Letter 06

Again from the Evangelical Magazine and again containing a hymn not found, as far as I am aware, elsewhere.

December 13, 1760

’Tis sin disorders all my frame,
Nor can this world afford me rest;
The law does nothing but condemn,
In Christ alone can I be blest.

’Tis his grace, ’tis in his blood,
I sweet refreshment hope to find;
His blood can cleanse my crimson guilt,
His grace can bow my stubborn mind.

Prostrate beneath his feet I wait,
For a kind look, or quick’nng word;
Shine in on my distressed soul
My King, my Saviour, .and my Lord.

Here you have the language of my lips, the language of my pen, and I trust the language of my heart. Though I find it hard to pray to God, and harder still to wait for God. “I waited patiently for the Lord,” says David. O that is not as easy a thing as some may account it. We are apt to kick against the pricks, to rebel under the smarting rod, and accuse God of severity, when he does not immediately bestow the promised and expected blessings. I have much reason to complain of a stubborn and untractable heart, an unsubmissive temper of mind.

Yours, etc BB

Letter 05

Again this is from the Evangelical Magazine, in 1800. The hymn quoted is presumably by Beddome himself. There is no record of it appearing elsewhere.

September 27, 1760

With respect to your spiritual concerns, what shall I say? Your soul is in the best hand; your most important interests are lodged with the great Redeemer; to him the Father hath committed them; to him you have been enabled, by divine grace, to commit them; and eh will be faithful to his trust. A sense of an interest is desirable, but there may be an interest where there is not a sense of it. I wish I had your evidences. This I can say, that I mourn - I look upwards. All that is dark and distressing in your letter, I feel; all that is other wise, I want.

O God all-holy and all-wise,
Open my heart, open my eyes;
Reveal thyself, reveal thy Son,
And make thy great salvation known.

As once of old, so now proclaim
Thy wond'rous love, thy gracious name;
To me thy pard’ning mercy show,
And spread the joys of heav'n below.

My tuneful voice I then will raise,
And all my powers shall tune thy praise;
I'll in thy church thy works declare,
And celebrate thy glories there.

It has been a consolitary thought to me, that God is more glorified in the salvation of one soul through Christ, than in the destruction of a whole world. O for a savory spirit, an evangelical temper of mind! Dear friend, pray for me, that while I want I may experience and then you shall meet with the same return from your unworthy, though affectionate friend,

BB

Letter 04

From the Evangelical Magazine once more

July 17, 1760

I am obliged to you for your last kind letter and heartily wish I could answer it with the same humble, savoury and spiritual frame with which you seem to have written it but this what I want, and sometimes fear I never shall attain,to have my pen, my tongue, proclaim aloud the Lord Jesus Christ, the wonders of his dying love and riches of his sovereign grace.
I want more of that poverty of spirit whereby a Christian sees his own sin and misery, and yet hopes in God’s mercy; performs duties, and yet does not trust in them; assigns all his failings to himself, and all his excellencies to Jesus Christ: but why should I multiply particulars?
In all the lives that I have read and they are not a few, I never met with so wanting, and yet so undeserving a creature as myself. The Lord lead me to the fulness of Jesus Christ, not to make use of him as a man does of his deeds, bonds, and other securities for money, which he looks upon, perhaps, once in a long season, to see whether they are safe, and then takes no further thought about them; but I would live upon Jesus Christ as a man does upon his daily bread. I am satisfied that religion will never flourish in my soul till I am enabled so to do for all religion begins in the knowledge of him, thrives by communion with him and is compleated in the enjoyment of him. Christ is the Christian’s All. Sometimes I think I can say as the Church - Isa 26:18 "Yea in the way of thy judgments,etc" but I want to say as she does - Cantic 3:4 "It was but a little that I passed, etc." Yet will I wait God’s time, for that is best, and the longer the mercy is delayed the more welcome will it be when it comes. Besides, we are told the Lord is good to them who wait for him, to the soul which seeketh him. May you know but little of the distresses I sometimes feel and much of the comforts for which I long and wait."

BB

Letter 03

From the Evangelical Magazine again

May 19, 1760

“________ When you lent Sister H_______ Mr Thomas’s diary*, she promised not to let it go from her, and she scrupulously fulfilled her promise, so that I could not get a sight of it. Since that I borrowed it of Mr S and read it with great delight, and indeed amazement, that a person about the age of twelve or thirteen should be able to write with such propriety.
‘Peace! - Praise! I have peace.’ That there is peace procured, though we should have no personal interest in it, is matter of praise. That we have peace, peace with God, peace within, that peace that passeth all understanding, and which the world cannot give nor take away, lays a foundation for loftier praises still; and peace in a dying hour should raise our notes to the highest pitch: then one dram of true peace is worth all the world; the one we leave behind us, the other we take with us. ‘The work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and of assurance for ever.’ That we might often meet at the throne of grace in this world, remembering each other there, and finally meet before the throne of glory above, is the earnest desire and I would hope, fervent prayer of

“Yours affectionately BB”

*A young minister who died at Pershore. I have discovered that the minister in question was a Timothy Thomas (c 1700-1720). Beddome quotes Thomas's dying words at the beginning of his final paragraph. Thomas was preceded in the Pershore pastorate by his father, also Timothy Thomas, pastor from 1696/7 until his death in 1716. Thomas senior and his wife Anne were Welsh. She tried to procure Philip Doddridge as pastor of the open communion church, following her son's death. By 1760 John Ash was pastor (he came in 1746). Thomas junior died prematurely in 1720, only three years into the pastorate and no more than twenty years of age. His personality continued to speak, in his diary and letters, which, a generation later were handed by his sister to Thomas Gibbons (1720-1785), minister of the Independent Church at Haberdashers Hall, London, who in 1752 published them anonymously as The Hidden Life of a Christian. It is interesting that the young man's eager, devout spirit evidently made an instant appeal to those caught up in th Evangelical Revival (a second edition was soon called for and it was translated into Welsh) even though he wrote in the years 1710-1720, a time when religion in England is often supposed to have been at a low ebb. See also my blog entry here.