Joseph Benson
English Methodist minister and Methodist movement leader (1749-1821)
Joseph Benson
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Joseph Benson
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President of the Methodist Conference | |
In office
1798–1799 |
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Preceded by | Thomas Coke |
Succeeded by | Samuel Bradburn |
In office
1810–1811 |
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Preceded by | Thomas Taylor |
Succeeded by | Charles Atmore |
Personal details | |
Born |
26 January 1749
Kirkoswald, Cumberland |
Died | 16 February 1821 ( 1821-02-17 ) (aged 72) |
Occupation | Methodist minister |
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Joseph Benson (26 January 1749 – 16 February 1821) was an early English Methodist minister, one of the leaders of the movement during the time of Methodism's founder John Wesley .
Life
The son of John Benson and Isabella Robinson, his wife, he was born on 26 January 1749, in the parish of Kirkoswald, Cumberland . His father wished him to become a clergyman, sent him to the village school, and then was under a Mr. Dean, a Presbyterian minister living in the parish. [1]
Aged 15, Benson opened a small school in Gamblesby . A cousin took him to a Methodist conventicle, and they read Wesley's sermons. In December 1765 he set off on foot to hear Wesley preach in Newcastle-on-Tyne , arrived too late, but followed him to London. With an introduction to Wesley, he was taken on Bristol in March 1766, and appointed classical master at Kingswood School . There he preached and held cottage and prayer meetings, but remained an Anglican. [1]
Benson went in 1769 to St Edmund Hall, Oxford . In the same year he lost his father. At Kingswood he had met John William Fletcher , who mentioned him to Selina, Countess of Huntingdon . As a result the Countess asked Benson in 1770 to take the post of head of her Trevecca College . There was a theological difference: the Countess was Calvinistic , while Fletcher and Benson were Arminian . The appointment went badly, but the Countess gave Benson a testimonial. [1]
With a presentation to Rowley , a parish near West Bromwich , Benson applied for ordination, but James Johnson , the Bishop of Worcester refused to ordain him. Benson from then on became a Methodist, and an effective evangelical preacher. [1] He tried in the mid-1770s to broker a deal that would make the Methodists a "daughter church" of the Church of England , working with the Anglican Fletcher, but Wesley was not in agreement. [2]
In a clash with Thomas Coke of 1780, Benson found he had been called a heretic. Wesley managed to smooth over the affair. The contentious matter of the mid-1790s, of Methodist ministers and the sacrament , saw Benson opposed by others such as John Murlin, who disagreed with his view that Methodists should take it in Anglican churches. [3] Benson was a vocal critic of women preachers and he spoke out against Mary Taft . [4]
In 1803, Benson became editor of the Methodist Magazine , and held the post for the rest of his life. [3] [5]
Benson was president of the Methodist conference in 1798 and 1810. [6] He died on 16 February 1821, aged 74. [1]
Works
Benson was an apologist for Methodism, as seen in: [1]
- Defence of the Methodists in Five Letters to the Rev. Dr. Tatham (1793), addressed to Edward Tatham ;
- A sequel, A Farther Defence , in five letters to the Rev. William Russell, in answer to his Hints to the Methodists and Dissenters , and to which Russell again replied; [7]
- Vindication of the People called Methodists, in answer to a report from the Clergy of a district in the Diocese of Lincoln (1800); and
- Inspector of Methodism inspected, and the Christian Observer observed (1803), a reply to William Hales .
Benson crossed swords with Joseph Priestley , in Remarks on Dr. Priestley's System of Materialism and Necessity (1788), and A Scriptural Essay towards the Proof of an Immortal Spirit in Man, being a continuation of Remarks (1788). [1] His view of Priestley's materialism was basic, and he took the direction of exposition of Arminian theology. [8] He was in Birmingham at the time of the Priestley Riots of 1791, and made journal entries about them. [9]
Other writings were: [1]
- A Demonstration of the Want of Common Sense in the New Testament Writers, on the Supposition of their believing and teaching Socinianism (1791), which was appended to Fletcher's Socinianism Unscriptural ;
- Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments ... with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical , 2nd edition, 1811–18, 5 vols.
- "Sermons on Various Occasions, Most of them on the Principal Subjects of Genuine Christianity", 1814
Family
Benson married Sarah Thompson at Leeds , 28 January 1780. They had at least two sons. [3]
Notes
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Stephen, Leslie , ed. (1885). "Benson, Joseph" . Dictionary of National Biography . Vol. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ↑ William J. Abraham; James E. Kirby (24 September 2009). The Oxford Handbook of Methodist Studies . Oxford University Press. pp. 54–. ISBN 978-0-19-160743-1 .
- 1 2 3 Valentine, Simon Ross. "Benson, Joseph". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi : 10.1093/ref:odnb/2142 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ↑ "Mary Barritt Taft · Fifty Women · Bridwell Library Special Collections Exhibitions" . bridwell.omeka.net . Retrieved 21 April 2023 .
- ↑ Newton, John A. "Murlin, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi : 10.1093/ref:odnb/19568 . (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ↑ Jonathan Barry; Kenneth Morgan (1994). Reformation and revival in eighteenth-century Bristol . Bristol Record Society. p. 151. ISBN 9780862924188 . UOM:39015032179791.
- ↑ Robert Watt (1824). Bibliotheca Britannica, Or a General Index to British and Foreign Literature . Constable. p. 823.
- ↑ Gavin Budge et al. (editors), The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers (2002), Thoemmes Press (two volumes), article Benson, Joseph, p. 83–4.
- ↑ The Life of Joseph Benson: Abridged from Authentic Sources . J. Emory and B. Waugh. 1832. p. 44.
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
public domain
:
Stephen, Leslie
, ed. (1885). "
Benson, Joseph
".
Dictionary of National Biography
. Vol.
4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
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