The faith of Benjamin Hewling (d.1685): our faith
Shortly before his execution on September 30, 1685, for his participation in the Monmouth Rebellion that culminated in the disastrous Battle of Sedgemoor (July 6, 1685), Benjamin Hewling (1663-1685), the grandson of William Kiffen (1616-1701) wrote these words in a letter to his mother, Hannah Kiffen Hewling:
Blessed be the Almighty God … for all his mercies, that when we were running on in a course of sin, he should stop us in full career, and show us that Christ whom we had pierced, and out of his free grace enable us to look upon him with an Eye of Faith, believing him able to save to the utmost all such as come to him.[1]
PS Benjamin’s sister, also named Hannah, married a grandson of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Cromwell (1658-1711).
[1] Benjamin Hewling, Letter to his mother, Hannah Kiffen Hewling, September 30, 1685, in The Western Martyrology; or, Bloody Assizes, 5th ed. (London: James Blackwood & Co., 1873), 142.