text Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace
"Faith gives no title to eternal life, but receives one; it constitutes no justifying righteousness, but it apprehends and applies that righteousness on account of which we are justified."

"Salvation is through faith, but not for it as if it were given in reward of believing."
"Faith has nothing to glory in, it is only the empty hand or the imploring eye"
"True faith places the crown on the head of him who ought to wear it. It does not fall in love with itself, but with the Saviour. It renounces all merits and worthiness, and seeks it in Him alone. It puts on the robe, but it did not weave it: it shows the debt paid, but did not discharge it."

We have quoted enough to show that Benjamin Beddome was no ordinary man. His sermons will richly repay perusal. It is impossible to rise from a careful reading of them without feeling a fresh glow of religious life in the heart. You feel that the preacher was thoroughly in earnest, and felt and believed what he said. Every sentence bears on it the stamp of genuineness. The conscience is appealed to, the judgement informed, affections aroused. The Gospel is not a lifeless system of stale doctrines, but a divine reality. adapted to meet all the wants of corrupt human nature. In dwelling on the lineaments of this beautiful character, we cannot but wish, that there may still be found in our churches, men who shall combine the masculine sense, the poetic beauty, the glowing piety, the fervid zeal, and the terse brevity, which were so eminently illustrated in the sermons and songs of Benjamin Beddome.