Particular Pilgrims

Benjamin Beddome was appreciated as a fine preacher by his congregation and his gift in this regard was widely admired in the Particular Baptist churches and beyond. We have seen that it was his preaching and the blessing of God upon it that caused the Bourton church to pursue him as their pastor. But there were other admirers. Robert Hall, Jr., perhaps the premier Baptist preacher of the next generation, wrote the following, “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.”

When Benjamin Beddome became the pastor at Bourton-on-the-water, one of the first things he aggressively pursued besides preaching was catechizing. He aimed for the simple but thorough and deep teaching of his congregation and their children from the Scriptures through the Baptist Catechism. The use of a catechism had been part of Particular Baptist life since their emergence from puritan dissent. Men such as Henry Jessey, Hercules Collins, John Bunyan, and most famously, William Collins and Benjamin Keach had produced catechisms for the churches.

When we left Benjamin Beddome last episode, he had been set apart to preach by the London Baptist church where he was a member. The year was 1740. He immediately got busy in that work, though only 22. He returned to the rural and small town area of his birth and began to preach throughout it. Although well educated in many senses, he was undoubtedly raw in exercising his preaching gifts. His father recognized that his zeal needed to be tempered in certain ways. So he wrote to his son, kindly, but with strong advice, saying, “I wish from my heart I could prevail with you not to strain your voice so much in the delivery of your sermons; and if you would make them shorter and less crowded with matter, it would be more acceptable and edifying to your hearers, and more safe and easy for yourself.” He went on, “If you deliver the great truths of the gospel with calmness, and with a soft, mellow voice, they will drop as the gentle rain or dew. For the good of souls, then, and for your own good, be persuaded to strive after this.” A little while later, he also wrote, “soften your voice, and shorten your sermons…let two hours be the longest time you spend in the pulpit at any place”!

One of the frequent misconceptions of English Particular Baptist life in the 1700s is that it was captive to a hyper-Calvinistic ethos that led it into decline. To a degree, this was true in some places, including central England and London. But the extent has often been exaggerated or misjudged. There are many counter-examples including the life and ministry of Benjamin Beddome and his father, John. As part of the Western Association of Particular Baptist churches, they were staunchly confessional in their church doctrine and life, which included the free proclamation of the gospel and the application of the moral law to the life of believers. They indiscriminately offered the gospel to sinners and opposed all forms of antinomianism. They were also characterized by a broad charity to orthodox believers who did not share their Baptist convictions.

I’ve had several people ask the question – at what age did the early Particular Baptists immerse believers? Back then, did a person have to be a certain age to qualify for baptism? I’m thankful for this question for several reasons. First, it’s one I’ve wondered about and studied for years. Second, the answer from history is quite different from much of the modern practice of believer’s baptism. And that means that there is almost certainly benefit to be gained in reflecting on the reasons behind this difference, regardless of where one ends up in practice.

Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary is a Confessional Reformed Baptist Seminary Providing affordable online theological education to help the Church in its calling to train faithful men. To learn more about CBTS, visit https://CBTSeminary.org.

In the last 20 years there has been a resurgence of interest in Anne. One of the best studies is called “To Express the Ineffable: the hymns and spirituality of Anne Steele” by Cynthia Aalders. It was published by Paternoster Press in 2008 as part of a series on Baptist history and thought. There are many useful books in that list. But I often find these kind of studies to be out of touch both historically and religiously with their subject as well as being too technical. But this book had none of those defects and was a delight to read. Aalders gives a short life of Steele and wisely references J. R. Broome’s detailed biography. She follows this with chapters on various themes in Steele’s poetry and identifies several that I’d like to show you.

It’s time now to turn to the writing of Anne Steele with a focus on her religious poetry and hymns. As already mentioned, Anne wrote in various forms including letters, psalms and hymns, poems for specific occasions, and prose essays on a number of specific subjects.

In exploring the life of Anne Steele, there are many events common to much of Baptist life at the time, for example, the close knit even guarded church communities, the close family ties, the frequency of death and sorrow. But the Steeles were unusual to some degree in that they were financially well-off. They lived what we might call an upper middle class lifestyle.

Anne Steele was born to William and Anne Steele during the second week of May, 1717. She joined an older brother, William, in their ancestral home called Grandfathers. A few years later another brother was born, Thomas. But this was to be a time of grief not joy because mother Anne died of childbirth complications and Thomas followed her to the grave a few weeks later. It is likely that father William’s sister, Mary, cared for the children for the next few years, before William remarried. All this means that daughter Anne probably had no recollection of her mother.

In the next few episodes, I plan to acquaint you with one of the important Baptist hymn writers of the 1700s. Largely forgotten now, her name is Anne Steele, spelled with an “e” at the end of both her first and last names. But before we look at her life and work, I want you to know the three Particular Baptist pastors that played a role in forming her life. They were all three related to her. But they are virtually unknown to us today and that should be rectified.