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[Above: A historic building at Bourton-on-the-Water—Bin im Garten / [CC BY-SA 3.0] Wikimedia]

ON THIS DAY, 7 AUGUST 1737, twenty-year-old Benjamin Beddome heard a sermon that changed his life. Mr. Ware of Cheshan spoke on the text “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7). Brought under conviction, Beddome began to read the Bible and pray, and soon trusted God’s promises of salvation.

At the time of his conversion he was apprenticed to a surgeon. As soon as his apprenticeship was up, he left the medical field (although he sometimes later took patients) and entered Bristol’s Baptist college to prepare for ministry. By 1739 he was in London studying under the learned John Eames at the Independent Academy. He was baptized at a Baptist church in London.

On his way home to Bristol in July 1740, he preached in the Baptist church at Bourton-on-the-water (about twelve miles east of Cheltenham). The people of the beautiful little village were without a pastor and urged Beddome to join them. After repeated requests he agreed and was ordained in 1743. Shortly before his ordination he wrote verses titled “The Wish” that began:

Lord, in my soul implant thy fear

Let faith, and hope, and love be there;

Preserve me from prevailing vice, 

When Satan tempts, or lusts entice.

Included in “The Wish” was a request for an innocent and modest wife. This was granted, and in 1749 he married Elizabeth Boswell, daughter of one of his deacons. They had three sons, two of whom died before Elizabeth and all three before their father. Beddome himself almost died of an unspecified illness the very year of his marriage. His congregation prayed continually for him until he recovered six weeks later.

Beddome was devoted to his country charge. When a large London church begged him repeatedly to become their pastor, he left it to his Bourton folk to make the decision. Since their membership had almost tripled under his ministry in less than a decade, they responded with a resounding “no.” So Beddome stayed. Many came to Christ under his ministry. Six of the young men reared under his preaching went on to become pastors in their turn.

Although he labored in a rural setting, Beddome became internationally known because of his evangelical zeal and his hymns. He wrote at least eight-hundred-and-thirty hymns for the close of his sermons, and many found their way into print. Robert Oliver, writing about the Strict Baptist churches, called the hymns “noteworthy for their beautiful blend of doctrine and Christian experience.” Beddome also wrote A Scriptural Exposition of the Baptism Catechism, which remains in print.

The most popular of his hymns is “God, in the Gospel of His Son.” Its first two stanzas are:

God, in the gospel of his Son,

makes his eternal counsels known;

where love in all its glory shines,

and truth is drawn in fairest lines.

Here sinners of a humble frame

may taste his grace and learn his name;

may read, in characters of blood,

the wisdom, pow’r, and grace of God.

—Dan Graves

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Bemjamin Beddome belonged to the Golden Age of Hymns, covered in Christian History #31