Historical Dictionary of the Baptists Entry

WALLIN, BENJAMIN (1711-1782). English Baptist minister, born at Southwark, London. The son of Edward Wallin (1678-1733), a Baptist minister, Benjamin was crippled from birth. He was educated by a mentor, John Needham (d. 1743), the Baptist pastor at Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Wallin became the pastor at Maze Pond Baptist Church, a 1691 break-off congregation from Horsely-down Church on the matter of not allowing singing in worship. He remained in this church for 27 years, one of the longest tenures in the century. One of Wallin's distinctives was that he may have enjoyed the longest ordination services ever conducted among English Baptists - four hours and 15 minutes -in 1741. John Gill presided over the service, which involved 16 ministers. Wallin was both a scholarly and a devotional writer, among the leading hymnist-poets of the era. Among his published works are The Folly of Neglecting Divine Institutions (1758), Lectures on Primitive Christianity (1768), and Scripture-Doctrine of Christ's Sonship (1771).