Indelible Grace Hymnbook

Born: Jan­u­a­ry 23, 1717, Hen­ley-in-Arden, War­wick­shire, Eng­land.

Died: Sep­tem­ber 23, 1795, Bour­ton-on-the-Wa­ter, Glou­ces­ter­shire, Eng­land.

Buried: Bourton-on-the-Wa­ter, Glou­ces­ter­shire, Eng­land.

Son of Bap­tist min­is­ter John Bed­dome, Ben­ja­min was ap­pren­ticed to a sur­geon in Bris­tol, but moved to Lon­don in 1739 and joined the Bap­tist church in Pres­cott Street. At the call of his church, he de­vot­ed him­self to the work of Chris­tian min­is­try, and in 1740 be­gan to preach at Bour­ton-on-the-Wa­ter, Glou­ces­ter­shire. For ma­ny years he was one of the most res­pect­ed Bap­tist min­is­ters in west­ern Eng­land. He was al­so a man of some lit­er­ary cul­ture. In 1752, he wrote A Scrip­tur­al Ex­po­si­tion of the Bap­tist Cat­e­chism, by Way of Ques­tion and An­swer. In 1770, Bed­dome re­ceived a MA de­gree from Prov­i­dence Coll­ege, Rhode Is­land.

It was Bed­dome’s prac­tice to write a hymn week­ly for use af­ter his Sun­day morn­ing ser­mon. Though not orig­in­al­ly in­tend­ed for pub­li­ca­tion, he al­lowed 13 of these to ap­pear in the Bris­tol Bap­tist Col­lect­ion of Ash & Ev­ans (1769), and 36 in Rip­pon’s Se­lect­ions (1787). In 1817, a post­hu­mous col­lect­ion of his hymns was pub­lished, in Hymns Adapt­ed to Pub­lic Wor­ship or Fam­i­ly De­vo­tion, con­tain­ing 830 piec­es. Rob­ert Hall wrote of Bed­dome’s hymns:

The man of taste will be gra­ti­fied with the beau­ty 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 pour­trayed which will find their echo in ev­e­ry heart.

Source: The Cyber Hymnal