I would say that Joseph Stennett's two greatest contributions to total Christianity are his hymns and his activity in the Baptist cause. First we will consider his hymns for the Lord's Supper. In the Reformation on the continent, Luther used hymns based on the Scriptures, Latin sources and the originality of the German Muse. Calvin made singing a main feature of Christian worship, but believed the best hymns were psalms set to meter. Psalm singing followed Calvinism through France into Scotland and down into England where in the period 1644-1660 congregational singing of metrical psalms was the only music allowed in church. Individuals at the beginning of the seventeenth century had seen composing original hymns in English, but there was no hope of using them in the church service. William Barton in 1659 had published A Century of Select Hymns in the preface of which he wrote in favor of original hymns provided only that they be founded on Scripture. Then in 1679 John Patrick came out with a new version of the Psalms that included the name of Christ! Yet there was no general acceptance of hymns. Much less, singing in the church service was becoming unpopular. Previously John Smyth in Amsterdam had set up a stringent standard against formalism:
We should that, seeing singing a psalme is a part of spiritual worship, therefore it is unlawful to have the book before the eye in time of singing a psalme .... Saying set forms of worship by rote is quenching the Spirit .... 041
Metre, rhyme and musical measures came under the same ban: they "quenched the Spirit."
In the middle of the century, the Quaker George Fox also fought formalism, protesting that people "fed upon words and trampled upon the life." However, there was singing in some Quaker meetings.
In 1691 a Mr. Steed published An epistle ... concerning Singing, denouncing the practice. H. Wheeler Robinson summarizes the book thus:
Singing by a set stinted form is an invention of man, having of the same quality as, if not worse than, common stinted set-form prayers, or even infant sprinkling. It is artificial, and therefore alien to the true and spontaneous song if we had more of the Holy Spirit. As for arguments drawn from the music of the Old Testament, all that is done away in Christ. Moreover, some cannot sing, not having tunable voices, and women ought anyhow to anyhow to keep silence in the churches. 042
I think Dr. Wayne Rood traces correctly the movement whose end result is the removal of all music, even psalm-singing, from the church. This movement is a very conservative portion of protestantism which is in violent reaction to Roman Catholic worship. 043 The over-all movement is almost as old as protestantism is in England. One of the early expressions in opposition to Catholic form and splendor was at Bartholomew's fair in August 1559 (in the reign of Queen Elizabeth). From the near-by church came forty or fifty well-dressed burghers carrying "spoils of Popery" which they had stripped from the church.
Tables, shrine-coverings, trindals, rolls of wax, saints big and little, fragments of alters, Popish books, surplices, and copes, 044 banners, altar-cloths, rood cloths, and crucifixes were thrown one by one into a large bonfire. 045
At the time the Commonwealth we have another glimpse of the reaction against form in church worship. In 1542, when the Civil War began, the Puritan soldiers began destroying church organs as they came across them. Two years later the Parliament officially decreed the destruction of all organs. 046 Yet we must remember that the Puritans loved and remained loyal to Calvinist psalmody. 047 By the time of Joseph Stennett, some Dissenters had gone further than the Puritans in that they rejected all music for church use.
However, among the Presbyterians, Richard Baxter, and among the Particular Baptists, Benjamin Keach supported the use of original hymns in the church service. In 1683, John Mason 048 published Spiritual Songs, a book that had special influence on Isaac Watts, a somewhat younger Baptist writer. Nearly three hundred hymns were published in 1691 by Benjamin Keach in a book entitled, Scriptural Melody 049 I do not know that Keach and Stennett, both with hymn-writing interests, knew each other at this time. It is possible that they did. Anyway, by 1704 they are acquainted for Stennett defends Keach when he is attacked by a member of the Church of England. 050 Also the same year, Stennett was called to the death-bed of Keach. Keach gave Stennett the text for his funeral sermon and later Stennett preached the sermon for his friend. 051 (This shows an amazingly Christian Spirit between the two men, for only four years before, Keach had written a book against the practice of observing Saturday as the Sabbath!) 052
I believe that Stennett's particular Baptist church sang psalms in the worship service. In 1696, Joseph Stennett, together with J. Maister, Wm. Collins, John Piggott, and Thomas Harrison, endorsed an essay by Richard Allen which was to prove that the "singing of psalms with conjoined voices was a Christian duty. 053 Furthermore, Stennett's congregation knew a number of hymn tunes. 054 the Pinners' Hall congregation had not rejected psalm-singing.
I surmise Stennett felt that psalms might do for general worship, but something peculiarly Christian was needed for the Lord's Supper. He had a keen appreciation of the Lords Supper. 055 Accordingly he would write hymns
to assist the Devotions of those who communicate at his Sacred Table, by suggesting what I thought most proper to dispose 'em to Humility and Repentance, to Faith and Hope, to Admiration and Joy, to love and Gratitude, 056
Outsiders had procured copies through public dictation, a method which can easily result in mistakes. To achieve more accurate copies, in 1697 he published a compilation of thirty-seven communion hymns. 057 A second edition with forty-six hymns was published in 1705 and a third in 1709 with fifty hymns.
To counteract opposition to singing and the use of contemporary hymns, Stennett did two things. In his preface to his Communion hymns, he wrote:
I have carefully avoided those very bold Flights and those
Heathenish phrases which some have indulg'd even in Divine
Poetry; for I cannot think 'em consistent with the Gravity,
Purity and perspicuity which ought to be perserv'd in
Hymns calculated for the immediate Service to God, and the Common Edification of Christians. 058
Furthermore, whether consistent of it or not, he followed the ideas of William Barton that hymns should be based upon scripture. Stennett put Scripture references in the margin opposite almost every line of his hymns. Secondly, Stennett had another man write a second preface, embracing some arguments for the singing of hymns in the church service. This friend was originally opposed to even the singing of Psalms, but had become convinced that singing was a valid part of worship. 059 This second preface is a positive statement of singing in the New Testament. 060 The friend also quoted a Roman author, Pliny the Younger, who mentions Christians singing about A.D. 104. 061
Joseph hopes that the imperfections of his poetry may be an occasion of the setting of a better man at work, one who would produce "politer" compositions. Anyway, men arise, who are to receive greater acclaim an hymn writers than Stennett does now in the twentieth century, the first great name is Issac Watts (1674-1748). When Watts "was not more than eighteen years of age, he expressed to his father his irritation at the unmelodious hymns sung at Nonconformist meetings, and was met by the challenge, 'Make some yourself, then '" 062 Thus I think Watts' inspiration for hymn writing is independent of the influence of Joseph Stennett. Nevertheless, one of Watts' hymns does contain phrases taken from Stennett. 063 The poets most familiar to the twentieth are Charles and John Wesley, whose hymns helped popularize singing in the Evangelical Revival.
I would evaluate Stennett's influence on hymnology as historical rather than the production of hymns of eternal popularity. His hymns and his reputation as a Baptist leader in London, besides being a Seventh Day Baptist minister, had weight against the Nonconformist hesitancy about singing contemporary hymns. Today, most hymnals have none of Joseph Stennett's hymns. An exception is the joint hymnal of the American Baptists and the Disciples of Christ 064 which has one of his communion hymns: "Lord, at thy table we behold the wonders of thy grace." The Disciples have communion every Sunday, which might explain the wider search for communion hymns. 065 Of course, in Seventh Day Baptist churches, occasionally a Sabbath Hymn. "Another Six Days Work Is Done," is sung. 066 Thus I state Stennett's major influence in music as being his work for the preservation of singing and the advent of original hymns‚ A writer such as Watts, for example has eleven hymns in the Disciples' book. Charles Wesley has a dozen in the Disciples book.
Stennett's hymns are very accentuated in their portrayal of Christ's sufferings. "Rivers of blood ran from his wounds-"
This crimson stream .... A bath for sinners does compose .... 067
About himself he does not spare descriptive language: "I am a sinful worm." 068 likewise, sin and Hell come in for lucid treatment:
When sin had brought death, with a train
Of miseries on the guilty world;
And wretched man doom'd to be
Into eternal darkness hurl'd;
... tort'ring brimstone
... ne'er-to-be-extinguish'd fires 069
These stark descriptions are rather out of taste today. 070 Yet many beautiful thoughts are also contained in the communion hymns.
Jesus! a word divinely sweet!
How charming is the sound!
What joyful news! what heavenly sense
In that dear name is found! 071
Glory to God on high,
Good Will to men below:
If thus the friendly angels cry,
What joy should mortals show! 072
My blessed Saviour, is thy love
So great, as full, so free?
Behold I give my love, my heart,
My life, my all, to thee.
I love thee for the glorious worth
In thy great self I see:
I love thee for that shameful cross
Thou hast endure'd for me.
No man of greater love can boast
Than for his friend to die:
But for thy enemies thou wast slain:
What love with thine can vie! 073
Stennett "being of a liberal spirit, did not confine his ministry to such churches as agreed with him in every particular." Some time before June 12, 1695, he had become minister of the Baptist church at Barbican (Paul's Alley). 074 Barbican, at that time, was not a member of either the General or particular Baptists. On the above date, Barbican with Turners' Hall. In the May 22 union agreement, it was stated that "Br. Joseph Stennett be continued in the Ministry thereof."
All went well with his Baptist ministry until 1700. Then two complaints sprang up and were reported to Stennett in a letter of April 4, 1700. It was as said that he had preached at Loriners' Hall, and thereby encouraged the schism from the church at White's Alley. Barbican thought that the schism should be discouraged. Secondly, for their own church, they said Stennett had began preaching on the points of controversy between the Remonstrants and Calvinists. 075
Stennett replied that he hadn'd realized but it was all right to preach on controversy between White's Alley and the split off church at Loriners' Hall, as long as the latter was now a separate church. As to Barbican, Stennett said the doctrines he was now preaching were the same ones he had preached before, without any offense.
"This answer was deemed satisfactory; yet so great was the affection of the church toward him, that they expressed their willingness to pass by what had occurred, if he would forebear preaching upon the" points of difference between the Remonstrants and Calvinists. The answer of Mr. Stennett expressed his willingness to "desist from preaching at Loriners' Hall but not upon controversies," Thus, "on account of his Calvinistic opinions, he was respectfully dismissed from his situation as their minister, about May, 1700." Ironically, in 1706, Barbican joined the particular Baptist association. Stennett, appears cooperative, yet wants his freedom. To do so, he gives up what may well have been a good income, at a time when he has a large family. 076
But dismissal from one church did not deter him from preaching on Sundays. I do not know that he ever again was a regular minister of a "Sunday" church, but he did supply preaching. For example, already by June 1700 he preached at least twice to a church in Spittle-fields. He had supposedly been dismissed because of his Calvinism, yet on Sunday, June 16, he says,
And whoever thus effectually believes in the Son of God, and believes the foundation truths of the Christian religion, the cross of Christ, The design of his sufferings, and the great points which are founded thereupon; whoever heartily believes these, so as to comply with the terms which are laid down in the sacred word, shall, as certainly as God is true, be saved. 077
Where is Calvin's election and reprobation? Two weeks later he speaks of being "called." He makes God's calling depends on the embracing by men of the gospel:
'Many are called, but few are chosen. Many are called; that is, have the gospel published to them. Sometimes it signifies those who have embraced the gospel when published to them: 'Those,' says the apostles, 'when he did predestinate, them he also called.' So here, 'those who are called,' that is, who have embraced the doctrine of the gospel, who are called to the dignity of Christianity; who are called out from the world, effectually separated from the world, and from amongst men; those who are truly converted, true christians; to them the gospel appears to be both 'the power of God, and the wisdom of God.' 078
Thus Joseph Stennett is supposed to be a Calvinist, but he interprets predestination, not absolutely, but in terms of belief. This appears to be a dilemma, but John Hunt's Religious Thought in England suggests a solution. Hunt says that Hooper, Latimer, and Crammer were all Calvinists in doctrine, yet in their preaching they asked people not to look to the decree of predestination, but to see that they themselves were believers. They are not to be curious whether or not their names are in the book of life, but to strive to enter in by the strait gate." 079
I have said that one of Joseph's two greatest contributions to the Christian church was his place in hymnology. The second is his leadership within the Baptist cause which resulted in political action and interchurch cooperation. His Christian interests went beyond the Seventh Day particular church which he served. In 1696 an assassination plot was formed against King William by supporters of James II. Following it there was to be a French invasion of England for the benefit of James. Informers broke up the plot and practically all England rejoiced. The Baptists in and around Lord chose Stennett to congratulate the King on his "deliverance" from the plot. Stennett wrote the address and presented it to the king on April 9, 1696. Eight years previous, he is supposed to have been distrusting the tolerance of James II. Now he tells William III, "we have enjoyed a share of the benign influence of your government, whereby both our civil and religious liberties have been so happily protected and vindicated." 080
Again, on December 29, 1701, Stennett wrote and presented "An Address of ye Baptist Ministers in & about the City of London, presented to his Majesty, King William upon ye French King's proclaiming ye pretended Prince of Wales, King of England..." 081 This address would be supporting William and opposing a Roman Catholic pretender. Joseph Stennett is a loyal supporter of the government. In doing so, he often had a hand in the addresses of the whole body of dissenting ministers in London to the government. 082
The year 1700 was a full one for Stennett, for besides the events of his dismissal from Barbican and the sermons he is known to have preached just afterward, he spent time at Tunbridge for the "use of the waters, after his recovery from a dangerous illness." He is supposed to have preached there and also he formed a friendship with Mordeci Abbot, Esq., receiver-general of his Majesty's customs. Abbot praised Stennett highly. When Abbot died, Stennett wrote his epitaph. 083
About this same time, Guill family connections attracted attention. In 1698, he was on the verge of going to France to try to recover the Guill estate valued at twelve thousand pounds. Some friends encouraged this move because of his skill in the French language, while others prevailed, pleading the danger of the trip. It is said that some of the members of the retinue of the English ambassador in France met rough treatment while traveling in France, as it was regarded as fortunate that Stennett did not go. 084
Susanna Guill Stennett had an older sister, Jane, who married Francis Barckstend. She became a widow, and in 1701, she married a leading presbyterian minister of London, Daniel Williams. Williams is probably better known today because in his will he gave his own library and another wish he had purchased as the start of a resource library. In 1727, a large building was erected following a subscription among wealthy Dissenters in London. This library has had many additions of books and now is one of the leading English libraries on the Dissenters. Williams is supposed to have become a "generous friend" to Stennett. 085
Although Joseph Stennett was no doubt very busy with his church work, he is by no means inactive in scholarly work. In 1698, the year after the first edition of his Communion hymns, he publishes a translation from French of a book by the Bishop of Chiapa. This book was entitled An account of the first voyage and discoverys made by the Spaniards in America, with the cruelties exercis'd by them, in destroying above forty millions of people... To which is added, The Art of Traveling. 086 Likewise, in 1701 he published a translation from French of Dacier's The works of Plato Abridged... in two volumes. It is supposed to have been reprinted in 1701, 1720, 1749 and 1772. 087
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Joseph Stennett - Footnotes - Hymns
40 In this I am using the definition of hymn which says it is the poem, not the music or tune.
NOTE : The hymn poems for both Joseph and Samuel Stennett have been put on this site.
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41 F.J. Gilham, The Evolution of the English Hymn (New York: Macmillan, 1927), p. 178.
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42 Op. cit ., p. 49. Those are the main objections to singing. Some accounts of the period tell of individual voices at different tempos from the group; some of the tediousness of lining out psalms as there were no tunebooks. These, how ever, were not the main objections to psalm singing.
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43 Rood, op. cit ., pp. 66f. I disagree in part, however, when he says, "They looked upon singing as a form of worship and praise, and would not practice it in any religious assembly lest it would be engaged in by those who were not sincere." (p. 66.) I say, there was reaction against the form, not because of the possible insincerity of singers, but because it was feared that the spirit would be stifled.
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44 A cope is a cap-like vestment.
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45 Samuel Hopkins, The Puritans (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1859), pp. 1 54ff.
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46 229. Percy A. Scholes, The Puritans and Music (London: Oxford, 1934), p.
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47 Ibid ., p. 270.
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48 This Mason is not to be confused with Lowell Mason, the American hymn writer over a century later.
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49 For Sources on the precoding several pages on music, see these books: Benjamin Brawley, History of the English Hymn (New York: Abingdon, 1932), pp. 35f., 56, 58, 60f.; Underwood, op cit ., p. 133; Minutes of the General Assembly of the General Baptist Churches in England , ed. by Whiteley (London: Abingsgate, 1910), II, 21; A. Mitchell Hunter. The Teaching of Calvin (Westwood, R. J.: Fleming M. Revell, 1950), pp. 281, 283; Gillman, op cit ., pp.177f.; 198f.; choles, op cit ., pp. 265, 267; Edward Dickinson, Music in the History of the Western Church (New York: Scribners, 1902), pp. 368ff; Robinson op. cit .,m p. 48.
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50 Joseph Stennett, An Answer to Mr. David Russen's Book, Entitl'd Fundamentals Without A Foundation, Or a True Picture of the Anabaptists, ∓c. (London: 1704), pp. 139ff. Henseforth, I will abbreviate this book title: An Answer to ... Russen .
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51 Iviney, op. cit ., II, 377f.
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52 Whitley, "Seventh Day Baptists in England," op. cit ., p. 254; Iviney, op. cit ., II, 375,
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53 Whitley, A Baptist Bibliography , I, 130.
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54 Joseph Stennett, Hymns in Commemoration of the Suffering of Our Blessed Savior Jesus Christ, Composed for the Celebration of His Holy Supper (London: 1705 (2nd edition)), vii: "I have chosen these measures which suite the Tunes in most Common Use among us." Henceforth, I will abbreviate this title, Hymns in Commemoration ... .
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55 Joseph Stennett, Works , I, xvi.
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56 Joseph Stennett, Hymns in Commemoration ... . , vi.
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57 These "hymns" are just words or poem for at that time, it was the practice to publish only words.
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58 Hymns in Commemoration ... . , viif. (Also in his Works , IV, 55.) It is well for us to consider the origin of the hymn; such caution today would eliminate many of our "gospel songs" from the church service!
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59 Joseph Stennett, Hymns in Commemoration ... . , ix ( Works , IV, 56).
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60 The references include Matt. 26: 30; Mark 16: 26; I Cor. 14: 15; Eph. 5: 19f.; Col. 3: 16f.; James 5: 13; Acts 4: 24; see Joseph Stennett, Hymns in Commemoration ... . , pp. xii-xxii.
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61 Ibid ., pp. xxivf.
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62 Brawley, op. ci t., pp .68f.; cf. Gilman, op. cit ., p. 205.
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63 Gilman. op. cit ., p. 202; Bradley, op. cit ., p. 62; Henry S. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns (Portland, Maine: Brown Thurston Co., 1888), p. 623; etc.
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64 Christian Worship (Philadelphia: Judson, 1941 or St. Denis: Bethany, 1941).
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65 Christian Worship , number 464; Burrage, op. cit. , p. 35.
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66 This hymn of course, in separate from the communion collection; it is not found, for instance, in We Glorify Thy Name , #9 and Joseph Works , IV, 231-234. Tracts on the Sabbath (New York: American Sabbath Tract Soc., 1852, no. 10 is in error when "Jesus, I my cross have taken" is attributed to Joseph Stennett instead of Chas. Wesley.
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67 Joseph Stennett, Works , IV, 121, 124.
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68 Ibid ., IV, 104.
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69 Ibid ., Iv, 101, 102, 97.
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70 After the above was written, I happened to read E. A. Payne's evaluation of Stennett's communion hymns: "None of the fifty hymns would make much appeal to-day, but they are important evidence of the attitude to the sacrament at the beginning of the eighteenth century." ( The Fellowship of Relivers (London: Kingsgate, 1944), p. 58.) The early attitude would seem to be that communion had great significance.
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71 Joseph Stennett, Works , IV, 147.
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72 Ibid ., IV, 108.
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73 Ibid ., IV, 111f.
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74 As to the locations of the two churches, both are in the northern part of London. This part of London is defined with the Thames River as the south boundary and the western and eastern parts of the city as the sides. Pinners' Hall is located on "Old Broad St." (Wilson, op. cit ., (London: 1803), II, 249.) I cannot locate this street on the maps available to me (Walter Besant, London in the eighteenth Century (London : Adam and Charles Black, 1903), inside the back cover; Encyclopedia Britannica (Chicago: Enclyopedia Britannica, Inc., 1953), XIV, 347), but I think "Broad Street" may be its location, if so, Pinners' Hall is somewhere between a half mile and a full mile above the Thames River, and quite easterly in the northern part of London. Barbican is about three-fourths of a mile west and sometimes also a little northward from Broad Street.
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75 I suppose Stennett took predominantly the side of Calvinism, for he is called a Calvinist and his own church was a Particular Baptist church. (Wilson, op. cit. , III, 236.) Over and against the Calvinistic Doctrine of absolute predestination, the Remonstrants taught a predestination based on divine foreknowledge of the use men would make of the means of grace. Against the doctrine that Christ died for the elect only, Remonstrants asserted that he died for all, though none receive the benefits of his death for the elect except believers. They agreed on the denial of the ability of men to do anything really good of themselves--all is of divine grace. In opposition to the Calvinist teaching of perseverance, holding it possible that men may lose grace once received (Walker, op. cit ., p. 455). I must say, that in his sermons which are extant, Stennett leans towards the Remonstrant side.
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76 Wilson, op. cit ., II, 597f.; III, 236; Iviney, op. cit ., III, 199ff, 203f.; Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society IV (1914-1916), 46f.; Underwood op. cit .. p. 137. Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society , III, 93, is in error when it assigns the beginning of his ministry at Barbican about 1703.
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77 Joseph Stennett, Works , II (London: 1731), 162. This is on Sunday.
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78 Joseph Stennett, Works , II, 185. (June 30, 1700 at Spittle-fields.)
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79 Hunt, op. cit ., I, 131.
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80 Joseph Stennett, Works , I B16ff.; Wilson, op. cit html# ., II, 599; etc.; Thomas Macaulay, History of England (New York: Harper, ), IV, 516-530.
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81 Transactions of the Baptists Historical Society , II (1910-11), 89f. This address is quoted in full in The London Gazette , no. 3770, from Dec. 25 - Dec. 29, 1701.
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82 Joseph Stennett, Works , I, 24f.
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83 Joseph Stennett, Works , I, B19f; IV, 240.
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84 Joseph Stennett, Works , I, B18f.
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85 Walter D. Jeremy, The Presbyterian Fund and Dr. Daniel William's Trust (London: Williams & Norgate, 1885), p. 119; Daniel Williams, op. cit ., I, xviif.; Joseph Stennett Works , I, BIO.
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86 Joseph Stennett, Works , I, B14; an advertisement in Joseph Stennett, An Answer to ... . Russen; Whitley, A Baptist Bibliography , I, 132. As far as known, no copy is extant either in this country or England.
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87 Whitley, A Baptist Bibliography , I, 137.
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