If profit be thy scope,
Diffuse thy alms about.
The worldling prospers laying up,
The Christian laying out.
A few other hymn-writers belong to the Dissenting Church of the
eighteenth century, but they have passed or are passing from our
modern hymn-books. Simon Browne (1680-1732), pastor of an Independent
church in Old Jewry, published in 1720 a supplement to Watts, which
shows how early Watts began to be regarded as the standard hymn-book
in Congregational Churches. There is a pathetic interest in the
strange affliction from which he suffered. In 1723 he was attacked by
highwaymen, and defended himself with such vigour that his adversary,
when he released him, was found to be dead. Browne was overwhelmed
with grief, and sank into a state of melancholy which was deepened by
family bereavement. ‘He imagined that God had in a gradual manner
annihilated in him the thinking substance,’ yet he continued his
ministry, and wrote many books, including an exposition of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians in Matthew Henry’s _Commentary_. His
best-known hymn is still to be found in many hymn-books.
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
My sinful maladies remove.
Its form is altered and improved, having passed through the hands of
many editors.
He was also the author of a penitential hymn, which is much more
impressive when given as Browne wrote it in the first person singular.
In other respects editors have improved it by slight alterations.
Lord, at Thy feet a sinner lies,
And knocks at mercy’s door;
With heavy heart and downcast eyes
Thy favour I implore.
On me the vast extent display
Of Thy forgiving love;
Take all my heinous guilt away,
This heavy load remove.
Without Thy grace I sink opprest,
Down to the gates of hell:
O give my troubled spirit rest,
And all my fears dispel.
’Tis mercy, mercy, I implore,
I would Thy pity move,
Thy grace is an exhaustless store
And Thou Thyself art love.
Benjamin Beddome (1717-95) was for more than half a century a Baptist
minister at Bourton-on-the-Water, refusing for the sake of his rustic
flock the attractions of a call to more conspicuous pastorates. ‘I
would rather honour God,’ he said, ‘in a station even much inferior to
that in which He has placed me, than intrude myself into a higher
without His direction.’ His hymns were written for his own
congregation, and usually to suit his sermon for the day.
There is not much to choose amongst Beddome’s pious verses. The
following lines are interesting since they may, perhaps, have
suggested Montgomery’s well-known hymn:
Prayer is the breath of God in man,
Returning whence it came;
Love is the sacred fire within,
And prayer the rising flame.
It gives the burdened spirit ease,
And soothes the troubled breast;
Yields comfort to the mourning soul,
And to the weary rest.
When God inclines the heart to pray,
He hath an ear to hear;
To Him there’s music in a sigh,
And beauty in a tear.
To these clerical hymn-writers of the school of Watts must be added
the name of Anne Steele (1716-78), daughter of William Steele,
timber-merchant and Baptist minister at Broughton, Hants. Miss Steele
is the first Englishwoman who takes a permanent place amongst
hymn-writers. She has been called the Miss Havergal of the eighteenth
century, and so far as popularity and piety are concerned the
comparison is fair. She wrote under the name of ‘Theodosia,’ and her
hymns were for a hundred years extensively used in Nonconformist
worship, and several are to be found in Anglican hymnals.