"The Blessed Spirit": An Analysis of the Pneumatology of Benjamin Beddome as an Early Evangelical

Abstract

ABSTRACT

“THE BLESSED SPIRIT”: AN ANALYSIS OF THE PNEUMATOLOGY

OF BENJAMIN BEDDOME AS AN EARLY EVANGELICAL

Daniel Scott Ramsey, Ph.D.

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2017

Chair: Dr. Michael A. G. Haykin

The pneumatology of Benjamin Beddome, a Particular Baptist and early evangelical, provides the historian with a verifiable continuum between the theology of the Puritans and the early evangelicals with their common emphasis on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and a latter-day outpouring of the Spirit with millennial implications. Serving over five decades as pastor in the town of Burton-on the-Water, Beddome was a prolific writer, producing hundreds of sermons and hymns. While he held many of the same views as his contemporaries, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, his pneumatology bears the influence of earlier Puritans, and especially those of his Baptist forefathers. The typical Reformed emphases, such as preaching, the Word and the Spirit, and an expectation of periodic outpourings of the Holy Ghost, were carried over by early Baptists in London, after their birth from an independent Puritan church in Southwark. The seven original congregations multiplied rapidly, producing several confessions that aligned with other churches of the Reformed tradition. Beddome’s ontology of the Spirit reflects his strong Trinitarian views upholding His deity, along with His distinct personhood. His pneumatology bears all the imprints of classic Reformed theology, but along with other early evangelicals, gives special emphasis to its teaching on periodic outpourings, renewal, and conversions. These similarities show amazing continuity as Puritan pneumatology came to full fruition with Beddome and the early evangelicals.