Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Benson

Preface

Biography, especially when it has for its subjects characters truly great and good, is a species of composition highly acceptable to pious and intelligent readers. But of all biographical productions, those are generally found the most interesting which contain faithful accounts of the lives and labours of holy, learned, xealous, and able Ministers of Christ. Amongst characters of this description, Mr. Joseph Benson occupied a distinguished yank, during the space of half a century. Almost every city or town of note, in Great Britain, was either occasionally or statedly favoured with his able and powerful ministerial labours. He seems, on several accounts, to have stood in the esteem and affections of the Wesleyan Methodists, next to their venerable Founder. Nor was he, perhaps, less esteemed or beloved by those pious and orthodox Christians of other denominations, who occasionally sat under his ministry. Many of these, in common with the Methodists, anxiously expect the publication of his life. The author now submits it to their candour, not " with frigid indifference," but without being either elated or depressed. He knows too well the different tastes and clashing sentiments of readers in general, to imagine that all the parts of the work will obtain the approbation of even such as will approve of it as a whole, or that it will escape the censure of formalists, heterodox professors of Christianity, persons disaffected to Government, or bigots of any denomination. He has endeavoured, and that with a considerable degree of anxiety, to furnish the public with a true picture of his learned and invaluable friend, with whom, during six years, he lived in the closest habits of intimacy. The subject of his work he found to be, what a judicious correspondent styled him, " a man of day ;" and, hence, was under no temptation, in delineating his character, to represent him either different from, or superior to, what he was in reality.

Attentive readers will, in perusing the following Memoirs, be able to accompany Mr. Benson through every stage of his religious, ministerial, and literary career. They will see him in trying situations, and very different circumstanceF. His taking

1). PREFACE.

leave of his lather at an early period of life, in connection with the fact, that he saw him no more, will affect their tenderest sympathy.

His being cut off, by his Tutor at Oxford, on account of some irregularities of a purely religious nature, from all hope of graduating, and, consequently, of regularly becoming a Minister of the Church of England, will be deemed censurable by the generality of readers. It cannot be doubted, that his preaching occasionally, and his connection with the Methodists, were disapproved by his Tutor and other learned men at the University ; but still it is matter of surprise, that, on account of those irregularities, and without his ever having been admonished to relinquish them, he was subjected to a censure more severe than he would have incurred, had his conduct been proved immoral. That part of the work which contains an account of those matters, will be perused by many, with peculiar interest.

From the mention made by Mr. Benson, in the course of his Journal, of various persons, books, and subjects, the Author has derived an opportunity of making such observations as, he hopes, will not be found unworthy the approbation of the generality of his readers. To young persons of talent, and others, possessed of good sense, but whose reading has been much confined, those observations will probably be found as acceptable as the contents of any other parts of the volume.

In the course of the work will be found, the Author's sentiments on a great variety of subjects. It will appear, that his attachment to that body of Christians amongst whom he has had the honour and happiness of exercising his ministry, during a period of nearly forty years, has not lessened, in his estimation, any pious and orthodox followers of the Lord Jesus, whether Churchmen or Dissenters. Though fully persuaded, that the doctrine of General Redemption is founded in truth, he has, from principle, not policy, aimed, throughout the work, to avoid every sentiment calculated to give the least offence even to a single individual of the thousands of pious and intelligent characters who embrace the opposite doctrine. To him the points still at issue betwixt Calvinists and orthodox Arminians, have long appeared matters of mere opinion, on which the wise and the good may safely differ. Hence, it afforded him peculiar pleasure to have it in his power, without deviating from his original plan, to mention in strong terms of esteem, such excellent men as Joseph Allein,

PREFACE. V

John Bunyan, Philip and Matthew Henry, Archbishop Leighton, Dr. Watts, Dr. Doddridge, and President Edwards.

Pious and intelligent readers, who possess a competent knowledge of the nature of civil society, and know how to appreciate the British Government, will not be displeased to find the work, in various parts, interspersed with sentiments of loyalty. They know that civil obedience is a religious duty ; and that the primitive Christians, even when their numbers were formidable, and they were at the same time grievously persecuted, never thought of rising in rebellion against their oppressors. This historic fact is mentioned, not with a design to produce a controversy on the subjects of non-resistance and passive obedience ; but for the purpose of showing that true Christianity, exemplified in its professors, is opposed to " all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion.'*

To such readers as maintain with Mr. Toogood, that their dissent from the Church of England, " is a debt they owe to God, and an act of allegiance due to Christ," those parts of the volume in which that Church is mentioned in terms of esteem and vener ration, will be least acceptable. But in this enlightened and liberal age, in which Churchmen, Dissenters, and Methodists, frequently meet together in the genuine spirit of Christian love, for the purposes of disseminating the word of life throughout the world at large, and of sending Missionaries to " preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," it is presumed that few, if any, well-informed individuals, maintain that their dissent from the Church of England, is the " genuine consequence of the allegiance due to Christ," and that, consequently, all who do not dissent, have renounced that allegiance. Of passing so severe and unwarrantable a censure we know the generality of our dissenting brethren are incapable. They found their dissent, not upon a supposition that men may not, in the Church of England, manifest their allegiance to Christ by lives eminently holy; but upon, what they conceive to be, the advantages they possess, in a more efficient ministry, and in matters of church-government. They are, what may be termed, mitigated Dissenters, distinct from, but not hostile to the Established Church ; and hence were the pulpits of the Establishment, in general, occupied by men of talents, piety, and zeal, thousands would, by regularly attending clivine service in their parish-churches, cease to be Dissenters. Meantime, it is proper to observe, that however men of piety.

VI TIIEFACK.

sense, and candour, may decide upon the present and ultimate consequences of conformity or dissent, they will readily admit, that, in the present state of things, the labours of orthodox Dissenters, as well as those of the Methodists, are essential to the spread of pure religion throughout the United Kingdom. Conformity or non-conformity, any farther than it is calculated to promote the glory of God in the enlargement of Christ's kingdom, is light as the small dust upon the balance, in the estimation of those who are truly alive to eternal realities. Thousands of this description may be found amongst Churchmen, Methodists, and Dissenters, who, notwithstanding their avowed difference of sentiment on points of minor importance, know that their faith is one; and hence, instead of contending with each other, they love as brethren, and cordially unite to promote the interests of their common Christianity.

Portsmouth } Sept. 15, 1822.

MEMOIRS

OF THE

REV. JOSEPH BENSON.

Methodism, considered in its rise and progress, together with its moral and religious effects, is a phenomenon in the Christian world, little, if at all, inferior to the Reformation. This assertion will not surprise any who have made themselves acquainted with the state of morals and religion at the period when the two Wesleys and Whitefield began to preach, with apostolic zeal, the pure doctrines of Christianity, contained in the Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy of the Church of England. In that iron age of our Church, very few of the Clergy either preached or understood those doctrines. From the time of the restoration till that period, the great mass of British Protestants, both Clergy and Laity, had, in point of morals and religion, continued to deteriorate. In what gloomy, but true, colours, did Archbishop Tillotson and Bishop Burnet, both men of piety and learning, paint the state of religion in England thirty years before the rise of Methodism ! The former of these excellent Prelates, in the fifth volume of the edition of his sermons printed in 1700, says : " If one of the Apostles or primitive Christians should rise from the dead, and converse with us, how would he wonder to see the face and complexion of Christianity altered from what it was in his days ; and were it not for the name and title which we bear, would sooner guess us to be any thing than Christians." Again .* " I cannot see how Christianity can ever gain ground in the world, till it is better adorned and recommended by the professors of it. Nay, we have just reason to fear, that if God do not raise up some great and eminent instruments to awaken the world out of its stupid Lethargy, that Christianity will every day decline, and the world will be overrun with atheism and infidelity." — " Our Ember-weeks," says good old Bishop Burnet, " are the burden and grief of my life. The much greater part of those who come to be ordained, are ignorant to a degree, not to be apprehended by those who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of knowledge is that to which they are the greatest strangers ; I mean the plainest parts of the Scripture, which, they say, in excuse of their ignorance, that their tutors in the universities never mention the reading of to them ; so that they '"in civo no account, or at least a very imperfect one, of the contents

5 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

even of the Gospels. Those who have read some few books, yet seem to have never read the Scripture. Many cannot give a tolerable account even of the Catechism itself, how short and plain soever. They cry, and think it a sad disgrace to be denied orders, though the ignorance of some is such, that in a well-regulated state of things, they would appear not knowing enough to be admitted to the holy sacrament.

" The case is not much better in many who, having got into orders, come for institution, and cannot make it appear that they have read the Scriptures, or any one good book since they were ordained : so that the small measure of knowledge upon which they got into holy orders not being improved, is in a way to be quite lost."

No effectual barrier was raised against the floods of infidelity and immorality which were inundating almost every town and village in the land, at the time those great and good Bishops wrote, until the few clergymen already mentioned went forth, at the risk of their lives, to preach in fields, streets, or wherever they could obtain hearers, the pure doctrines of the Reformation. But what a moral and religious change has taken place since that time ! Dr. Haweis, in his Church History, published many years since, says, when noticing Methodism, " It hath spread in a prodigious manner among those of the Church as well as Dissenters from it; and has been the means of rekindling the zeal of many, so as to produce a vast alteration for the better in the conduct of thousands and tens of thousands. Predilection for the Establishment strongly attaches many to it, who have received their religious impressions from one or other of the Methodist societies, or from some of their own clergy, who lie under the imputation of being methodistically inclined, that is, such as literally and with apparent zeal inculcate the doctrinal articles they have subscribed, and live in a greater state of piety and separation from the world than the generality of their brethren. The number of these, of late, is amazingly increased. Where before scarcely a man of this stamp could be found, some hundreds, as rectors or curates in the Established Church, inculcate the doctrines which are branded with the name of Methodism ; and every where throughout the kingdom, one or more, and sometimes several, are to be found within the compass of a few miles, who approve themselves faithful labourers in the Lord's vineyard."

When the late Rev. John Wesley began to form religious societies, he had no more idea that his doing so was, even remotely, connected with his being at the head of a religious denomination, than Luther, when he began to reprobate the sale of indigencies, had of becoming the grand instrument of causing whole nations to separate from the church of Rome. Wesley, who may be justly styled the Luther of his age, was, like the great Saxon Reformer, led by a chain of providences, over which l?e had no control, to adopt measures which, at an early stage of hW

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 9

ministerial career, he would have condemned as subversive of all religious order, and opposed to the best interests of Christianity. Educated in high church principles, on which he conscientiously and rigorously acted for a series of years after his having been ordained ; nothing short of what he conceived to be his imperative duty could have induced him to take a single step not warranted by that Church, which, to the end of his life, he maintained to be the best constituted National Church in the world.

Had the pious clergymen to whom he wrote, in order to effect a union with him and each other, for the purpose of spreading vital religion in the Church, come into his measures, it is highly probable that he would have continued through life to maintain, that none, without episcopal ordination, however learned and pious, have a right to preach the Gospel. But though the union he proposed was compatible with clerical order, very few of those whom he addressed on the subject, vouchsafed him a reply. This is mentioned merely as an historic fact, and not intended as the slightest censure of the conduct of those ministers, of whose piety, zeal, and talents, Mr. Wesley formed a high opinion.

But had the projected union taken place, it might not, in its effects, have reached the many thousands of the poor, who were evidently like sheep without a shepherd ; but to whom, by the instrumentality of lay itinerant preachers, were carried the good tidings of salvation. Had Mr. Wesley, instead of being prevented from preaching in the church, been raised to the dignity of a bishop ; he might, like Bedell, Burnet, Home, and other pious and learned prelates, have laboured, but with little success, to reform the clergy of his diocese. Nor might he have failed to point out to them the sin and danger of dissent. His uncommon talents, learning, and piety, would have done honour to any office in the church to which he might have been appointed. But He, in whose power are the times and the seasons, destined him, as events have proved, to labour in a larger sphere of usefulness than the first episcopal See in the world, would have afforded him.

The lives of the Founders of religious bodies have at all times formed a part of biography which has strongly excited the attention of mankind. And that this should be the case is not matter of surprise ; since to cause such revolutions in the stubborn prejudices of men as they have been the instruments of causing, argues either something extraordinary in themselves, or singular in the circumstances in which they were placed.

The life and labours of the great and good Founder of Methodism have already excited amongst all ranks throughout the United Kingdom no ordinary interest ; and they increasingly will do so, as long as that revival of true religion, of which, under God, he was so great an instrument in producing, shall continue to spread throughout the world. With respect to those who at an early period of Methodism came for-

10 PAKENTAOE.

ward to the help of their illustrious leader, and with him inculcated the pure principles of Christianity amongst thousands who had neither the form nor the power of godliness ; and, as is generally the reward of such services, bore the contempt of the great, and the insults and violence of the low ; however great may have been their natural abilities ; whatever the mental acquirements of some of them, and however great their labours and privations, or extensive their usefulness ; their fame must of necessity be contracted within much narrower bounds. But this with them was no object. To them whose names are written in heaven, a name on earth is beneath a thought. Still the memory of the just is blessed ; and the recollection of the pious zeal and apostolic labours of the Fathers of Methodism, will ever continue to be cherished by the members of the body to which they belonged ; and all candid lovers of Christ who make themselves acquainted with their early history.

As we advance in the history of Methodism, when it had assumed considerable form and consistency, and its preachers began to be numerous ; we find that to some of them, God, who wisely varies the talents with which he entrusts his servants, gave powers of mind of a superior order, to the sanctified operation of which, by means of both the pulpit and the press, Methodism is much indebted for its past and present prosperity. Here many might be mentioned, whose memory will be long honoured. But without wishing in the slightest degree to detract from the well-earned fame of those men, who at various periods did honour to and defended the religious body to which they belonged ; we think there are few who know any thing of his piety and zeal ; his long, unwearied, and most useful labours, both literary and ministerial, who will hesitate to admit, that none deserve a fairer name in the annals of Methodism than Joseph Benson.

His ancestry can be traced no farther back than the register of Melmerby, which is no more than 120 years old. His grandfather, Miles Benson, died at Melmerby, September 6, 1732, at the age of fifty-nine years. Ann, his wife, died January 26, 1767. when about ninety-nine or one hundred years old. His grandmother's maiden name was either Robinson or Jameson ; it is not certain which. Their issue consisted of John and Sarah, and of a son, who died When only one year old. Sarah married Jonathan Watson, who was the father of Joshua Watson, whom God made the instrument of Mr. Joseph Benson s conversion. His father, John Benson, married Isabella Robinson on November 7, 1731 at Melmerby, in Cumberland, by whom he had three sons and four daughters, all of whom were born at Melmerby. All these died before their parents, except the subject of this memoir, and his sister, Ann, who lived to old age, at Bishop Auckland and Durham.

Mr. Joseph Benson's father possessed an estate left him by his father. He removed from Melmerby about a year after the birth of his son

BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 11

Joseph, and went to a place called Huddleskeugh, where he continued to rent a farm for nine years. From this farm he removed to one at Netherharescuegh, where he remained about seven years. Having disposed of his estate at Melmerby, for about =£600, he went to reside with his daughter at Bishop Auckland, where he died at the advanced age of ■seventy years.

Though he was, upon the whole, a moral man, it does not appear that he was duly convinced of the importance of eternal things till near the close of life, when he afforded sufficient evidence that a divine change passed upon his mind; after which, on November 7, 17^9, he died happy in God. Mr. Benson's mother, having survived her husband about ten years, died at Bishop Auckland, near Durham, December 6, 1779, at about the seventieth year of her age. Her remains were deposited in the same grave with those of her husband.

From a child she was exemplary in her conduct, and delighted much in reading and prayer. After becoming a mother, she regulated her household in strict conformity with the views she had of religion. All under her care were enjoined the duty of regularly attending the worship of God at church ; and she was in the habit of calling them together, after their return from it, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures.

More than ten years before her death, she received a sense of her acceptance with God ; nor did she ever after, though exercised with severe trials, cast away her well-grounded confidence. Mr. Benson says in his Journal, " She had no doubt of her acceptance with God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom alone she trusted for salvation : and just before she breathed her last, she said, ' The God of Israel is my God, both now and for ever,' which she repeated three several times."' Mr. Benson then adds, "_She was a daughter of affliction, having suffered much pain of body for thirty years, and many tribulations from other quarters ; but she bore all with the greatest patience and resignation, but more especially her last sickness. Her chief affliction was so severe a rheumatism in her bowels, that she had very little ease for a whole month, during which time she ate nothing, her only nourishment being a spoonful or two of some liquid, taken occasionally."

Mr. Joseph Benson, the subject of this memoir, was born January 25, 1748, at Melmerby, in the parish of Kirk Oswald, and county of Cumberland, and baptized on the 21st of the following month. With his parents, who were not wanting in affection for any of their children, he was a particular favourite. His father designed him for the ministry in the Established Church. In early youth he was serious and thoughtful, and so attentive to his books, that he could rarely be prevailed upon to amuse himself with his school-fellows.

After having acquired the first rudiments of learning at a village -chool, he was placed under the tuition of Mr. Dean, a Presbyterian j2 EARLY PIETY.

Minister, at a place tailed Parkhead, in the same parish. Of this tutors method of teaching he spoke, long after he was capable of forming a correct judgment, in strong terms of approbation. He was in the habit, after saying his lessons, to read them over again to himself, that he might the better remember the remarks which had been made by his tutor. Not satisfied to be instructed merely in the languages and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, he even then manifested a desire to acquire some knowledge of Divinity, and for this purpose, he seized every opportunity of reading the books on that subject, which he found in his tutor's library. In this manner he repaired, in some degree, the deficiency of means he possessed at his father's house ; where, it appears, the old Whole Duty of Man and a volume of indifferent Sermons, besides the Bible, constituted the whole stock of religious books. So diligent was he in the acquisition of knowledge, that in those boyish days he did not suffer a moment to pass unemployed. Hence, when he had finished his regular exercises for the school, he employed the rest of the evening in useful reading : and to do this, he retired to one end of the hall, remote from the fire, even in the coldest weather, while his mother and the female servants were employed in spinning, and the men-servants amusing themselves near the fire. In vain did his mother use her influence to persuade him to abandon such close application ; so eager was he to obtain knowledge, and such a sense he had of the value of time.

To his hardy manner of life when young, as a second cause under God, may be attributed the bodily strength and general good health he possessed till near the close of life. He often accompanied his father's men-servants when they went, with long poles, in search of sheep buried in the snow.

In very early life, the Divine Spirit, by operating upon his mind, discovered to him the vanity of the world, the evil of sin, and the necessity of an entire devotedness to God. When not more than seven years of )ge, he frequently retired to call upon God in secret; and often in the fields, after meditating upon heaven and hell, did he kneel down and pray for grace, that he might obtain the former, and escape the latter. There was one occasion, in particular, which he often afterwards recollected, when he pleaded with great earnestness and tears those words of Jacob, " If God will be with me, and keep me in the way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, — then shall the Lord be my God."

At the proper age he was confirmed, and took upon himself the vows made by his sponsors when he was baptized. He was in the habit of ivriting down as much of the sermons he heard at church as he could a short time after, remember, hoping, by that method, to promote his spi- 'itual interest:?.. But with all his attention to modes and forms, he hart

CONVERSION. 13

not at this time clear or correct views of either Law or Gospel, nor did he properly know either God or himself.

Having remained under Mr. Dean's tuition till he was about fifteen or sixteen years of age, he became a teacher in a school at Gamblesby, in Cumberland. He continued about a year in this situation. It was during this time, and when in the latter end of his sixteenth or beginning of his seventeenth year, that God, by the instrumentality of his cousin, Joshua Watson, convinced him that notwithstanding the regularity of his outward conduct, he must obtain the pardon of his sins, and experience " a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness," in order to his being happy in time or eternity.

He was in the habit of visiting his cousin, who, about this time, was awakened, by means of the Methodist Preachers, to a sense of his guilt and danger. The change he observed in his discourse and behaviour excited his astonishment. Instead of entertaining him, as formerly, upon subjects relative to this world, his cousin almost immediately began to speak of matters of a spiritual nature. He then requested his company up stairs, which request being complied with, he said, " Now kneel down ;" and after he had prayed with great earnestness, he said, " Now, Joseph, you must pray." Joseph, as might be expected, was considerably agitated in his mind, upon the occasion, but nevertheless he endeavoured to pray in the best manner he could. At this time, his cousin was under deep conviction, and earnestly seeking gospel salvation. About six weeks after this, Mr. Benson, accompanied by his sister, paid another visit to his cousin Watson, whom he found reading the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. He read aloud with much animation, " There is now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." " Joseph," said he, " do you feel this ? Do you know that there is no Condemnation to you ?" and proceeded to ask him several other important questions. Mr. Benson, lost in astonishment, could scarcely know what tottiink upon the subject. On his way home, he remarked to his sister the manifest alteration in his cousin, and the happiness depicted in his countenance. This aimable relation, who interested himself deeply in Mr. Benson's spiritual concerns, lent him some of Mr. Wesley's sermons, and advised him to hear the Methodist preachers. His cousin now became more dear to him than ever ; to him he looked up as to a spiritual guide, visited him as often as possible, and heard the preaching which he recommended, particularly that of the venerable Mr. Hopper, of whom some account will be subsequently given. The law soon came home to his conscience in its full force ; pronounced him guilty, but could not justify him ; he heard the thunderings of Mount Sinai, and was afraid. In this state of mind, with the exception of some gleams of comfort, with which he was occasionally visited, he remained for about the space of ten months ; after which, by

14 HIS COUSIN WATSON.

believing in Christ, he was freely justified, and assured of God's pardoning love.

His own account of his conviction for sin, and subsequent deliverance from guilt, is as follows :

u When I was about sixteen years of age, it plonsed God, by means of conversation with a cousin of mine, to convince me that I was not in his favour, since I did not know my sins pardoned. I was more and more deeply made sensible of my alienation from (rod, by continuing to hear the Methodists, with whom I was united, and was in great disquietude and distress almost continually for about t«*n months, till the Lord gave me to believe in his Son, and shed abroad his love in my heart. I may observe I was not without some gracious drawings from God, and transient tastes of his goodness at times, during that distress ; but for about seven or eight weeks before it was given me to believe, I was powerfully tempted to despair of ever obtaining mercy. Satan thrust sore at me, and I was in horrid agony : when I kneeled down to pray, I could not pray : it seemed as though the heavens were brass, and not to be pierced. My tears, I saw, availed nothing. I was sorely impatient, and ready to give up all for lost. But, glory be to God, he turned my heaviness into joy, and made light to spring up in my heart." — This plain account of Mr. Benson's conversion to God, written when he was eighteen years of age, is highly satisfactory.