1770

We have some fragmentary knowledge of Beddome's preaching and the hymns sung in 1770 from a notebook in the Angus library.

We know of eight sermons he preached in Bourton - on Job 36:7a (April 8), Gen 28:17 (June 17), Matt 23:37 (July 1), 1 Cor 12:6 (Sep 26), Joshua 3:3, 4 (Oct 13 a funeral sermon for a Mr Lowingdon) and then at the end of the year on 1 Thessalonians 5, including verses 16, 17 and 21 and perhaps others (Nov 4, 11 and Dec 23).

Hymns sung included That God who form'd Heav'n, Earth and seas; How sweetly awful is the place; Tho wrath alarm and love invites; In various ways, by various means; When Israel thro the wilderness (339) God's gracious Presence once withdrawn (190); The secret sob, the pensive sigh and  “Prove all things” thus doth God command. Of these only two (those with numbers marked in brackets) made it to the hymn book. Here's the one from the funeral.

 

When Israel through the wilderness
 had passed at God’s command,
 From Jordans banks, their wishful eyes,
 Beheld the promised land.

But still a river lay between,
 Whose waters overflowed;
 And through the deeps they needs must go,
 The only way allowed.

Death is the Jordan we must pass;
 Lord, this divides from thee!
 But if thine ark move on before,
 Safe will the passage be.

NB We also know that in his library he had, bund with other titles, a book called Practicall divinity: or A helpe to leade men more to looke within themselves, and to unite experienced Christia[n]s, in the bond and fellowship of the Spirit. : Delivered in sundry exercises lately spoken by Cap. Paul Hobson, upon these texts... The truth is one, and never rightly understood by any, till they be one with it ... Published by Ralph Harford (at the Bible in Queenes head alley in Pater-noster-row) this was a second edition corrected, and much enlarged. The publication Date was 1646.
Bound in blind tooled calf, the text block edges sprinkled red, Beddome's name is in the book. It says "Benja. Beddome perfectum ... Decer: 1770" (he finished it December 1770).