Lecanto,
Florida
“Daring
to Speak His Conscience”
UU
Heroes #5 – George de Benneville
It
is amazing to me how easy it is for you modern Universalists to meet without
threat or fear. When I was young it was
dangerous to preach Universalism. It
was a heresy punishable by death! But
that is getting ahead of my story.
My
name is George de Benneville. I am a
physician. I was born in London right
after the turn of the century In 1703 and I lived a very full ninety years,
about two times the normal life span for those days. But it almost didn’t happen that way. When I was seventeen I was preaching in France. I did that for over two years, often getting
into trouble because of it. I was
arrested in northern France with a group of my friends when I was nineteen and
found guilty of preaching heresy. I
wasn’t a professional preacher, especially at my age but I was part of the
group and most of us were condemned to die.
Two of us remained to be executed on that morning in 1722. We were brought out before a great crowd of
spectators, who came to watch us die.
My friend, George Durant, a twenty-four year old minister, went
first. He climbed the gallows, then
sang a hymn and was dropped to his death.
Because
I had been brought up in a royal family
I was to be beheaded. They tied
my hands behind my back and led me up to the place of execution. I was made to kneel down with my neck on the
block. I refused the blindfold. The executioner stood ready with his axe to
do his deed, when a messenger on horseback came roaring through the crowd with
a reprieve from King Louis XV. I was
later set free, thanks to Queen Marie of France, free to live another
seventy-one years!
My
father was a French nobleman but had been driven from France because of his
activity with the Huguenots. He had
taken refuge under the protection of the royal court of the British king. My mother was an amazing woman though I never
knew her. She bore twins four times in
four years. No small wonder that my
birth was more than she could take!
Fortunate for me, Her friend
Queen Anne of England took me into her care and gave me all the advantages that
her wealth and position could provide.
At
the tender age of thirteen I was sent to sea to learn navigation. The Royal Navy was not the place for me but
on that voyage I encountered the dark-skinned Moors of Africa.
These strange men angered me, especially with their strange sun worship
until I discovered their great goodwill, kindness, and religious
sincerity. They seemed to be more
Christian than me! There was a deep
spirituality about them that was impressive to me.
Back
in London I enjoyed my youth and all its privileges in the London night life –
at least for a while. I loved to go to
the dancehalls and took full advantage of my opportunities for merrymaking,
though I never forgot the fine moral training of my godmother, the Queen or the
spiritual experience with the Moors in Africa.
One
night when I came home from the dancehall
I was faint and saw myself as a firebrand burning in hell. For fifteen long months I was sick and
agonized in mental conflict. Clergy
tried to counsel and comfort me – to no avail.
I found no hope of my own salvation and only wished to die.
Then
the light burst into my life! I
discovered two things that stayed with me to the grave: first – good and evil
have their beginnings in our inner life, and second – God in “his holy love for
all creatures will save all the human species.” It was the dawn of a new day for me, literally the beginning of
the rest of my life! I felt deep need
to share my new faith. Sadly there were
many, especially among the Protestant clergy who were on the lookout for heretics,
people teaching uncommon beliefs. That
included people believing and teaching things like had now brought light to my
life! To put it simply, I was now a heretic in their eyes! It didn’t make any difference how I
lived. It was my beliefs that were
evil!
French
ministers in England had me brought to trial and when I confessed my faith they
put me out of the church to protect humanity from my heresy!
I
then moved to France, now only seventeen, so that I could continue telling the
glad tidings of my discovery of the unlimited love of God. As soon as I landed at Calais I was arrested
and put in jail for over a week, then ordered out of the city. I found that like-minded people in France
had been put out of their churches and were gathering in fields, in borrowed
halls, and in private homes. It was in
that context that I almost lost my head and my life when I was only nineteen!
Enough
of that! I left France and I found a
safer and more useful place to study and preach in Germany and Holland. I worked hard to learn the language and
translated several theological works into German. I studied medicine preparing myself to be a physician. For eighteen years I was in Holland and
Germany. I worked so hard that at one
point I became sick and some thought I had died. They prepared me for burial and placed my body in a coffin. People even gathered for my funeral! Much to their surprise I regained consciousness and spoke! Within a few days I was back at work!
While
I was in Holland and Germany I came in
contact with a wonderful mix of minority religious groups, whose needs were not
met by either Catholic or Protestant churches.
There were Anabaptists, Mystics, Spirituals, Humanists, Pietists,
Seekers of the Light and others. They
were free-thinking people! While they
had their differences they were united in objecting to church ceremonies that
substituted for genuine religious experience.
Many of these groups were outlawed and persecuted. Thousands were martyred. Some escaped to the freedom of the New
World.
Finally
in 1741, when I was thirty-eight, I joined the exodus to Pennsylvania. It was a tough voyage but the kind family of
Christopher Sower in Germantown nursed me back to health while I helped Sowers
publish a German-language Bible. I went
on to translate into English the very first Universalist book dating to 1700
called The Everlasting Gospel. written
by Paul Siegvolck. During those early
years in Germantown yellow fever was rampant, the winter was harsh and fires
destroyed many homes. New impoverished
arrivals were being sold as slaves. I
couldn’t stand by watching it happen. I
paid for the freedom of many and provided gratis medical care when it was
needed.
Soon
I moved up to Oley Valley, where I built a big stone farmhouse, taught school,
preached and practiced medicine. One
room on that house I reserved for religious meetings, a kind of house
church! It was to this home that I
brought my young bride Esther on February 24, 1745. She was only twenty-five, and I was forty-one. In due time we had five children. In Oley Valley we were surrounded by people
of many nationalities: German, French, Dutch, English, and Welsh. Religiously they were also quite mixed. From Oley I traveled into western
Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to preach about Universalism and to visit
local Indian tribes where I learned their languages and shared my medical
skills.
In
1757 we moved back to Philadelphia where our neighbor and good friend was a man
you may have known as Benjamin Franklin.
Louis
XVI invited me to return to France to serve as an advisor to the king. I
declined because I was much refreshed by the freedom of expression here. Here I could speak of religion as an inner
experience of light and understanding rather than assent to a creed.
How
fortunate you are to live in a place where you have religious freedom! Can you even imagine what it is like to be
hunted and punished for heresy, because someone thinks your beliefs are
dangerous? When I remember all the
courageous souls who have paid for my religious freedom with their lives, I am
deeply grateful. It makes me take my
own religious faith much more seriously.
Some
call my way of faith “pietism”! I hope
that word doesn’t put you off. It
really means a religion more of the heart than of the head. When I learned about the amazing mix of
religious traditions among you, I was excited!
I’ll bet some form of pietism would fit for many of your religious
paths!
I
was pleased when Universalism grew to be a religion of the heart and I was
saddened when in the consolidation with the Unitarians that special quality of
Universalism was lost. I founded no
church. I founded no new denomination. However I hope I inspired others to a kind
of free spirit of faith built on the unlimited love of God!
I
know that many of you cherish the enlightenment tradition of the age of reason
in religion. I hope you will also
nurture that inward spirit that values the quiet moments, the times of
meditation and prayer where you can gain some perspective on the world so as to
act more wisely. Let your religious
faith come from your heart!
+++
Resources:
Cassara,
Ernest: Universalism in America, Skinner
House Books, Boston, 1997
Ferm,
Vergilius (Ed.),: Encyclopedia of
Religion, Philosophical Library, New York, 1945
Morgan,
John C.: The Devotional Heart,
Skinner House Books, Boston, 1995
Scott, Clinton Lee,: These Live Tomorrow, Skinner House Books, Boston, 1987