The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments. (According to the Present Authorized Version.) with Critical, Explanatory, and Practical Notes: The Marginal Readings of the Most Approved Printed Copies of the Scriptures, with Such Others as Appear…

Complete in five volumes. 953; 1155; 1088; 859; 808 pp. Full leather, morocco spine labels, gilt titles and rules. Joseph Benson was an English Methodist theologian who converted some time after meeting John Wesley. "His success as an itinerant preacher made him anxious to become a clergyman, but his association with Methodists prevented his ordination. His 'Defence of the Methodists in Five Letters to the Rev. Dr. Tatham' (1793, with its sequel, 'A farther Defence,' in five letters to the Rev. W. Russell, in answer to his 'Hints to the Methodists and Dissenters;' his 'Vindication of the People called Methodists, in answer to a report from the Clergy of a district in the Diocese of Lincoln' (1800), and his 'Inspector of Methodism inspected, and the Christian Observer observed' (1803), a reply to Dr. Hales of Ireland, remain masterly vindications of Methodism. Earlier he crossed swords with Priestley - e.g. in his 'Remarks on Dr. Priestley's System of Materialism and Necessity' (1788), and 'A Scriptural Essay towards the Proof of an Immortal Spirit in Man, being a continuation of Remarks' (1788). Of his more practical writings are the following: 'A Demonstration of the Want of Common Sense in the New Testament Writers, on the Supposition of their believing and teaching Socinianism' (1791), which was appended to Fletcher's 'Socinianism Unscriptural;' and the 'Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments ... with Notes, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical,' 2nd edition, 1811-18, 5 vols. 4to. Benson's 'Notes' are held amongst Methodists to excel every other commentary. It must be added that to the last he was very much in sympathy with the church of England. He was of the old-fashioned type of methodist. He strenuously opposed the dispensation of the Lord's Supper in Methodist chapels." - Dictionary of National Biography