Review Sermons Vol 2 1807 ER - a real treasure

From The Eclectic Review June, 1807

Twenty Short Discourses, adapted to Village Worship, or the Devotions of the Family. Vol. 11. Published from the MSS. of the late Rev. B. Beddome, A. M. 8vo. pp. 187. Price 2s.- fine: 3s. Burditt, &c. 1807.

We are pleased to meet with a second volume of these excellent discourses as it intimates that the first has been received with approbation by the religious public and the extensive circulation of such writings is a general benefit which demands our congratulations. Our notice of the first volume (Ecl Rev vol i p 948) was from circumstances brief and cursory though it was the result of an attentive perusal. Our opinion of both the volumes therefore is nearly the same but a just sense of our duty requires of us in the present instance a little more detail in the expression of it. In these synopses of the sermons which the author delivered in the course of his ministerial services there are abundant evidences of a rich and vigorous mind, intimate acquaintance with human nature and perfect familiarity with the sacred Scriptures. His sentiments unquestionably indicate the sacred source from whence they were derived and the extensive observation and experience by which they have been applied explained confirmed and exemplified. His style, likewise, is deeply tinctured with scriptural phraseology; it abounds with quotations, illustrations, allusions and metaphors from the inspired writers, yet at the same time it often rises to a freedom. an elegance and a dignity of which contemporary productions do not afford many parallels. His plans are often elegant and his manner unites in some measure the solidity of the old school with the charms of the modern. The author's talents as a writer we are confident would have appeared to much advantage in regular and elaborate composition, his ear seems to have been very susceptible of rhythmical harmony and his best devotional hymns now dispersed among different collections may be ranked with those of Addison, Watts, Merrick, Doddridge and Cowper. In theology, he was of the Calvinistic school approaching perhaps even to hyper-calvinism but he often loses sight of any rigour that might be imputed to his system in the energy of expostulation and pious intreaty and affords ample proof by numberless passages of his utter aversion from antinomian principles. A reverence for the memory of a good and great man is our reason, not our apology, for adding that he presided nearly sixty years over a Baptist congregation at Bourton in the Water, Gloucestershire, where he died in his 78th year, Sept 3 1795. Some of our readers probably could give their testimony to the excellence of his pastoral character and to the ingenuity, the fervour and the pathos of his oral addresses.

These discourses are in some degree sui generis. They are far from being finished sermons and perhaps as far from naked skeletons. We should rather compare them to concentrated essences which the reader and especially the preacher might use at his discretion, diluted into a more acceptable and serviceable form. Hence, though their length would render them very suitable for family worship, they may prove too solid and strong for feeble intellects. As a foundation for serious reflection and for discourses from the pulpit, they are excellent. To young ministers especially, they must be a real treasure not merely as a help in official services but as a copious fund of religious instruction.

It is unnecessary to enumerate the titles of these sermons. We shall give an extract or two, though we are aware of the disadvantage under which incomplete specimens appear.

The fifth and sixth sermons on Rev iii 20 Behold I stand at the door and knock, &c are in our esteem among the best in this volume; they are indeed the most amplified. In explaining the words, the author observes

Christ desires to have the soul with all its powers and faculties delivered up to him that he may take possession of it and fix his residence there forever and herein he is influenced by a regard to our interest as well as his own glory. Our peace and safety in this world as well as our happiness in the next depend upon a compliance with his solicitation. If the heart be opened to Christ, heaven will be opened to us but if the heart be shut against him heaven will be shut against us.

Christ's manner of knocking is various. Sometimes he does it more faintly, at others more strongly; sometimes more silently, at others more loudly; sometimes with a longer intermission and at others with a constant succession, one application after another. If one sermon will not do, another shall; if one conviction be stifled, another shall arise. And as the manner, so the means are various. Sometimes he knocks by the law. The commandment came, says the apostle. Is not my word, saith the Lord, like a fire and like a hammer which breaketh the rock in pieces. Sometimes by alarms of conscience, which says, as Nathan to David, Thou art the man! When conscience speaks by commission from God, it will make the deaf to hear. Those who will not hearken to the voice of parents, ministers, law or gospel, shall be made to hear the voice of conscience and in the great day it will speak so loud that both heaven and earth shall hear. Sometimes Christ calls by his providences, especially those of an afflictive nature. Of this we have the remarkable instance of Manasseh under the Old Testament and of the Prodigal Son under the New. Ministers also are instruments in the hand of Christ to alarm and awaken sinners as well as to comfort and establish saints. Knowing the terrors of the Lord they persuade men and use every means to fix conviction upon their hearts urging every motive and addressing every passion of the human mind to bring them to serious reflection and concern about their eternal interests. Pp 37 38

It is indeed a wonderful patience that can bear with such repeated slights so many repulses and provocations and not so resent them as to give us up entirely to our own depraved hearts and suffer us to reap the fruit of our doings Such wonderful forbearance is not owing to the want of power to execute his anger but to a power over his anger arm is not so short that it cannot reach us nor his hand so feeble that it cannot strike us p 39

All this must be considered as the fruit of free and unmerited grace. Here we have a remarkable and undeniable instance that God's thoughts are not as our thoughts nor his ways as our ways. When injured and offended we find it difficult to pass by the affront when overtures of reconciliation are rejected, we are seldom disposed to renew them, especially if the opposite party were most or altogether to blame but it is otherwise with the great God. We are for war but he is for peace; we begin the quarrel but he puts an end to it. He seeks us before we seek him and continues to seek notwithstanding the slights we put upon him. Well may the word behold be prefixed to our text. It is as if he had said, Wonder oh heavens and be astonished oh earth! Let it be considered as a singular instance of my grace and love, let it be remembered in time and to all eternity. I the justly incensed God, the affronted and abused Saviour, whose laws they have broken, whose mercy they have despised, whose blood they have trampled upon and whose wrath they have deserved, yet I stand at the door and knock. I have often done it before and now do it again. I do it this day, this hour, in this sermon. I am now calling to you by my word and knocking at the door of your hearts. Notwithstanding all your ignorance obstinacy and unbelief, I still persist in my gracious design and would fain win those to a compliance from whom I have met with so many neglects and denials p 41

We shall only refer to another sermon on the encouragement to hope, which likewise we select for its comparative freedom and copiousness. Joel ii 14 Who knoweth but he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him.

The kind of hope here implied is indeed far from being what is called the full assurance of hope or a confident persuasion that the blessing hoped for shall certainly be received, for it rises no higher than a peradventure. A peradventure lest they should sink into despondency and a peradventure only lest they should give way to presumption and carnal security. Their hope must be mixed with fear and their joy with trembling. There are other instances in which the hopes of the godly are thus expressed and thus supported such as the following, It may be that the Lord will work for us for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. Who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not. Seek ye the Lord, seek righteousness, seek meekness; it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger. 1 Sam xiv. 6, Amos v.15, Jonah iii.9, Zeph ii.3. A possibility and much more a probability of obtaining mercy at the hand of God is a sufficient encouragement to a poor perishing sinner to seek to trust in and wait for him. Self-destroyed and self-condemned, destitute of all help in himself and despairing of all help from creatures. Who knows? This is his last refuge and perhaps for a time his only one. A possible hope in such a situation as this affords a motive to activity and a strong inducement to apply for mercy. If, said the starving lepers at the gate of Samaria, we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city and we shall die there and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come and let us fall into the host of the Syrians; if they save us alive, we shall live and if they kill us, we shall but die. The most profligate of characters whose former lives have been one continued scene of wickedness and rebellion, when they come to be seriously concerned about their souls may reason like these lepers. Our present condition is desperate, if we continue in it we must unavoidably perish. There is a possibility that God will save us, for he is able. And the first attribute upon which such generally fasten is the divine power. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. This is also represented to sinners as a ground of hope. Trust in the Lord for ever for, in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. And as God's power creates a possibility so his mercy creates a probability, especially that mercy which is manifested in the gift of his Son. There is forgiveness with thee, says the humble penitent, prostrate before the divine throne. I have no merit, thou requirest none, I can do nothing thou art able to do all. Others have found favour in thy sight, why may I not hope for it. To thee then will I come, at thy feet will I bow and if I perish, I perish. Pp 82 84

The conclusion of this sermon is striking.

Does any one obstinately persist in an evil course to gratify his lusts at all adventures on the presumption that he may find mercy at last? Let him remember what is written, If it come to pass when any one heareth the words of this curse that he bless himself in his heart saying, I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst, the Lord will not spare him. But then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. Deut xxix 19, 20. If any should say: who knows, according to the text which I have heard today, but God will return to me though I do not return to him, who knows but he may pardon my sins, though I do not repent of them, may accept me through Christ; though I do not believe in him, may grant me repentance and faith as he did the dying thief when I am on the verge of an eternal world. … Who knows, do you say? Why, I know. And tenderness as well as faithfulness to thy soul constrains me to let thee know that this can only be the language of a resolute and obdurate sinner whom God will not spare but will pour out upon him the vials of his wrath and indignation. Oh sinner, if thou goest hardened through the world, thou art likely to go hardened out of it and wilt be miserable forever. God shall wound the head of his enemies and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his trespasses pp 90, 91

The wish we formerly expressed that the sermons might be longer in the present volume is partly gratified. It is consequently the better suited of the two without any amplification from the reader for the purposes specified in the title. We cannot close this critique without adding our approbation of the cheap and disinterested manner of publishing the work, a little management justifiable by modern usage might easily have doubled the cost. A new edition of both volumes is, we find, in contemplation and we hope the treasury of MSS is not yet exhausted.