Samuel Stennett is perhaps the most well-known member of a family of early English Baptists.  His great-grandfather, Edward; his grandfather, Joseph; and his father, Joseph, were preachers, as were his brother, Joseph, and his nephew, Joseph.  Confused?
Samuel was born in Exeter in 1727, and he was born again by the grace of God under the ministry of his father, after which he was baptized and joined the Little Wild Street church.  On this day in 1758, he was ordained and succeeded his father as pastor.  John Gill was invited to preach the ordination charge.  For the next forty-seven years Samuel lead the church.  God blessed that congregation of believers with spiritual and physical growth.  During that time, Stennett wrote some important books, but today he is best known for several hymns which today’s Baptists often sing, including “Majestic Sweetness Sits Enthroned upon the Saviour’s Brow” and “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand and cast a wishful eye to Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie.”
The death of Samuel’s wife’s was a terrible blow to this man of God, but despite his own growing weakness, his preaching increased in vibrance and substance.  And when a short time later, as his own life was ending, he said to his son, “Christ is to me the chief among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely.”  “When I reflect upon the suffering of Christ, I am ready to say, ‘What have I been thinking of all my life?’  What He did and suffered are now my only support.”
Samuel Stennett died on August 25, 1795, and his body was laid to rest in Bunhill Fields, where so many other Baptists are buried.
– Source: “This Day in Baptist History,” Thompson and Cummins