14/10/2020

Fawcett, Sutcliff and Beddome

In the biography of Baptist minister John Fawcett (1739-1817), we read that at the ordination of his protégé John Sutcliff (1752-1814),* Fawcett was assigned the task of delivering the charge to the minister. It then says "He often mentioned, in the subsequent periods of his life, the high gratification he enjoyed, by becoming personally acquainted with many eminent ministers who were assembled there on the occasion. Among the rest, the Rev. Benjamin Beddome particularly attracted his attention. He was strongly solicited to take part in the public services of the day; but through that timidity which is often an attendant on genius and talent, he declined it; he was, however, by entreaties, and almost compulsion, induced to deliver a sermon in the evening, with which the audience was greatly delighted."

*This would have been on Wednesday 7 August 1776. John Newton (1725-1807) was present. He wrote in his diary of the evening

"In the evening attended again, heard Mr Beddome from Zechariah 11:12 [And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.] He is an admirable preacher – simple, savoury, weighty. His text he used chiefly as a motto. Lord, thou requirest all and nothing. Help me treat and keep with thee upon thine own terms. Admitting no rival to thee. Mingling no righteousness with thine."

Robert Hall (1764-1831), Fawcett and Thomas Flude had breakfast with Newton the next morning. Flude was a General Baptist but Newton had called him the year before “an excellent man, a Baptist”.

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