Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3INTRODUCTION. The author of this work, Benjamin Beddome, is known to the denomination, in this country, chiefly by means of his excellent hymns. To those who are familiar with the effusions of his poetical genius, and who are conscious of having derived spiritual benefit from them, some further account of the author and of his writings will doubtless be acceptable. Benjamin Beddome was the son of the Rev. John Beddome, pastor of the Baptist Church in the Pithay, Bristol; and was born at Henley, January 23, 1717. He was baptized in London, by the Rev. Samuel Wilson, of Prescott Street, in the year 1739; and by that church, the mother of many illustrious sons, he was called to the work of the ministry. Having spent some time as a student under the Rev. Bernard Foskett, of the Bristol Academy, and afterwards at the Independent Academy, Mile-end, London, he went to Bourton-on-the-Water, in July, 1740; and was ordained pastor of the church, September 23, 1743. Mr. Foskett, his former tutor, gave the charge, founded upon 1 Tim. iv. 12,
Let no man despise thy youth; Dr. Joseph Stennett preached to the church from Heb. xiii. 17,
Obey them that havethe rule over you; Messrs. Hayden, Cook, and Fuller of Abingdon prayed; and Mr. Foskett offered the ordination prayer, with the laying on of hands by the pastors. The early intercourse of Beddome with those pious and learned men, Wilson and Foskett, exercised a happy influence in forming his character and directing his subsequent pursuits. Their counsels and instructions stimulated him to the acquisition of sound and liberal knowledge, while their own example presented a forcible illustration of the high uses which it might be made to subserve, in the ministry of reconciliation.* He became an indefatigable student; and soon acquired a distinguished repu…