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”.

Clipstone, July 28, 1779

On Wednesday July 28, 1779, Beddome was one of the preachers (with Caleb Evans of Bristol) due to preach at the induction of Devonshire born Thomas Skinner (1752-1795) to the Baptist church in Clipstone, Northamptonshire. In 1783 Skinner moved on to Towcester and later to Newcastle. It appears that Beddome  had been due to preach but forewent his evening opportunity so that people could hear the 15 year old Robert Hall Junior (1764-1831).

More of Hall on Beddome's preaching

In George Winfred Harvey's Manual of Revivals of 1881 he says:

In his "Forewords," the author says, "Veteran preachers, who have distinguished themselves as sermonizers as well as original thinkers, concur in the opinion that texts, titles, partitions, skeletons and brief reports of sermons are more suggestive of new lines of thought than are sermons which have been fully composed or printed without condensation. In this regard the experience of the famous Robert Hall was not unique. While on a short visit to his friend, Mr Greene, he read a volume of the sketches of Beddome's sermons. Though little more than skeletons, he liked them all the better for their compactness; they supplied him materials for thinking. The result was that the dry and unpopular book suggested to him the subject of one of his most original and useful sermons, preached first at Leicester and afterward at Bristol.

If we turn to the "Reminiscences of the Rev. Robert Hall," by Mr Greene, we find the following reference to this sermon. "As we were walking home, I said to Mr Hall, 'What an astonishing sermon you have given us this morning. Sir!' (The text was — "As the truth is in Jesus.)" 'I never heard you deliver a sermon with so much rapidity.' 'Why, Sir,' he replied, 'my only chance of getting through was by galloping on as fast as I could; I was thrown on my resources, and had no conception of its being the assizes till I entered the pulpit and saw the counsellors. I never preached from that subject before.' 'Sir' I said, ' But when could you prepare the sermon, Sir? for we have been together all the week, and you have had no time.' 'Why, Sir, I will tell you, I thought of it at intervals, and during the night. Beddome's Sermons, which you lent me, suggested the subject, and I fixed the outline in my mind, and, perhaps, was excited by the unexpected appearance of men of talent.'

Thus we see that the great preacher was indebted to Beddome only for the suggestion of the subject, which his intensely active and original mind had laboured on "at intervals, and during the night," and wrought out a discourse wholly his own. But not all preachers are Robert Halls, and if they have always at hand "Outlines of sermons," by able preachers, there is danger that some of them in the stress of work that often comes upon them, will take not simply a theme, but an entire "outline" of a subject, and will resort more and more frequently to this source of supply until by this system of homiletic pilfering, they will lose both the respect of themselves, and, if detected - as they are almost sure to be in the end, - the respect of their people. (See "Hall's Works, vol. iv. 54 57, 116.")

Hall on Beddome's preaching

In a book of biographical memoirs of Robert Hall, his preface to Beddome's Hymns is given with this anecdote:

 

At another time, in conversation with a friend, he made the following remarks on Mr Beddome's Sermons, after having read through a volume during a restless night, and being asked his opinion of them. "They are very evangelical, he said, and there is a good choice of subjects; there is bone and sinew and marrow in them, which shows a great mind. I like them because they are so full of thought; they furnish matter for the mind to dwell upon. It is true they are very short; but it must be remembered that they are posthumous, and were never intended for publication; they are little more than skeletons. I like them the better for their compactness." Being told that they had not had a very extensive circulation, he replied, "It shows the taste of the age, sir: they would have been more approved, had they been long and verbose and showy. They supply materials for thinking; but some persons do not like to think, sir. In short I do not know any sermons of the kind equal to them in the English language. I believe they are destined to be much more extensively read and appreciated."

1779 Robert Hall

In a memoir of Robert Hall prefixed to his works we read that Hall

Spent the first summer vacation after his entering the Bristol institution under the paternal roof at Arnsby; and, in the course of that residence at home, accompanied his father to some public religious service at Clipstone, a village in Northamptonshire. Mr Hall, senior, and Mr Beddome of Bourton, well known by his Hymns, and his truly valuable Sermons, were both engaged to preach. But the latter, being much struck with the appearance, and some of the remarks, of the son of his friend, was exceedingly anxious that he should preach in the evening, and proposed to relinquish his own engagement, rather than be disappointed. To this injudicious proposal, after resisting every importunity for some time, he at length yielded; and entered the pulpit to address an auditory of ministers, many of whom he had been accustomed from his infancy to regard with the utmost reverence. He selected for his text 1 John i. 5, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;" and, it is affirmed, treated this mysterious and awful subject with such metaphysical acumen, and drew from it such an impressive application, as excited the deepest interest.

Preface to the Hymn Collection

This is the preface to the collection of Beddome's hymns by Robert Hall of Leicester dated November 10, 1817.

Far be it from me to indulge the presumptuous idea of adding to the merited reputation of Mr Beddome, by my feeble suffrage. But having had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with that eminent man, and cherishing a high esteem for his memory, I am induced to comply the more cheerfully with the wishes of the editor, by prefixing a few words to the present publication. Mr Beddome was on many accounts an extraordinary person. His mind was cast in an original mould; his conceptions on every subject were eminently his own; and where the stamina of his thoughts were the same as other men's (as must often be the case with the most original thinkers) a peculiarity marked the mode of their exhibition. Favoured with the advantages of a learned education, he continued to the last to cultivate an acquaintance with the best writers of antiquity, to which he was much indebted for the chaste, terse, and nervous diction, which distinguished his compositions both in prose and verse. Though he spent the principal part of a long life in a village retirement, he was eminent for his colloquial powers, in which he displayed the urbanity of the gentleman and the erudition of the scholar, combined with a more copious vein of attic salt than any person it has been my lot to know. As a preacher he was universally admired for the piety and unction of his sentiments, the felicity of his arrangement, and the purity, force, and simplicity of his language, all of which were recommended by a delivery perfectly natural and graceful. His printed discourses, taken from the manuscripts which he left behind him at his decease, are fair specimens of his usual performances in the pulpit. They are eminent for the qualities already mentioned; and their merits, which the modesty of the author concealed from himself, have been justly appreciated by the religious public. As a religious poet, his excellence has long been known and acknowledged in dissenting congregations, in consequence of several admirable compositions inserted in some popular compilations. The variety of the subjects treated of, the poetical beauty and elevation of some, the simple pathos of others, and the piety and justness of thought which pervade all the compositions in the succeeding volume, will, we trust, be deemed a valuable accession to the treasures of sacred poetry, equally adapted to the closet and to the sanctuary.—The man of taste will be gratified with the beautiful and original turns of thought which many of them exhibit; while the experimental christian will often perceive the most secret movements of his soul strikingly delineated, and sentiments portrayed which will find their echo in every heart. Considerable pains have been taken to arrange the hymns in such a manner as is best adapted to selection, from a persuasion, which we trust the event will justify, that they will be found the most proper supplement to Dr Watts that has yet appeared.