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Joseph Stennett was born at Abingdon in Berkshire in 1663, the year between the Act of Uniformity and the Conventical Act. When he was seven or eight years old, the family moved to the ruins of the old castle at Wallingford, ten miles southeast of Abingdon. In that old castle which could not be forcibly entered by many of the lower governmental officers, this Dissenter family had some protection against authorities who were trying to enforce laws against Dissenter meetings. At Wallingford, Joseph received his early education in the public school. Religiously, he was trained at home and was converted while young, an experience for which he later praised God and his parents. 001
After he finished his grammar school education, "he soon mastered the French and Italian languages." For a broad education, he studied the liberal sciences and acquired a considerable proficiency in philosophy. Beginning in his childhood, he also studied the Scriptures and related the fruits of his studies in philosophy to the understanding of the Bible. 002 In preparation for the ministry, he read the early church fathers and also examined many later church writings. 003 Truly that is an outstanding education for a Dissenter of those times, for Oxford and Cambridge Universities were not open to Dissenter and as yet there were few Dissenter academies. 004
As an adjunct of education, he wrote poetry. His first poem to be published (1684) was a one page epitaph for Francis Bampfield, the London Seventh Day Baptist minister who died while in prison for his Dissenter beliefs. 005
Leaving the shelter of Wallingford Castle, he came to London in 1685 at the age of twenty-two. For a vocation, he turned to his great love for education, and "employed himself in the instruction and education of youth."However, he did not let his own education stop. He turned from his wide knowledge of books to a study of men, and London was a good place to study great men. With his education, he was able to become acquainted with several persons "eminent for their piety, good sense, and learning." 006
The same year he came to London, 1685, he wrote a twelve verse poem on martyrdom. It reflects martyrdom by the method of burning at the stake, 007 yet I think it could be interpreted more broadly for, to me the language is vague. He may have been concerned about the French persecution of protestants. Again, does he not have in mind the English protestant martyrs of the reign of "Bloody Mary" one hundred and thirty years before this time? 008 perhaps Stennett wrote the poem while he had in mind Francis Bampfield, the London Seventh Day Baptist minister who died in 1683 while in prison for his Dissenter activity, perhaps he had in mind the nearly eight thousand Nonconformists who died in prison during the reign of Charles II. 009 Again, he might have in mind the Scotch Covenantors, for whom the years 1684 and 1685 came to be called "Killing time." 010 It is practically impossible now to decide the exact historical motivation for this poem, so I say that most any or several of these circumstances could easily be the data prompting him to write a rather general poem on martyrdom. Remember also that he himself has known nothing but the threat of persecution in these first twenty-two years of his life.
In 1686, he joined the revived Bampfield Seventh Day particular Baptist Church, at Pinners' Hall. 011 On November 6 of that year, he and Samuel Thompson were appointed to record the activities of the church. Formerly there had been some difference between this congregation and that of John Belcher. Stennett and Thompson were appointed to write a letter to the latter congregation to find out and study the differences and to cement their Christian friendship.
Heartily desiring that (all wrath and convention being laid aside) you may in a Christian Spirit of Meekness and Humility compose these matters that cause any thing of variance in an Amiable Manner that for ye future we may be rendered thereby more serviceable to God, and one another, and may mere adorn the Truths we Possess. 012
With two others, Joseph Stennett is called in 1687 to preach occasionally to the Pinners' Hall church.. 013 Political interests, as well as religious interests, command the conscience of Joseph. All of his life to this point had been lived under the threat of prosecution, and it is said that he had attended his own father in prison. In 1687, James II issued the famed Declaration of Indulgence, probably to aid the Roman Catholics. Many Baptist and other Dissenter leaders had been "taken in" by this indulgence. Stennett thought otherwise and some "lean and witty" verses to warn the dissenters of the king's false display of liberty. These verses had "some influence in keeping dissenters from siding with James II's toleration schemes." those anonymous political verses were collected along with those of other men, so we cannot tell which were Stennett's. 014
Joseph Stennett married one of the daughters of a family of French Protestants (Huguenots) who had come to England due to religious pressure in France. For nearly a century, French protestants had been living the partial toleration and protection of the edict of Nantes. Never-the-less, George Guill, Esq., a merchant, moved to England in 1682. He was admitted as a gentlemen to the English privy-chamber and the French ambassador secured for him a "brevet" from the French king saying he would be exempt from anti-protestant edicts and could live in England and serve the English in as long as he wished to do so. 015 Then on July 2, 1684, George Guill, His wife Susanna and their children, John, Jane, Susan and Martha were naturalized in England. 016 In 1685, the family is back in France, perhaps on a visit. An account in the family Bible tells of their hurried exit from France; the narrative begins a week before the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
1685. French style, we set out from Tours, and came to Paris on Monday the 15th of the said month. On the 17th came out the King of France [Louis XIV] his declaration to drive out the Protestants, who had notice in Paris in four days, the 21st was just the day where our places in the waggon for Calais were retained; and the day before I was warned by letters from Tours, by several friends, that upon false accusations I was sought by the Interdict, and other magistrates; and that they had written to the Chancellors of France to send after me and arrest me: But it pleased God, that immediately after his signing and sealing the declaration for the open annulling of the Edit of Nantes, he [not the king; perhaps the Chancellour] fell sick and died, while we were on our journey. So I had an extraordinary occasion to take notice of God's providence toward me and mine in such eminent danger, out of which he hath miraculously saved us. 017
The revocation carried with it the penalty of the galleys for any Huguenots who were caught trying to emigrate. The Guills. however took the risk, and made good the escape. The Guills were part of the great migration of protestants from France; it is said that somewhere between one hundred thousand and five hundred thousand protestants fled from France in this period. 018 In 1688, Stennett married one of the daughters, Susanna as she was now called). Stennett's knowledge of French was doubtless no handicap in the romance! United in marriage are two people who, combining their experience, have a great first-hand knowledge of the persecutions led by the Church of England and the Roman Catholics of France. 019 Stennett continued his active membership in Pinners' Hall Seventh Day Particular Baptist church and his wife joined that church. 020
Stennett often expressed himself in Poetry. Because of his keen awareness of the French persecution, He wrote:
Poor France, the cause of anti-christian rage
Th' amazing horror of the trembling age:
The nations stand around with wond'ring eyes.
As if t' attend thy fatal exequies.
The world's amaz'd to see thy glory fade, and set in
blood behind the western shade. He comes thy foe, and
aims his rage at thee. Tho out of human reach, just
heaven will show. What wonders a divine revenge can do;
Avenging heaven will find a day to quell Thy tyrants rage, and send his guilty soul to hell. 021
But the situation in England suddenly changed to the benefit of the dissenters. Whigs and Tories alike became suspicious that James was leading England back to "popery". Leaders of both parties voted to call protestants, James's daughter Mary and her husband William (of the Netherlands), to the English throne. They landed in England on November 5, 1688 and a "bloodless revolution" ensued. Exultantly, Stennett commemorates the change of fortune incipient in the arrival in England of William, Prince of Orange:
Mighty here! born to be
Heavens delight and Europe's wonder:
Born for easy victory
, Born to trample tyrants under! ....022
Poetry again flowered from his pen on the Accession of William and Mary to the throne in 1689: (Reading between the lines one sees the Toleration Act of the same year.)
What great, what good, what unexpected change,
Beyond our thoughts, and hopes, beyond compare,
Makes shouting echoes thro' our island range,
And teaches us to breath a freer air
Say! is Astres come to dwell with men,
To bless the world with happy times again .... 023
The Toleration Act gave the Dissenters relief in that the Dissenters were, upon certain oaths, made exempt from the penalties of the laws, yet the laws themselves were not changed. Dissenter exemption came after swearing the oaths of allegiance to and the supremacy of the king and subscribing to the Doctrinal Articles of the Church of England. 024
Arnold Toynbee, the great twentieth century historian, sees in the events of the late seventeenth century a turning point of history. The sixteenth century and much of the seventeenth century were filled with "Wars of Religion." The coming of religious toleration is to be seen as the first rally of Western Society as against the "Wars of Religion" which were "a symptom of social breakdown.". 025
Right at the time of the arrival of William of Orange, in London there is a conference of representatives of a hundred Baptist churches. Pinners' Hall Sabbatarian Baptists were not invited, but desired to participate so Joseph Stennett and another man were appointed as representatives. Because of the hesitancy of the conference leaders and the unsettled times, the two men were not seated at the conference. 026
After Jehudah Stennett had moved into the country, after about 1688, both John Jones and Joseph Stennett were asked to preach "every Sabbath when they had not assistance from any other church." 027 On Sunday, January 26, 1690, 028 a business meeting of the church called Joseph to take upon himself the office of "Teaching-Elder, or Pastor." In reply "he thought himself bound in duty to serve God in any station he should call him to, and serve this church so far as he should be capable ..." He delayed, however, about making a final decision. After a time the church pressed him for an answer and in turn he asked the church to set aside Sunday, March 2, 1690 for prayer; then he would decide. He accepted that day and was ordained two days later, March 4. 029
The day of ordination was kept by fasting and prayer. Those, participating in the ordination were John Belcher, Sr., Hanserd Knollyns, and Issac Lamb. 030 Belcher was a long-time friend of the Stennett family. Knollyns was an elderly Baptist minister, who had been a Fifth-Monarchy man. 031 Lamb, likewise, was not a Seventh Day Baptist.
Although the Pinners' Hall Seventh Day Particular Baptist Church could not pay him much, Joseph served it loyally, Becoming their minister when he was twenty-six, he served it for the last twenty-three years of his rather short life. Often he preached on Sundays for other congregations.
From various sources we gleam bits of information and insight concerning his ministry. Among these there is a 1692 letter to a student. Like his father, Joseph is cautious in the search for truth. Dissenters had to be careful in order not to lose the principles for which they stood by following the majority Church of England. 032 This letter is to a student of
mathematics; a study that must needs be very agreeable to you, because you are to take nothing for granted therein but what is demonstrable, and past doubt. This will lay a good foundation in your mind, and make it habitual to you examine things well before you receive them for truth.
prophetically Stennett points out that knowledge is not just for honor, but must also be for service or usefulness to one's generation. 033
About 1693 Joseph showed his broad-minuteness by praising a poem written by a Church of England minister. Samuel Wesley published that year a long poem entitled The Life Of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Wesley's 348 page poem was dedicated to Queen Mary. Alexander Pope (1688-1744) later said it was a poor poem, but the queen was impressed and in 1696 she rewarded Wesley with a better rectory. Wesley moved from South Ormsby to Epworth, both in Lincolnshire, an east coast country. It was Epworth which was to become famous when Wesley's sons John and Charles, were to lead the Evangelical revival which evolved into the Methodist church. As far as I know, there is no personal contact between Samuel Wesley and Joseph Stennett, but the letter was impressed by the long poem of the former, and wrote a short poem in praise of it. 034
It was typical of Stennett that he praises men outside his own denomination. He writes in memory of several ministers, he compliments one man on his shorthand; another for his philosophical dress. Few if any of these are Seventh Day Baptists. 035
He releases three sermons for publication in 1695. These sermons which he had preached a year previously, are entitled, Advice to the Young or, the Reasonableness and Advantages of an Early Conversion to God . One might reflect in them his own experience of having early become a Christian and having given thanks to his parents for their Christian nurture. The sermons use built around the idea of God as our Creator and therefore it is our duty to become Christians. In these sermons, Stennett keeps in mind the intellectual atmosphere of the times in which he is living, Early Deism is flourishing with its emphasis on reason in religion, besides revelation. He preaches for his generation:
I hope it will not be thought that I have treated on God's Relation to Man as his Creator, in the first Sermon, after a manner too abstracted and philosophical for a practical Discourse, when 'tis considered that we live in an Age wherein some Men will hear on to no other kind of Arguments; and wherein the Minds of others can't be too well fortified against the Contagion of Atheism ...
What is advanced in these Discourses I have Labour'd to sustain both by Scripture and Reason and endevour'd to speak to the Understandings as well as to the Affections of my Auditors, and of my Readers. 036
As to conversion, "we ought to begin as early as possible to give attention to God." 037 This is logically in line with his own experience. However, he does not develop the idea as far as the American Horace Bushnell over a century later who said one should not know when he began to be a Christian, but should have grown up in that atmosphere.
The good friend of the Stennett family, John Belcher, Sr., died in March 1695. Joseph had called on him often in his illness and on April 1 Stennett preached the sermon at Belcher's funeral. Later that year the sermon was published. Joseph says he preaches the sermon on this principle:
I think that great modesty of speech is to be observed in such places, and on such occasions as these; and that it becomes those whose who preach, rather than to commend the dead; and to excite men to praise their Creator, rather than to amuse them with panegyrics on their fellow-creatures. 038
Accordingly, Joseph chose II Corinthians 5:4 as the Scripture and his title was "The groans of a saint, under the burden of a mortal body." He warns that our bodies "occasion much ignorance and error in our souls, of "original corruption," our bodies are an important cause of our sins and obstruct the souls' progress in holiness. Death is a good riddance of these bodies and he hopes that our souls in the world beyond will have "glorious bodies." 039
Website by Allen Harrington
https://blue-hare.com/stennett/joseph/josephh.html
Copyright © 1950, 2012 Oscar Burdick & 1999-2022 Allen Harrington
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000 Woodcut by Verdue Works , preface
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001 Joseph Stennett, op cit. , ( Works ), I, B7.
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002 Ibid. , I B19; III (London: 1731), 2197.
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003 Ibid. , I, B8f.
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004 Payne, Free Church Tradition in the Life of England , p. 69.
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005 Whitley, A Baptist Bibliography , I, 117; II, 63. A Baptist Bibliography (Start),
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006 Joseph Stennett, op cit. , I, B9.
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007 Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , IV (London: 1732), 284-288; cf. The Sabbath Recorder , Oct. 29, 1857, p. 84.
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008 Brooke Herford, The Story of Religion in England (London: 1893), pp. 194-197.
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009 Ibid. , p. 249.
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009 Ibid. pp. 250f
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010 Ibid. , p. 271.
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011 The Sabbath Recorder , March 1, 1883 says he joined on Sept. 28, 1686, but the reunion was not held until the "14th day of the eighth month," which was then October (14). Members joined the organization at end of that month, so I say he joined in October, not September. (Pinners] Hall Record Book , pp. 1f.)
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012 Pinners' Hall Record Book , pp. 3ff. In these old quotations, only rarely have I taken the liberty to modernize the capitalization and spellings.
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013 Ibid. , p. 13.
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014 Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , I, b9f, C. E. Whitney, Studies in English Puritanism From The Restoration To The Revolution (London: S.P.C.E., 1931), p.564; Godfrey Holden Pike, Ancient Meeting-Houses (London: 1870), p.175.
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015 Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , I, B18; Wilson, op. cit. , II, 60.
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016 David G. A. Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France (London: 1874), III, 34.
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017 Daniel Williams, Practical Discourses (London: 1738), I, xviif.; This is found in Agnew, op. cit. , II, 228.
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018 A. J. Grant, The Huguenots , (London: Butterworth, 1934), p. 176; Garrett, op. cit. , pp. 218, 310f.
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019 Agnew, op. cit. , III, 204 alas that a "Mr. Baynes possesses a manuscript which belonged to Stennett, described as 'Reflections on the Cruel persecution which the Reformed Church in France now undergoes, and on the conduct and acts of the Assembly of the clergy of that kingdom. Translated out of the French, 4to, 1685'"
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020 Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , I, B10; Pinners' Hall Record Book , p. 257 (2).
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021 Joseph Stennett, op cit. Works, IV; 273
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022 Joseph Stennett, op cit. , IV, 263
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023 Ibid. , IV, 281f; Astres is the Greek goddess of justice.
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024 Houlder, op. cit. , p. 71; Samuel Stennett, A trip to Holyhead (1793), reprinted in his Works (London): 1824), III, 465f.
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025 Toynbee, op. cit. , V, 316.
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026 Pinners' Hall Record Book, p. 14; cf. Payne, The Baptists of Berkshire, p. 60. H. W. Clark, History of English Nonconformity (London: Chapman & Hall, 1911), II, 131f.
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027 Pinners' Hall Record Book, p. 13.
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028 Ecclesiastical year: 26th day of the 11th month, 1689.
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029 Pinners' Hall Record Book, p. 18. The Record Book gives this three year background for the choice of Joseph as the minister· The 1732 biography of him has a swifter tone to its account. By the earnest solicitation of his friends being about this time [this follows the 1688 marriage account] prevailed on to appear in the pulpit, he preached in Devonshire-Square. The congregation ... at Pinners' Hall had been for some time deprived of ... Mr. Francis Bampfield This people soon fixed their eyes upon Mr. Stennett as a proper successor to so excellent a person." (Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , I, B10f.) I prefer the Record Book with its detailed minutes of the business meetings.
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030 Pinners' Hall Record Book, p. 19.
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031 About 1642 or 1645, he gathered a Baptist church on St. Thames St., London. Knollys died in 1691. Cf. Whitley, The Baptists of London 1612-1928 (London: Kingsgate Press), p. 107; Whitley, History of the British Baptists, p. 109; Clark, op. cit. , II, 345; W. Wheeler Robinson, The Life and Faith of the Baptists (London: Kingsgate, 1946), p. 41.
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032 Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , IV, 330-352.
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033 Ibid. , IV, 314-317.
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034 George J. Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family (New York: 1876), pp. 67ff.; Samuel W, Duffield, English Hymns (New York: Funk & Wagnails, 1886), pp, 348f.; Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , IV, 223-226.
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035 Joseph Stennett, op. cit. , IV, 171, 173-181, 220f, 222, 243, 247-250.
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036 Ibid. , I iii f.
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037 Ibid. , I, 36.
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038 Ibid. , I, Sermon IV (p. 209).
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039 Ibid. , pp. 151, 165, 170ff., 190f., 211; Whitley. The Baptists of London, p. 114.
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