William Benn (or Ben) (November 1600 – 22 March 1680) was an English

ejected minister The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Several thousand Puritan ministers were forced out of their positions in the Church of England, following The Restoration of Charles II. It was a consequence (not necessarily ...

Life

Benn was born at Egremont, Cumberland, in November 1600. He was educated at the free school of St. Bees, and

Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its predominantly neoclassical architecture, ...

, but left university without taking a degree. When he went to Oakingham he discovered that a contemporary at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, a man named Bateman, had chosen the same parish. Rather than settle it in court, they agreed to share the parish for several years. Benn, having been chosen as her chaplain by Helena, Marchioness of Northampton (who lived in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

), left Oakingham to Bateman and continued with his patroness until 1629. That year he went to Dorchester (at the behest of John White), and through White's influence was made preacher of All Saints there. In the early 1650s he formed his own

gathered church Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what ...

. Anthony Wood reported that he stayed there until 1662 (except for two years, when he assisted White as rector at Lambeth, Surrey in place of

Daniel Featley Daniel Featley, also called Fairclough and sometimes called Richard Fairclough/Featley (15 March 158217 April 1645), was an English theologian and controversialist. He fell into difficulties with Parliament due to his loyalty to Charles I of E ...

). Besides his constant preaching in his own church, he preached on weekdays to prisoners, building a chapel inside the jail. In 1654 Benn assisted the commissioners in discharging "scandalous, ignorant, and inefficient ministers and schoolmasters". After his expulsion by the Act of Uniformity 1662, he remained at Dorchester until his death; for preaching in

conventicle A conventicle originally signified no more than an assembly, and was frequently used by ancient writers for a church. At a semantic level ''conventicle'' is only a good Latinized synonym of the Greek word church, and points to Jesus' promise in M ...

s, he was sometimes imprisoned and fined. Benn died on 22 March 1680 and was buried in the churchyard of his own former church, All Saints.

Works

Benn published ''A sober Answer to Francis Bampfield in Vindication of the Christian Sabbath against the Jewish, id est the observance of the Jewish still'', a short treatise in the form of a letter (1672). After his death a volume of

sermon A sermon is a religious discourse or oration by a preacher, usually a member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. ...

s, entitled ''Soul Prosperity'', on John 3:2 was published in 1683 and is one of the rarest of later

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

books.

Family

A daughter of Benn's married the minister Theophilus Polwhele. According to the ''

Church Times The ''Church Times'' is an independent Anglican weekly newspaper based in London and published in the United Kingdom on Fridays. History The ''Church Times'' was founded on 7 February 1863 by George Josiah Palmer, a printer. It fought for the ...

'', one of his descendents was the legendary Labour politician

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. A member of the Labour Party, ...

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Benn, William 1600 births 1680 deaths Ejected English ministers of 1662 People from Egremont, Cumbria Burials in Cumbria