Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 04.djvu/233

Bennet  works. Of the latter his ‘Memorial of the Reformation in England’ (1717), which passed through two more editions (1721 and 1726), is the chief. It preserves many personal anecdotes from original sources not to be found elsewhere, as, for instance, of Judge Jeffreys's visit to Newcastle in 1683, ecclesiastical memorabilia from the lips of the ejected, and the like. The book drew its author into controversy with [q. v.] Bennet's defence of his Memorial is a brilliant literary feat, although its grave writer says of its style: ‘The manner of writing will, I'm afraid, be thought too ludicrous, and I'm sure 'tis what I take no pleasure in; but I sensibly found on this occasion the truth of that of the poet, “Difficile est satyram non scribere.”’ His ‘Irenicum, or a Review of some late controversies about the Trinity, Private Judgment … and the Rights of Conscience from the Misrepresentations of the Dean of Winchester [Francis Hare] in his “Scripture vindicated from the Misrepresentations of the Lord Bishop of Bangor”’ (1722), is very charitable and reasonable in its tone. But this did not save it from a most bitter attack by an ultra-orthodox nonconformist (Rev. John Atkinson, of Stainton). He had published earlier his ‘Several Discourses against Popery’ (1714). But the one theological book of his that still lives is his ‘Christian's Oratory, or the Devotion of the Closet,’ of which a sixth edition was published in 1760, and a seventh in 1776. In the fifth edition there is a portrait of the author. The spirit of the ‘Christian's Oratory’ is a kind of gentle quietism.

Never robust, Bennet had, for twelve years before his death, an assistant, afterwards celebrated as the Rev. Dr. Samuel Lawrence of London. It was during their joint ministry that the congregation erected their second church in Hanover Square, Westgate Street. But the senior pastor did not live to see it opened. He died of a swift fever in his fifty-second year, on 1 Sept. 1726. Bennet had the honour of baptising the poet Mark Akenside in 1721. Bennet's manuscripts yielded a number of posthumous publications, among them being a second part of his ‘Christian's Oratory’ (1728); ‘Truth, Importance, and Usefulness of Scripture’ (1730); ‘View of the whole System of Popery’ (1781).

[Funeral Sermon by Isaac Worthington, 1726; Prefaces to Works by Dr. Latham; Wilson's Dissenting Churches; Unitarian Church Records at Newcastle; communications from Rev. John Black, London.]

 BENNET, CHRISTOPHER (1617–1655), physician, born in Somersetshire in 1617, was the son of John Bennet, of Raynton in that county, He entered Lincoln College, Oxford, in Michaelmas term, 1632; was B.A. 24 May 1636, and M.A. 24 Jan. 1639. He did not graduate in medicine at Oxford, but was incorporated M.A. at Cambridge, and became M.D. there in 1646 . On 11 Sept. of the same year he was admitted licentiate of the College of Physicians, on 16 July 1647 a candidate, and on 7 Dec. 1649 a fellow of the college, where he was censor in 1654. Bennet practised first at Bristol (for how long is not known), and afterwards in London, where he acquired considerable reputation. He is chiefly known for his treatise on consumption, 'Theatri Tabidorum Vestibulum,' which from its title and from certain allusions was apparently intended to be the introduction to a larger work. It treats of various forms of wasting disease, dealing more with what would be now called pathology than with treatment. Its most valuable feature is the constant reference to cases observed and to dissections, not to authority, which gives the little treatise an honourable place among the earlier examples of the modern method in medicine.

Bennet's life was cut short by consumption, at the age of 38, on 30 April 1655. He was buried in St. Gregory's church, near St. Paul's, London. His portrait by Lombart is prefixed to his book. The full title of the first edition of his book is 'Theatri Tabidorum vestibulum seu Exercitationes Dianoeticæ cum Historiis et Experimentis demonstrativis,' sm. 8vo, Lond. 1654. The 2nd edition bears the title 'Tabidorum Theatrum, sive Phthisios, Atrophiœ, et Hecticæ Xenodochium,' 8vo, Lond. 1656; idem Lugd. Batav. 1714; id. Lipsiæ, 1760. It appeared in English as 'Theatrum Tabidorum, or the Nature and Cure of Consumption,' Lond. 1720, 8vo. Bennet also edited 'Health's Improvement, or Rules for preparing all sorts of Food. By Thomas Muffett, corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet,' Lond. 1655, 4to.

[Baldwin Hamey, Bustorum aliquot Reliquiæ (MS. biographies) in Brit. Mus. and Coll. Phys.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. 1721, ii. 191; Wood's Fasti, i. 266, 276; Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 248]  BENNET, GEORGE (1750–1835), Hebraist, was minister of a small presbyterian congregation in Carlisle, and passed a great portion of his life in the study of Hebrew. He was well acquainted with the learning of the rabbis, who were in his opinion more accustomed, if not better able, than christian commentators to catch the rays of light reflected from the Hebrew Bible. One of the principal contributors to the 'British Critic,'