10 works by Particular Baptists against Priestley's unitarianism

Ellen Sharples, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

1. John Butterworth (1727-1803) A serious address to the Rev Dr Priestley 1790
2. Lawrence Butterworth Thoughts on mora government and agency 1792
3. Caleb Evans (1737-1791) An Address to the Serious and Candid Professors of Christianity 1772, 1773
4. Caleb Evans (1737-1791) Christ Crucified: Or the Scripture Doctrine of the Atonement 1789
5. John Fawcett (1740-1817) The Christian's humble plea for his God and Saviour, a poem in answer to several pamphlets latey published by Dr Priestley 1772
6. Benjamin Francis (1734-1799) The Socinian Champion or Priestleyan divinity 1788
7. Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems examined and compared, as to their Moral Tendency 1793
8. John MacGowan (1726-1780) Socinianism brought to the test 1773
9. Samuel Rowles (1743-1820) Remaks on Dr Priestley's Letters 1784
10. Samuel Rowles (1743-1820) Revealed religion asserted 1786

Reference to Beddome's Father by Benjamin Francis

Beddome's contemporary Benjamin Francis wrote many elegies. In 1791 he wrote one cclebrating Caleb Evans. Near the beginning he speaks of the muse and one who ...

… 'Midst kindred graves she spends her cloudy days;
The Father's first, the Son's she next surveys:
Down, down she gazes on the dear remains,
That sweetly sleep where lasting silence reigns.
Near by their side, her worthy NEWTON lies,
NEWTON the meek, the amiable, the wise,
With learned FOSKETT, humble, grave, and kind,
And gifted BEDDOME of a pious mind.
The Sire and Son the muse had long enjoy'd
As bosom friends, in friendly deeds employ'd: ...

The references are to Bristol College teachers Hugh Evans (1712-1781), Caleb Evans (1737-1791), James Newton (1733-1790), Bernard Foskett (1685-1758) and John Beddome (1674-1757).

James Hinton

In the biography of the dissenting minister James Hinton 1760-1823, by his son John Howard Hinton, this paragraph appears.

The academy at Bristol was contemplated as the most desirable place for his preparatory studies, and his father requested the Rev. Mr. Beddome, of Bourton on the Water, to lay the case before the president, Mr. Evans. As the resources of his parents were small, some difficulties of a pecuniary nature were apprehended - a subject on which Mr. Evans wrote with his characteristic kindness, and gave assurance of considerable aid: the matter was also very kindly taken up by Mr. Sleap and his friends at Chesham, who promised a contribution yearly, during his stay at the academy.

Hinton preached to the church (Colossians 1:9) when Thomas Coles was ordained at at Bourton, November 17, 1801. This sermon and Dr Ryland's to the minister were published together subdequently.

Reference to Beddome by William Steele in 1777

In a letter written from William Steele 1715-1785, brother of Anne, to his 24 year old niece Mary Steele 1753-1813 (who married Thomas Dunscombe 1748-1811 but only in 1797) on Tuesday, September 9, 1777, Steele refers to a smallpox epidemic in Bristol that necessitates his returning to Broughton via Amesbury, He hopes to “see Stonehenge”. He mentions a rumour that Beddome's protege Mr [Nathaniel] Rawlin(g)s has been asked by Trowbridge Baptists to leave Bristol [or Broughton?] and return to Trowbridge as their preacher, working in the clothing trade with his wife's relations. He says that he met Mr and Mrs Bedome [sic] at Mr Norton's on September 8 and Beddome (by then over 60) preached at Broadmead on the Sunday morning (presumably September 7). He also describes Henry Kent who “has become so great a beau” in second mourning. The letter includes a postscript from “Amanda” [Miss Amanda Froud] to “Sylvia” [Mary Steele].

Robert Norton 1744-1808, was a Bristol clothier, married to Hannah Evans (1746-1807), daughter of Hugh and Sarah Evans. He was also brother-in-law to Thomas Mullett (1745-1818). Like Mullett who removed to London he would leave Bristol and the Broadmead Church for Nailsea to become a successful clothier and tobacconist. He was in business with John Heskins (1778-1838), who was married to a daughter of Benjamin Francis, and a son of Beddome's. His daughter Sarah Evans Norton Biggs (1768-1834) would become a friend of the poet Mary Steele and an acquaintance of the diarist Henry Crabb Robinson (1775-1867).

Hymn Singing in Bourton

As far as we know, in Beddome's day hymn singing was unaccompanied and would have used Beddome's own hymns plus available books. Lining out would have been the norm, led first by Jasper Bailey (c 1740-1782) and later by William Palmer (1726-1807), with William Snooke (1730-1799) standing in on occasion. The hymn book compiled by Ash and Evans appeared in 1769 and Rippon's selection in 1787. Before that the book in general use was Isaac Watts psalm versions, first published in 1719.

In Wikipedia the entry on "lining out" says:

The practice of lined-out psalmody was first documented in England by the Westminster Assembly, which prescribed it in 1644, though only for those congregations with an insufficient number of literate members or printed psalters. It became however the norm in English Dissenting churches of all levels, and American ones as well, even after psalters and then hymn books became more readily available.

Lining out became prevalent in the seventeenth century both in Great Britain and America, gradually developing a distinctive style characterised by a slow, drawn-out heterophonic and often profusely ornamented melody, while a clerk or precentor (song leader) chanted the text line by line before it was sung by the congregation. Though attacked by musical reformers as uncouth, it has survived to the present among some communities and contexts, including the Gaelic psalmody on Lewis, the Old Regular Baptists of the southern Appalachians (USA) and for informal worship in many African American congregations.

The tide turned against lining out in England and New England in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, with greater literacy, improved availability of texts such as New Version of the Psalms of David (1696) by Nahum Tate and Nicholas Brady, and more widely available and better-printed tune collections. Influential clerics in England and America disliked the ragged nature of the singing that resulted as the congregation struggled to remember both the tune and the words from the lining out.

Lining out was in most places replaced by "regular singing," in which either the congregation knew a small number of tunes like Old Hundredth that could be fitted to many different texts in standard metres such as Common Metre, or a tunebook was used along with a word book. There began to be "singing societies" of young men who met one evening a week to rehearse. As time went on, a section of the church was allocated for these trained voices to sit together as a choir, and churches voted to end the lining out system.

Lining out persisted much longer in some churches in the American South, either through theological conservatism or through the recurrence of the conditions of lack of books and literacy, and in some places is still practiced today. In African American churches this practice became known as "Dr Watts Hymn Singing," a historical irony given Watts' disapproval of the practice.