This aricle originally appeared in Banner of Truth Magazine
When one thinks of friendships among Baptist ministers in the eighteenth century, one instinctively thinks of Fuller, Sutcliffe and Ryland, who ‘held the ropes’ for Carey. Beddome does not seem to have had a close ministerial friendship of that sort, although in The Baptist Register John Rippon refers to the younger man who preached Beddome's funeral sermon, Benjamin Francis (1734–1799), as his ‘affectionate friend’ and, as Stephen Pickles notes in his new biography of Beddome (Rippon, Obituary Beddome, Baptist Annual Register: Including Sketches of the State of Religion Among Different Denominations etc., Vol. 2 (Dilly, Button & Thomas, 1794), 326; Stephen Pickles, Cotswold Pastor and Baptist Hymnwriter: The Life and Times of Benjamin Beddome (1718-1795) (James Bourne Society, 2023), he was clearly a very friendly person.
Beddome had several good friends in the congregation at Bourton, including his father-in-law Richard Boswell (d. 1783), gentleman William Snooke (1730–1799) and, later, Snooke's brother-in-law, Richard Hall (1728–1801). Their father-in-law, Benjamin Seward (1705–1753) of Bengeworth, was likely another good friend of Beddome’s. Beddome, sometimes accompanied by his wife, would often take tea at her father’s or Snooke’s, or at one or other of the homes of the wealthier church members.
When he was a student in Bristol, Beddome had come to know Sarah Evans (1713–1751). His friendship with Hugh Evans (1712–1781) and especially Sarah (née Browne) began then. Their friendship was referenced by her son Caleb Evans (1737–1791) in a funeral address he gave for his stepmother Ann. ( Caleb Evans, God the everlasting portion of his people. Sermon occasioned by the death of Mrs Ann Evans, wife of the Rev. Hugh Evans, MA ... Preached Broadmead, Bristol …, 1776). Beddome took Sarah's funeral and wrote an epitaph for her grave.
Henry Keene (1727–1797) was another friend. Keene was a coal merchant and a well-respected deacon in the Maze Pond church, London. A warm letter written in November 1772 from Beddome to Keene is preserved in a Calendar of Letters assembled by Isaac Mann (1785–1831) held at the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
John Ryland's father, usually referred to as John Collett Ryland (1723–1792) to distinguish him from his better-known son, was born in Bourton on the Water and spent his formative years in the area. Six years younger than Beddome, the two became friends when, in 1740, Ryland was one of about forty converts in a revival that marked the early period of Beddome's ministry. Beddome baptised Ryland in October 1741, and when the latter began to show an interest in becoming a minister, a strong friendship blossomed between the two. As mentor, Beddome ‘led him forward to the work of the ministry with the fostering hand of a wife and kind parent.’ (Rippon, The Gentle Dismission of Saints from Earth to Heaven. A Sermon [2 Tim. 4:6] Occasioned by the Decease of ... J. Ryland, Sen. ... Preached First at His Funeral at Northampton and ... in London, 1792, 37, 38). As to their friendship, Beddome called Ryland Sr his ‘dearest friend’ and the two kept in contact well after Ryland left Bourton and moved to Bristol; he later became a minister in Warwick and then in Northampton. (William Newman, Rylandiana: reminiscences relating to ... J. Ryland of Northampton [With extracts from his diary, etc] 1834, 137-39).
Beddome was no doubt a good friend also to several others in the congregation who went on to become ministers themselves, notably men like John Reynolds (1730–1792), Nathanael Rawlings (1733–1809), and Richard Haines (d. 1767).
In the second part of the sermon previously referred to, Beddome speaks about the duty of friendship highlighted in the verse he preaches: He that hath friends should show himself friendly. ‘Act agreeably to the connexions formed,’ says Beddome, ‘and the confidence reposed in him.’ He goes on,
Though the forming of friendships is a matter not of necessity but of choice, yet, when they are formed, it is highly incumbent upon us that we should so regulate our temper and conduct as may best tend to their continuance and improvement.
The duty of friendship
Beddome says four things about this:
We should take care that our inward sentiments and feelings perfectly agree with our outward professions.
Undissembled integrity becomes the man and adorns the Christian. Extravagant professions of regard and large promises of help and assistance are to be avoided, as also are lavish praises and commendations; for these, however gratifying they may be to a weak man, will rather be disgusting to a wise one. We should never speak more than our hearts feel, or enter into engagements which we may possibly want both an ability and inclination to perform. This is the character that David gives of men in a very degenerate age: They speak vanity everyone to his neighbour, with flattering lips, and with a double heart do they speak.
We should not be shy in using our friends, or backward in receiving kindnesses from them.
He quotes Edward Young again, ‘Reserve will wound it, and distrust destroy.’ He goes on,
It is as much an act of friendship without hesitation to accept a favour, as readily to confer one; and the not doing so at proper and convenient seasons has begotten a jealousy and suspicion that we would not lay an obligation upon another because we are so loth to come under one ourselves; but a real friend should be willing to do both. He should give and receive advice, admit frequent visits and repay them, inquire into the grievances of another and tell his own, partake of the bounty of his friend, and let require. Mutual sympathy, and a readiness to communicate to each other's wants, is necessary among friends: Have pity upon me, O my friends! says Job. Friendship is a profession of love, and love should not only be professed, but acted upon.
We should prefer the interests and welfare of their souls to that of their bodies:
Thus did Christ, the friend of publicans and sinners, when he was upon earth, and thus should all his followers do; and surely those will be most indebted to us for our friendship, whose everlasting felicity is promoted by it.
He then says, firstly,
We should pray for our friends; thus did Job for his, though by their uncharitable invectives they had greatly added to the weight of his afflictions, and his prayers returned into his own bosom. Yet he obtained a blessing both for himself and them. If we can do nothing else for our friends, we can pray for them; and whatever else we have done, or can do, this should not be neglected.
And secondly,
We should faithfully reprove them when they do amiss. Not to do this is represented as an evidence of hatred: Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him: and therefore to do it is an instance of the greatest love, and a wise and good man will esteem it so. Let the righteous smite me, says David, and it shall be an excellent oil. But then we must do it in a friendly manner, secretly, and not so as to expose him; with meekness and tenderness, and not so as to irritate and provoke him; and at the most convenient season, when he is most likely to bear it, and be benefited by it.
We should carefully avoid all those things which may either break the bonds of friendship, or weaken them:
We should not, by divulging his secrets, abuse the confidence that our friend has placed in us. We should guard against envy if providence has exalted him above us; and of coldness and neglect if he is sunk into a state of inferiority to us. We should also shun the company of those who are given to calumny and detraction, for Solomon tells us that a whisperer separateth chief friends; and, lastly, if by any notorious miscarriage, or unmerited provocations, they have forfeited our friendship, we should remember that we still owe them common charity, if prudence prohibits our former familiarity with them. Religion should restrain us from turning our love into hatred.
Conclusion
The sermon closes with two reflections.
First,
What need of grace have we to enable us to act up to this, or any other character that we sustain! The duties of friendship, you see, are not few or easy; we should therefore implore the assistance of divine grace, that we may rightly perform them. Nor should we, as has been wisely said, make choice of many intimate and bosom friends; for a multiplication of friends will involve a multiplication of duties, and, consequently, of difficulties.
Second,
Let those who are so happy as to have Christ for their friend be particularly observant of this rule with respect to him. O let us cultivate a more intimate acquaintance with him, set a proper value upon his friendship, give him the uppermost place in our hearts, make him the frequent subject of our conversation, avoid every thing that is offensive to him, frequent those places where we may meet with him, and long to be for ever with him!
We should be thankful for our friends, if we have them. As Michael Haykin has observed, writing about William Carey, whom Beddome once wanted to succeed him at Bourton on the Water, ‘True friendships take time and sacrifice, and Western culture in the early twenty-first century is a busy world that as a rule is far more interested in receiving and possessing than sacrificing and giving.’ (Michael A. G. Haykin, The Missionary Fellowship of William Carey, 2018, 10). The observation is no doubt correct. The duties of friendship have never been few or easy, and we need divine grace to rightly perform them. Let us be good friends to all, then, and especially to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Friend who sticks closer than a brother.
