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Like his grandfather, Samuel wrote religious poetry. By the second half of the eighteenth century, original hymns were well established; in my reading I have not any discussions from this period on whether or not to sing hymns. Practically all of Samuel's hymns which are now extant are those which his friend John Rippon include in his 1787 book, A Selection of Hymns.200 These are almost the same hymns and in the same order as those which appear in his Works: III, 531-555 Samuel's poems are of two moods. The first is an objective, joyful mood. The following is perhaps the most appealing poem to me in the twentieth century; it must have appealed to Rippon, also, for it is the first poem in his book of hymn-poems:
In the sermon he gives a survey of the post-Restoration Stuart Kings and the wonderful events which made England a country with religious freedom.210 In closing, he reminds the people of their sinfulness and need to live humbly in society, but the main emphasis is on "civil and religious liberty":
 A. Life - John Howard Samuel Stennett at the Little Wild Street Baptist Church, had the famous John Howard as one of his congregation,212 Howard was a county landlord. His unique career in prison reform sprang from his being sheriff of Bedford in 1773. He was incensed at the moral and physical degradation of the jails. Accordingly, he began to spend a great deal of his time visiting the jails in various parts of England. He reported his findings to parliament and laws were passed pertaining to prison betterment. Specifically there were at least two laws, one "for the Relief of prisoners who should be acquitted --respecting their fees" and the other "for preserving the health of Prisoners, and preventing the Gael-distemper." Then Howard toured Scotland, Ireland and the Continent in the interest of better prisons. While trying to ascertain methods for stopping a plague, he was in Russia, just north of the Black Sea. There, by doctoring a person who had a fever, he contracted the fever and died January 20, 1790.213 As Howard was a close friend of Samuel, Samuel preached a sermon about him on March 21, 1790.214 Howard was an unusual man; Stennett preached an extraordinary sermon in commemoration of his life and death. In opening In opening the sermon, he gives a lengthy description of Jesus' human activities. "Jesus . . . went about doing good . . . both to the souls and bodies of men." It is unusual for Stennett to emphasize the human side of Jesus. He chose his material on Jesus so that it had a similarity to the life of Howard; for example, he emphasized how each one served human needs even though the persons benefited were not of his own country.215 Inspired by the socially beneficial life of Howard, for the first time in his printed sermons, he used the phrase, "the dignity of man." Stennett says about Howard,
Stennett's mention of "the worth, importance, and dignity of man" is an idea which might easily have come from the Declaration of the Rights on Man which came out of the French Revolution eight months earlier, August 27, 1789. (The French Revolution is usually dated from July 14, 1789.)217 A less likely source of the idea is the American Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776 which said, among other things, that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." In other words, the worth of man is in the milieu. Never-the-less, I think that it was the French Revolution that put "the worth of man" into Stennett's vocabulary.218 Stennett praises Howard for his "Disinterestedness." By this he meant Howard's lack of personal concern for himself; Howard visited unsanitary prisons without regard to personal risk and he also presented his data to Parliament without compromising the facts although he would probably lose in personal popularity.219 Stennett, however, says he cautioned Howard before he made his fatal trip to the continent. Stennett had warned of "the mistake of suffering himself, through an earnest desire of doing good. . . ."220 |
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Chapter IV - Samuel Stennett
A. Life ....................................................................................  Personal Religion ..................................................................................... Baptism Affably Defended ...................................................................................... More Religious Freedom Achieved .......................................................................... The American Revolution ..................................................................................... The Social Aspect of Christianity ......................................................................... Seventh Day Baptists ..................................................................................... On a Parable ..................................................................................... Hymns .............................................................................................. John Howard .................................................................................... Use of Bible ...................................................................................... Defense of Dissenters ......................................................................................... B. Family ................................................................................................. C. Thought ................................................................................................ Contents ...................................................................................... Contact Us : ................................................................................ Interactive Index ................................................................................. |