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:
To God, the universal King,
Let all mankind their tribute bring;
All that have breath your voices raise
In songs of never-ceasing praise.
The spacious earth on which we tread,
And wider heavens stretched o'er our head,
A large and solemn temple frame,
To celebrate it's builder's fame.
Here the bright sun, that rules the day,
As through the sky he makes his way,
To all the world proclaims aloud
The boundless sov'reignty of God.
When from his courts the sun retires,
And with the day his voice expires,
The moon and stars adopt the song,
And thro' the night the praise prolong.
The listening earth with rapture hears
the harmonious music of the spheres;
And all her tribes the notes repeat,
That God is wise and good, and great.
But man, endow'd with nobler powers,
Him God in nobler strains adores:
His is the gift to know the song
As well as sing with tuneful tongue. 201
Another poem in the same mood speaks of the joy which Christians may have; although occasionally there are bad spots in the poetic rhythm, the thought content is superb.
Not all the nobles of the earth,
Who boast the honours of their birth,
Such real dignity can claim
As those who bear the Christian name.
To them the privilege is given
To be the sons and heirs of heaven;
Sons of the God who reigns on high,
And heirs of joys beyond the sky.
....
His will he makes them early know,
And teaches their young feet go;
Whispers instruction to their minds,
And on their hearts his precepts binds.
So may my conduct ever prove
My filial piety and love!
Whilst all my brethren clearly trace
Their Father's likeness in my face. 202
On the other hand, he has some hymns which, like the communion and baptismal hymns of his grandfather, are morbid to my twentieth century taste.
Behold the lep'rous Jew,
Oppress'd with pain and grief,
Pouring his tears at Jesus' feet
For pity and relief... 203
Oh, let not justice frown me hence;
Stay, stay the vengeful storm:
Forbid it that Omnipotence
Should crush a feeble worm. 204
My drooping head he rais'd,
My bleeding wounds he heal'd, ... 205
There is one of Samuel's hymns which is used considerably today, although it is unknown to many people, It is a hymn of appreciation and thanks to God:
Majestic sweetness sits enthroned
Upon the Savior's brow;
His head with radiant glories crown'd,
His lips with grace o'erflow.
No mortal can with him compare,
Among the Sons of men;
Fairer is he than all the fair
Who fill the heavenly train.
To him I owe my life, and breath,
And all the joys I have:
He makes me from the grave.
Since from his bounty I receive
Such proofs of love divine,
Had I a thousand Hearts to give,
Lord, they should all be thine! 206
Another hymn is sometimes seen in hymn books 207 and gospel song books. This is "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand" which is an emotional hymn looking forward to the after-life. Thus Samuel's hymns have served the Christian church, but have nearly disappeared by now.
On November 27, 1788, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the great wind storm, Samuel Stennett
preached the annual sermon in the Little Wild Street Church. At the same time, he also commemorated the "storm" of rising
Catholic power in England in 1688. Holding to a doctrine of Providence, he says "God reigns both in the natural and moral
world." 208 The deliverance of England from Catholicism and the wind
storm were kind actions of Providence. 209
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":
Let us humble ourselves before God for our manifold sins, which have been aggravated by the magnitude of his favours conferred upon
us. Let us retain a grateful remembrance of the obligations we owe to the noble exertions of our brave ancestors. Let the same ardor
that inspired their breasts, in the glorious cause of civil and religious liberty, inflame ours... . And, while we watch over our
rights with a jealous eye, let us ever remember that a due regard to that subordination in society, which reason and religion teach,
is one just and natural mean to secure them. Let us fear God, and honour the king. 211
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,
He had a just idea of the civil and religious rights of mankind, accompanied with a true sense of the worth, importance and dignity of man as a reasonable, social, and immoral creature. 216
Yet "no man was more fully persuaded than he of the universal depravity of human nature."
In this sermon, Stennett sounds much like many twentieth century Christians who believe in the worth and dignity of man from the
social gospel and believe in the universality of sin, although rejecting Augustine's formulation of original sin. (Stennett,
however, believe in the depravity of human nature and preferred to prove it out of experience. Although I think he probably believe in
original sin, he never uses the word "original.")
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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200 John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: Murry, 1915), p. 1092. Julian also says that a few
of Samuel's hymns had appeared earlier in A Collection of Hymns for the use of Christmas of all Denominations (London:
1782) and also #16 of the 1778 suplement to the third edition of the Bristol Bap. <Sel.> of Ash and Evans. I have never seen the
latter two books that contain a few of Samuel's hymns. I have little reason to doubt but what he is correct in these facts;
however on minutiae, he is often inaccurate in regard to the Stennetts. He says Joseph's book in reply to Russen was in 1702
instead of 1704 (p. 1091), and he puts Samuel's poems in the second of his four volumes rather than in the third of three volumes
(p. 1092). cf. C. S. Robinson, L Annotations upon Popular Hymns (New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1893), p. 277.
Julian says that there are thirty-eight of Samuel's hymns in Rippon's book; in the 1826 edition of the book from Philadelphia,
I am able to find only thirty-six, but I do not care to waste time on this point.
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201 Samuel Stennett. Works , III, 531.
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202 Ibid. , III, 536
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203 Ibid. , III, 537.
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204 Ibid. , III, 537.
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205 Ibid. , III, 549; cf. pp. 535, 543 and Rippon A Selection of Hyms , number 82.
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206 Samuel Stennett, Works , III, 539-540; this is number 161 in Rippon's collection. It Formerly
had two introductory verses, beginning,
To Christ, the Lord, let every tongue
Its nobelest tribute bring.
The Dictionary of National Biography (LIV, 150) says Samual's hymns "are not equal in merit to those of his
grandfather." Occasionally Samuel's hymns may not flow as smoothly as his grandfather's hymns, but other than that, I
think they are not inferior. In fact, it seems to me that Samuel's hymns would appeal more to the twentieth century, for they are
less morbid than those of his grandfather.
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207 For Instance, The Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, Tenn.: The Methodist Pub. House, 1939), 523.
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208 Samuel Stennett, Sermon in Commemoration of the GREAT STORM WIND , using the pagination in his
Works : III, 263; cf. p. 265. On this sermon, cf. The Sabbath Recorder , Sept. 1, 1853, p. 45.
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209 Works , III. 265, 275.
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210 Ibid. , III, 270-275. At the restoration of the Stuarts, he mentions upwards of two thousand
ministers ... ejected out of the church, and deprived of their livings." (III, 272.) If his great grandfather had been ejected,
as some later writers have said, I think Samuel would have mentioned it in this. sermon. The Stennetts almost never use personal
illustrations in their sermons, but on very appropriate occasions in his books on baptism, Samual had mentioned his grandfather's
book on baptism.
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211 Ibid. , III, 277f. When the sermon was published in London in 1788, Joseph Stennett's poem in
memory of King William III is said to have been annexed to it ( British Museum - Catalogue of Printed Books ).
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212 I believe, he was not a member of the church; he did, however, attend the church "as opportunity
permitted." (Samuel Stennett, Sermon Occasioned by the decease of John Howard, Esq . [London: 1790 1, pp. 1f. [
Works III, 281].)
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213 Sermon Occasioned by the decease of John Howard, Esq . pp. 34-39 ( Works III, 297-300);
Walker, op. cit. , pp. 520f.; cf. Hepworth Dixon, John Howard and the Prison World of Europe (New York: Carter, 1850);
J. Field, The Life of John Howard (London: Longman, Brown Green and Longmans, 1850); Henry W. Bellows, John Howard
(London: 1872); Houlder, op. cit. , p,.124; Bready, op. cit. , pp. 365, 368.
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214 Dixon, op. cit. , p. 64; In Samuel's Works , III, 459f., there is a letter from Howard to
Stennett telling him how much he has enjoyed Stennett's ministry and the notes he has taken from Stennett's preaching. Howard
wrote, "... With unabated pleasure I have attended your ministry; no man ever entered more into my religious sentiments, or more
happily expressed them. ...
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215 Sermon ... decease of John Howard , pp. 3-16, specifically pp. 3, 11 Works , III, 282-288,
specifically 282, 286).
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216 Sermon ... decease of John Howard , pp. 24f. Works , III, 292).
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217 Garrett, op. cit. , 552f.
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218 According to the Catalogue of the Angus Library in England , in 1790, Samuel published a piece
entitled, A Look to the Last Century . If so, it should be very valuable in understanding Samuel's emphasis on the
"worth of man" and other developments in the last half of the eighteenth century. Unfortunately I know of no copy of that
publication in this country.
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219 Sermon ... decease of John Howard , pp. 25, 28 ( Works , III, 292ff.).
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220 Sermon ... decease of John Howard , pp. 39 ( Works , III, 299f.).
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