Fawcett, Benjamin

, a dissenting minister, was born at Sleaford in Lincolnshire, Aug. 16, 1715, and after a religious education at home, was placed under Dr. Doddridge at Northampton, where his conduct was exemplary, and his improvement rapid. In 1741, by Doddridge’s particular recommendation, he became a preacher at Taunton; and in 1745 removed to Kidderminster, where he officiated as the pastor of a large congregation of dissenters for thirty-five years, dying in Oct. 1780. He preached thrice every Sunday, besides weekly services, lectures, visits, &c. He also carried on an extensive correspondence with his brethren in various parts of the kingdom, and found leisure to prepare hfs various publications for the press. To enable him to accomplish all this, he was a rigid reconomist of his time, and was seldom in bed after five o’clock in the morning, to which habit, and a temperate mode of living, he used to ascribe his remarkable and almost uninterrupted health and spirits until a short time before his death, when he suffered severely from the stone. It is perhaps more remarkable, that he had no fire in his study in the depth of wiuter. His flow of spirits appears to have been rather immoderate, according to Mr. Orion’s account. “I am told that after preaching twice, and administering the Lord’s Supper, he was so lively in the evening that several of the people were in pain lest he should throw himself out of the pulpit 1” In his sentiments he was what is called a Baxterian, and drew upon himself, on spome occasions, the censures of the more orthodox part of his brethren, particularly by one of his pamphlets, “Candid reflexions on the different modes of explaining the Trinity.” His other works were small pious, tracts some funeral, and occasional sermons and abridgements of Baxter’s “Saints 1 everlasting Rest,” and of some other pieces by that divine. His personal character was so consistent and amiable, that his death was lamented by persons of all persuasions at Kidderminster. ¹