.gif)
Robert Robinson (hymnist)
Encyclopedia
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is a Christian hymn written by the 18th century pastor and hymnist Robert Robinson. Robert Robinson penned the words at age 22 in the year 1757. The words of the hymn are in the public domain....
" and "Mighty God, while angels bless Thee," the former of which he wrote at age 22 after converting to Methodism
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
. The latter was later set to music by Dr John Randall, Music Professor at Cambridge.
Early life
Robert Robinson was born at SwaffhamSwaffham
Swaffham is a market town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The town is situated east of King's Lynn and west of Norwich.The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 6,935 in 3,130 households...
in Norfolk, on September 27, 1735, to Michael Robinson, a customs officer, and Mary Wilkin, who had married by licence at Lakenheath
Lakenheath
Lakenheath is a village in Suffolk, England. It has around 8,200 residents, and is situated in the Forest Heath district of Suffolk, close to the county boundaries of both Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, and at the meeting point of the The Fens and the Breckland natural environments.Lakenheath is host...
, Suffolk, 28th March 1723. His father died when he was aged five, but his maternal grandfather, Robert Wilkin, a wealthy gentleman of Mildenhall
Mildenhall, Suffolk
Mildenhall is a small market town and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is run by Forest Heath District Council and has a population of 9,906 people. The town is near the A11 and is located north-west of county town, Ipswich. The large Royal Air Force base, RAF Mildenhall as well as RAF...
, who had never reconciled himself to his daughter’s lowly marriage, disinherited his grandson, with an inheritance of ten shillings and sixpence. Fortunately, Robinson’s uncle, a farmer, had sponsored Robinson’s attendance at a school at Scarning
Scarning
Scarning is a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk.It covers an area of and had a population of 2,932 in 1,092 households as of the 2001 census...
, near Dereham
Dereham
Dereham, also known as East Dereham, is a town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated on the A47 road, some 15 miles west of the city of Norwich and 25 miles east of King's Lynn. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of...
, Norfolk, under Rev. Joseph Brett. When he was fourteen, Robinson was sent to London as apprentice to Joseph Anderson, a hairdresser of Crutched Friars; though Robinson continued an avid reader.
Robinson pursued a detailed study of the Scriptures and early Christian authors, which soon convinced him of the inefficacy of infant baptism
Infant baptism
Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. In theological discussions, the practice is sometimes referred to as paedobaptism or pedobaptism from the Greek pais meaning "child." The practice is sometimes contrasted with what is called "believer's baptism", or...
, compared with the baptism of believing adults. This caused him some difficulty after he settled in Cambridge, and where he had a large family of twelve unbaptized children.
In 1752, Robinson was briefly converted to Evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
Methodism on hearing the Calvinist George Whitefield
George Whitefield
George Whitefield , also known as George Whitfield, was an English Anglican priest who helped spread the Great Awakening in Britain, and especially in the British North American colonies. He was one of the founders of Methodism and of the evangelical movement generally...
, and in 1758 he spent a few months at a Calvinistic Methodist Chapel in Mildenhall
Mildenhall, Suffolk
Mildenhall is a small market town and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is run by Forest Heath District Council and has a population of 9,906 people. The town is near the A11 and is located north-west of county town, Ipswich. The large Royal Air Force base, RAF Mildenhall as well as RAF...
. He was then invited to assist William Cudworth at the Calvinistic Methodist Norwich Tabernacle, but after a matter of weeks seceded to form a new Congregational
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....
Chapel in St. Paul's parish, Norwich. In January 1759, he moved again, to Stone-Yard Baptist Chapel, Cambridge, where he remained the rest of his life, first as Lecturer and then, from 1762, as Pastor. A new chapel was built for him in 1764. His congregation came to number more than a thousand. Robinson was able to buy an eighty-acre farm by the river at Chesterton
Chesterton
-Places:United Kingdom*Chesterton, Cambridge**Chesterton railway station*Chesterton, Huntingdonshire*Chesterton Rural District*Chesterton *Chesterton, Oxfordshire*Chesterton, Staffordshire*Chesterton, Warwickshire...
, where he kept cattle and sheep, grew barley and wheat, and dealt as a corn and coal merchant with barges plying the Cam.
Ministry and later life
Robinson's friends and occasional hearers at Cambridge included the Professor of Music, Dr John Randall (1715-99); Thomas Fyshe PalmerThomas Fyshe Palmer
Thomas Fyshe Palmer was an English-born Unitarian minister, political reformer and political exile.-Early life:Palmer was born in Ickwell, Bedfordshire, England, the son of Henry Fyshe who assumed the added name of Palmer because of an inheritance, and Elizabeth, daughter of James Ingram of...
(1747-1802); John Hammond; Robert Tyrwhitt; and William Frend
William Frend (social reformer)
William Frend was an English clergyman , social reformer and writer. After a high-profile university trial in Cambridge deprived of his residency rights as fellow of his college, he became a leading figure in London radical circles.-Early life:Son of a Canterbury trader, he was born on 22 November...
(1757-1841).
Of Robinson's publications, his most prominent are: Arcana, or the Principles of the Late Petitioners to Parliament for Relief in the Matter of Subscription (1774); A Plea for the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in a Pastoral Letter to a Congregation of Protestant Dissenters at Cambridge (1776); History and Mystery of Good Friday (1777); History of Baptism and Baptists (1790); and the posthumously printed Ecclesiastical Researches (1792).
Although Robinson had argued against Unitarianism
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
for most his life, Joshua Toulmin
Joshua Toulmin
Joshua Toulmin of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian , Baptist , and then Unitarian congregations...
records in his funeral sermon, quoting a letter Robinson had written 5th January 1788, that Robinson converted to Unitarianism. For this reason Robinson was anxious to meet Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. He travelled there at the beginning of June 1790. On Sunday 6th June, he preached two Charity Sermons, in the morning at Priestley's New Meeting Chapel, and in the afternoon at the Old Meeting Birmingham, both in aid of the Sunday Schools of the Old and New Meetings. While in Birmingham, Robinson stayed in Showell Green, at the home of the Unitarian benefactor William Russell
William Russell (merchant)
William Russell , Birmingham merchant, was a practical Christian, a practising Unitarian Dissenter, and a close friend and sponsor of Joseph Priestley...
(1740-1818), Priestley's friend and sponsor at Birmingham. It was here that he died, in his sleep, in the early hours of Wednesday 9 June 1790.
Robinson however, seemed to rebuff the notion that he doubted the full divinity of Jesus Christ, a doctrine held by the Unitarian Church. In a sermon he preached after he was accused of becoming a Unitarian, Robinson clearly declared that Jesus was God, and added, "Christ in Himself is a person infinitely lovely as both God and man."
An unverifiable story is widely told of Robinson that one day while riding in a stagecoach a lady asked him what he thought of the hymn she was humming, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing is a Christian hymn written by the 18th century pastor and hymnist Robert Robinson. Robert Robinson penned the words at age 22 in the year 1757. The words of the hymn are in the public domain....
. He responded, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."
Robinson was interred in the Dissenters' Burial Ground at Birmingham, the ceremony being performed by Priestley.
Others of this name
Robert Robinson (1735-1790) is not to be confused with Robert Robinson (ca. 1726-1791)Robert Robinson (Dissenting minister)
Robert Robinson ‘D.D.’ , was a Dissenting Minister, who was clearly eccentric, and has been accused of being controversial and belligerent. He is not to be confused with the justly celebrated Baptist Minister Robert Robinson ....
, controversial minister at Congleton
Congleton
Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England, on the banks of the River Dane, to the west of the Macclesfield Canal and 21 miles south of Manchester. It has a population of 25,750.-History:The first settlements in...
, Cheshire; Dukinfield
Dukinfield
Dukinfield is a small town within the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies in central Tameside on the south bank of the River Tame, opposite Ashton-under-Lyne, and is east of the city of Manchester...
, Cheshire, 1752-55; and Dob Lane Chapel, Failsworth
Failsworth
At Failsworth lies north-northwest of London. It shares common boundaries with Manchester and Oldham, on its west and northeast respectively. Failsworth is traversed by the A62 road, from Manchester to Oldham, the heavy rail line of the Oldham Loop and the Rochdale Canal, which crosses the...
, Lancashire, 1755-74.)