Monday 21st January, I realised I’d not included the link to the most informative Benjamin Beddome site , it’s now there!
I wrote yesterday about church members’ responsibility to bear burdens for the men God has called to preach His word to them and to pray for them. Benjamin Beddome was a preacher in the English Cotswolds, he wrote a hymn for his flock to sing, the words were intended to teach some part of the sermon they’d heard preached. You can read about him here and here. If you want to know more you can read it in this book ,History of the English Calvinistic Baptists.
Father of mercies, bow thine ear,
Attentive to our earnest prayer;
We plead for those who plead for thee,
Successful pleaders may they be!
How great their work, how vast their charge,
Do thou their anxious souls enlarge;
Their best acquirements are our gain,
We share the blessings they obtain.
Clothe thou with energy divine
Their words, and let those words be thine;
To them thy sacred truth reveal,
Suppress their fear, enflame their zeal.
Teach them aright to sow the seed,
Teach them thy chosen flock to feed
Teach them immortal souls to gain,
Nor let them labour, Lord, in vain.
Let thronging multitudes around,
Hear from their lips the joyful sound;
In humble strains thy grace adore,
And feel thy new-creating power.
Let sinners break their massy chains,
Distressed souls forget their pains,
And light thro’ distant realms be spread,
Till Zion rears her drooping head.
Benjamin Beddome
L.M Tunes
