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Baptist Magazine.

APRIL, 1818.

MEMOIR OF THE LATE REV. BENJAMIN FRANCIS, PASTOR OF THE CHURCH AT HORSLEY,

GLOCESTERSHIRE.

THE subject of the following Memoir, though long since deceased,* yet possessed so much excellence, and was so extensively known and respected, especially in our own denomination, that we doubt not but the following brief account of him will prove highly acceptable to all our readers. It is extracted from a narrative of his life and death, published with the sermon preached to his bereaved church and congregation on the occasion of his death, by Dr. Ryland.

THE late Rev. BENJAMIN FRANCIS, M.A. was the youngest son of the Rev. Enoch Francis, a very eminent Baptist minister in South Wales. He was born in 1734, and his youthful mind began to be deeply impressed with a conviction of the great worth of the soul, and of the necessity of being truly religious. When only seven years of age, he felt an abiding reverence of the divine Majesty, a dread of associating with wicked companions, and such an abhorrence of all profane

*He died December 14, 1799. VOL. X.

and impure conversation, that if he ever heard any thing of the kind, he could not forbear severely reproving it. He had, at this early period, such a flow of affection sometimes in prayer, which he then began to practise, that " his whole heart was overwhelmed with rapture." He was baptized at fifteen years of age, and began to preach at nineteen, as his father had done before him. He went to the academy at Bristol in 1753, where he continued three years. He preached for some time at Sodbury, but removed to Horsley, in Gloucestershire, in 1757, where he was ordained the year following. At his ordination in October, 1758, Mr. Thomas, of Bristol, gave the charge, from Col. iv. 17; and Mr. Hugh Evans preached to the people, from 1 Thess. ii. 19. The church consisted then of only 66 members, and such was their po verty, that they could raise for their minister no more than 207. per annum. But however discouraging the prospect as to externals, our young evangelist girded up the loins of his mind, and put his trust in the Lord; he laboured indefatigably in his Master's work, and‍ through the

R

Divine blessing on his ministry, [attachment to his friends at Hor

he not only introduced thirteen persons to church connexions in the first year after his settlement, but the auditory was so much increased, as to require the enlargement of the place of worship in 1760. About this time, and in following periods, he had pressing invitations to settle in the metropolis, especially from the church in Carter-lane, Southwark, just before the death of Dr. Gill, when many very respectable ministers united in urging him to comply with the request of the doctor and his people; but his

A memorandum, written on this oc

casion, has been found among Mr. Francis's papers, in the following words: "In 1772, spent two sabbaths in Lon don, and preached both days at Dr. Gill's meeting-house, and had a call to succeed him, which greatly affected and perplexed me; but I determined to continue with my poor dear people at Horsley."

A copy of a letter has also been found, written on this, or a similar occasion, (for neither date nor address has been preserved positively to ascertain it,)

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which breathes so amiable a spirit, that the reader will be gratified by the insertion of some extracts. Surely, there never was," says he," so unworthy a creature so honoured, so courted, so

perplexed with engaging prospects be

fore! Lord, what am I? I blush, I

tremble, I wonder, 1 praise! Yes, indeed, the fibres of my heart are entangled among you, and I know not how to give you the parting look, and bid you a final adieu! My love is strong enough to carry me to-morrow to London, and yet such is the sense I have of my unfitness and inability to succeed your late eminent pastor; such is my relation to, and concern for, my poor

affectionate people at Horsley; such is the success which seems to have attended my labours in these parts, and such the call there still is for my continuance here, that I am not satisfied it is my duty to remove, and change my present difficulties for future affluence and ease. The people here will advance my salary a few pounds if I stay; but I have discountenanced them from doing this hitherto, and they can make but a dull

sley was immoveable, and their affection in return was very strong and permanent.

His continued success, and the many open doors of usefulness which Providence pointed out in Gloucestershire, might well indeed strengthen his resolution to continue with his charge. Within two years after, he had a farther addition of 31 members, and 40 the next two years. In the mean while he made frequent excursions into the neighbouring towns and villages, to seek for lost souls. In 1765, he resolved on building a place of worship in the town of Minchin Hampton, about three miles from Horsley, where some of his members lived, and whose inhabitants appeared greatly to need religious instruction. He kept up a lecture once a fortnight in this place for 35 years. He persisted in his unwearied efforts for the good of the inhabitants of this town, notwithstanding his want of success, of which he had more room to complain than in any other instance. For as it had long been noted for the peculiar wickedness of many of its inhabitants, and the violence of persecution in the early part of Mr. Whitfield's ministry 21 years before, when they riotously assaulted Mr. Adams, one of his preachers, dragged him through the town, and threw him into the brook; so it seemed as though the people were given up to judicial hardness, even to the present day. God grant the set time to favour them may yet appear to be at hand, in which he shall pour out his Spirit upon them, in answer to the unnum.

sound in harping upon this string (which, by the bye, may soon snap,) while their own circumstances are so extremely indigent."

bered prayers his servant offered up in their behalf! *

hood around. For many years he made excursions monthly, into the most uninstructed parts of Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Wiltshire; besides visiting his brethren, and strengthening their hands in God.

In the course of his journeys through Worcestershire, which he regularly made from about

Though Mr. Francis met with so little success at Hampton, his labours at Horsley, and in the neighbourhood, were owned to the spiritual benefit of many. In 1771, 2, and 3, fifty-four members were added to the church. In 1774, his meeting-house at Horsley required another enlarge-1772 to 1784, it appears he had ment, which was accomplished at the expense of 500l. Thus, through the blessing of God on the labours of his dear servant, a very numerous congregation was collected in a situation which, at the first, appeared very unpromising. From more than fifteen parishes round, his members and hearers flocked to the house of the Lord; and, surely, any friend of evangelical religion must have enjoyed the sight of the several companies descending the surrounding hills on the Lord's-day, to assemble for public worship; where, on the rising ground above the meeting-house, one group after another would appear emerging from the woods; some of them having come from the distance of 10 miles, and upwards: nor was it uncommon for persons to unite in worship under that roof whose dwellings were 30 miles asunder. During the whole of his ministry, he baptized at Horsley nearly 450 persons.

At the time of his decease, the church consisted of 262 members: but his usefulness was by no means confined to his own congregation; his occasional labours for the good of souls were abundant. He was the first means of introducing evangelical religion into many dark towns and villages in all the neighbour

* This was written in 1799; we understand that since that period, considerable success has attended the labours of Mr. Winterbotham, at Minchin-Hampton.

preached at Cheltenham, 130 sermons; at Tewkesbury, 136; at Pershore, 137; and at Uptonupon-Severn, 180. His manner Iwas to set out from home on Monday morning, and return on Friday evening, after having taken a circuit of 90 miles, and preached every evening. At Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, also, he established a monthly lecture; where, from 1771 to 1799, he preached 282 sermons; and at Christian Malford, 84; at Devizes, 56; and at Melksham, Frome, Trowbridge, and Bradford, 90 in each. At Wotton-under-Edge, he kept up a monthly lecture for 30 years, and preached there 394 times. His sermons at his own place amounted to more than 4000; and at Hampton, 802. On his visits to Bristol, he had preached 101 times at Broadmead, and 28 at the Pithay. He had preached 22

sermons at

Portsmouth, and an equal number at Plymouth and Dock; and 20 times he had preached in Cornwall. He frequently visited his native country, and was often at their annual associations, and preached in the principality, both in Welsh and English, about 150 sermons. In 1791, he visited Ireland, and preached, chiefly in Dublin, 30 times.

Whenever he visited London, he was abundantly employed in his Master's work, and in various other parts of the kingdom, his

neighbourhood; while many additions were made to the beneficence of his friends from his own private property.

His numerous and heavy trials appeared to have been greatly sanctified to himself; and, per

mere occasional labours were highly acceptable. Whenever he engaged, it was his evident concern to declare the whole counsel of God, and to be pure from the blood of all men. At home, or abroad, he was careful not to handle the word of God deceit-haps, it was in the school of affully, but by manifestation of the fliction that he acquired the truth, to commend himself to tongue of the learned, to speak a every man's conscience in the word in season to burdened and sight of God. When invited to disconsolate mourners. He was preach occasionally in different first married the same year that connexions, he never was known he was settled at Horsley. His to preach another gospel, to dis-wife's maiden name was Harris, a guise his sentiments, or to pal-native of Wales. By her he had liate the more fashionable vices, several children, but all were soon that may be patronized by laxer and more opulent professors. Among the people of his charge, especially, he ever discovered the most impartial fidelity, in reproving sin, and in the exercise of church discipline; united with the tenderest sympathy and gentleness toward the afflicted and necessitous. While his compassion for perishing sinners would often vent itself in floods of tears, so as sometimes to interrupt his utterance in his in his public discourses; he showed the sincerity of his benevolence, by a continual readiness to communicate to the supply of their temporal wants according to his ability, yea, and often beyond it. At the same time, he gladly improved his interest with several wealthy friends at a distance in favour of his poor neighbours, especially those of the household of faith. To disperse their bounty seemed as high a gratification to him as to the recipients. Such was his interest with some of them that delighted to devise liberal things, that more than 300l. were, by this means, distributed through his hands, to the poor of his church and congregation, and other distressed objects in the

taken from him by death, except the second, which was a daughter, named Mary, who lived to be thirty-one, and then was removed, nearly ten years before her father, leaving a motherless family of five children behind her. His first-born, named Enoch, died when eighteen months old; this was a painful stroke: but in the year 1765, he met with such a succession of bereaving providences as are not often allotted to mankind, and under which he must have sunk, had not He, whose strength is made perfect in weakness, put underneath him his everlasting arms. The wife of his youth was removed first, on the 26th of April; on the 18th of June, his son Benjamin, aged four years; his youngest daughter, Sarah, died July 4th; and his daughter Elizabeth, three years old, July the 10th. He was constrained by these distressing events to leave his former dwelling for a season. The plaintive elegy he printed on this occasion, describing the anguish of his wounded spirit, and the relief he found in the compassion of his God, and in the prospect of future bliss, is truly affecting.

Francis, was spared for twentyseven years, who went to America, where he had a pleasing prospect as to temporal circumstances, and was on the point of being married to a very amiable young lady, when he was cut off by the yellow fever, in 1795, at

heavy trial, if we insert an extract from the letter he sent to the lady, with whom his son was about to have formed the closest connection on earth:

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On July 27, 1766, he was married again, to Miss Wallis, his present sorrowful widow. By her he had ten children, but three only survive their honoured and beloved father. The first child, by this second marriage, received the name of Enoch; but the hope of his resembling his excel-Petersburgh, in Norfolk, South lent grandfather was soon pre- Carolina. This was a stroke pecluded, by finding he was de- culiarly severe: but it may give prived of the sense of hearing, the reader some idea of the supand, consequently, of the faculty ports his father derived from evanof speech. This affliction, how-gelical religion in the midst of this ever, seemed only to draw the affection of the parents more strongly towards a child, who stood in such peculiar need of their attention. This child discovered not only a singular sagacity in imbibing knowledge by unusual methods, but, for a considerable time before his death, gave surprising evidence of a deep sense of religion. He always shunned the company of wicked boys with the strongest tokens of abhorrence, and took a wonderful delight in attending divine worship, both in public, and in the family. But he was removed at fifteen years of age, after a short illness, in which he strangely signified his expectation of his approaching death. One daughter, Esther, and two sons, died young of a second Esther, some account was inserted in the Baptist Register, Vol. I. p. 159. She died August 25, 1790, in the eleventh year of her age, and gave the most satisfactory and delightful evidence of her true piety. The like mitigation attended the loss of her elder sister, who was also taken from her affectionate parents that same year, at the age of sixteen, after a lingering illness, wherein she enjoyed very extraordinary consolations. A son, named Benjamin, by the present Mrs.

Though overwhelmed with grief at the loss of a dear and affectionate son, whom I tenderly loved, yet I dare not repine at the disposal of unerring Provi, dence, but am enabled to say, The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Christ is al together worthy of your entire confidence, chief esteem, and everlasting adoration. May this bitter cup be abundantly mixed with divine consolations; and while you lament the loss of the uncertain stream of temporal felicity, may you drink eternal hap piness at the fountain head."

(To be continued.)

THE DISCIPLINE

OF THE

PRIMITIVE CHURCHES. (Concluded from page 92.)

WE cannot enumerate all the particular cases which fall under the cognizance of a Christian church, but shall mention a few which are recorded in the Scrip tures for our imitation.

A departure from the faith of the gospel, or any of its leading

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