Benjamin Beddome, whose life and ministry we began to look at last month, first visited Bourton-on-the-Water in the spring of 1740.
Over the next three years he laboured with great success in the Bourton church. Significant for the shape of his future ministry was a local revival that took place under his ministry in the early months of 1741. Around 40 individuals were converted, including John Collett Ryland, a leading Baptist minister in the latter half of the 18th century, now chiefly remembered for a stinging rebuke he gave to young William Carey.
It may well have been this taste of revival that made Beddome a cordial friend to those who were involved in the evangelical revivals of the mid-18th century, men like George Whitefield and the Mohegan Indian preacher Samson Occom, who preached from the Bourton pulpit.
'Why are so many Jews atheists?'
"Why are so many Jews atheists?"I hear this a lot.