Bill of Comprehension which was then in agitation. The "Scheme of Comprehension," as it is commonly termed, had been projected in 1668 by the lord-keeper of the great seal, Sir Orlando Bridgman, Bishop Wilkins, Lord Chief Justice Hale, and several other distinguished persons, for relaxing the terms of conformity to the Established Church in behalf of moderate Dissenters, and admitting them into communion with the church. The bill, which was drawn up by Lord Chief Justice Hale, was disallowed. The attempt was renewed in 1674 by Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet; and, though the terms were settled to the satisfaction of the Non-conformists, the bishops refused their assent. After the ever-memorable Revolution in 1688, the question was again agitated; and King William III., by the advice of Dr. Tillotson and Bishop Burnet, submitted the business of comprehension to a synod of divines, as being the method at once the most acceptable to the clergy and the best calculated to silence the popish objectors, who sneered at a religion established by Acts of Parliament. Accordingly, a commission was issued to thirty of the most eminent divines, (ten of whom were bishops,) among whom we find the names of Tillotson, Burnet, Tenison, Patrick, Beveridge, Stillingfleet, and Kidder, directing them to prepare such alterations as they should judge expedient in the liturgy and canons, together with proposals for reformation in ecclesiastical courts, and in other matters relative to the church. All these changes were first to be submitted to convocation, and afterwards re-considered in Parliament. After four members of this committee had withdrawn in dissatisfaction, the remainder proceeded in the business referred to them; and, among many alterations too tedious to be mentioned here, proposed that lessons from the canonical books of Scripture should

be substituted for those taken from the apocryphal books; that the Athanasian Creed, the damnatory clause of which was pronounced to be applicable only to those who de nied the substance of the Christian faith, should be left to the option of the officiating minister; that new collects, more glowing in devotion, should be drawn up, and a new version of the Psalms prepared; that the chanting of Divine service in cathedral churches should be discontinued, and legendary saints be expunged from the calendar; that the cross in baptism, the surplice, and the posture of kneeling at the sacrament, should not in future be insisted on; that the absolution in the morning and evening service should be read by a deacon, the word "priest" being changed into "minister;" that the intention of the lent-fasts should be declared to consist not in abstinence from meats, but only in extraordinary acts of devotion; that sponsors in baptism should not be held essential; and that re-ordination, where presbyters had imposed hands, should be only conditional. These, with many other alterations in the Litany, Communion-service, and Canons, were designed to be submitted to the approbation of the convocation, before which Dr. Beveridge was appointed to preach his

Concio ad Clerum," which was published in the same year by command of the bishops. From the text (1 Cor. xi. 16), "If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God," it will readily be inferred, that his opinion was against any concessions or alterations. The various changes, however, above noticed, were never adopted: the Tories so far succeeded in alarming the public mind, that little could be expected from the convocation by the projectors of the conciliatory scheme of comprehension. As no disposition was manifested by that body to innovate upon the forms of

the church, or to meet the conformists with concessions, they were prevented by the king from sitting for ten successive years, by repeated prorogations.

Some time in the year 1690, Dr. Beveridge was nominated chaplain to King William and Queen Mary; and on the 12th of October, in the same year, he preached before her Majesty his sermon "on the happiness of the saints in heaven," which is deservedly accounted one of his best discourses. It was afterwards published by her Majesty's command.

Dr. Beveridge was one of those eminent divines whose learning, wisdom, piety, and moderation, caused them to be selected to fill the sees vacated by the deprivation of Archbishop Sancroft, and seven bishops of his province, for refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary. Dr. Beveridge was nominated to the see of Bath and Wells. He took three weeks to consider of the subject; during which time Bishop Kenn, though deprived, continued to exercise all the episcopal functions, preaching and confirming in all parts of the diocese. Scrupulous, however, of filling an office, from which a conscientious, though perhaps mistaken, principle of obedience had excluded its former possessor, he at length declined the honour designed for him, and continued for thirteen years to discharge his more private and laborious duties with an assiduity best evinced by the general success which attended his ministry. Nor, until within three years of his death, and when he had attained a very advanced age, did he accept the episcopal chair, being consecrated bishop of St. Asaph, on the 16th of July, 1704; which see was vacated by the translation of Dr. George Hooper to the bishopric of Bath and Wells.

Being placed in this exalted, station, his care and diligence increased in proportion as his power in the

church was enlarged: and, as he had before faithfully discharged the duty of a pastor over a single parish, so, when his authority was extended to larger districts, he still pursued the same pious and laborious methods of advancing the honour and interest of religion, by watching over both clergy and laity, and giving them all necessary direction and assistance for the effectual performance of their respective duties. Accordingly, he was no sooner advanced to the episcopal chair, than he addressed a pathetic letter to the clergy of his diocese; in which he recommended to them the duty of catechising and instructing the people of their charge in the principles of the Christian religion; and in order to enable them to do this

more effectually, he, in the course of the same year, sent them a plain and easy exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England.

On the 5th of November 1704, Bishop Beveridge preached before the House of Lords the anniversary sermon "on the Deliverance from the Gunpowder Treason;" and on the 30th of January, in the following year, another "on the Martyrdom of King Charles I."-In that august assembly he attended as often as the duties of his bishopric would permit him. On every occasion he evinced himself a steady defender of the rights and privileges. of the Church of England; and in the debates on the Union of England and Scotland, he opposed that measure on account of the danger which he apprehended the church might sustain if it were carried into effect. The last time he was able to appear in the House of Lords was on the 20th of January 1707-8.

Bishop Beveridge held the see of St. Asaph only three years, seven months, and twenty days; dying at his apartments in the cloisters in Westminster Abbey, on the 5th of March, 1707-8, in the seventy-first year of his age. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. He had been

married; but of his lady nothing is known, except that she was sister either to William Stanley, gentleman, of Hinckley, in the county of Leicester, or to William Stanley's wife, and that she died before him, without issue. This circumstance, probably, induced the Bishop, after providing for his relatives, to leaye a considerable part of his estate to pious uses, which evinced his earnest solicitude for the spiritual interests of others. Among other bequests, he gave his library in trust to Dr. William Stanley (his wife's nephew, who was afterwards master of Ben'et college, and dean of St. Paul's), to be placed in the cathedral of St. Paul, as the foundation of a library for the benefit of the clergy of the city of London. To the venerable Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, he gave the sum of 100%.; and to the curacy of Mount-Sorrel, and the vicarage of Barrow, in the county of Leicester, he bequeathed 20. a-year for ever, on condition that prayers should be read every day, morning and evening, according to the Liturgy of the Church of England, in the chapel and parish church of those places respectively; together with the sum of 40s. yearly, to be divided equally, upon Christmaseve, among eight poor housekeepers of Barrow, as the minister and churchwardens should agree, regard being had especially to those who had most constantly attended the public prayers of the church, and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, in the preceding year. Should it, however, happen that the Common Prayer could not be read in the above-mentioned church or chapel, in that case the amount of his bequest was to be, in each place, paid to some one person, chosen by the vicar of Barrow, to keep a school, and to instruct youth in the principles of the Christian religion, according to the doctrines of the Church of England.

The character of Bishop Beveridge is represented by his con

temporaries in general in a most exemplary point of view. He was remarkable for his strict integrity, his sincere piety, his exemplary charity, and his great zeal for the diffusion of pure and undefiled religion. He appears also to have been not more highly than deservedly esteemed for the variety and extent of his learning, which he applied wholly to promote the interests of his Divine Master. His reading seems to have been almost universal: his deep acquaintance with ecclesiastical antiquity appears in almost every page of his Latin works, as well as in some of his sermons; his proficiency in the oriental languages and in Jewish litera-ture is manifest in various parts of his English writings; and the variety and felicity of his quotations from the Sciptures, particularly in his sermons, attest how deeply conversant he was with the sacred oracles. But it is chiefly as an exemplary parish-minister that this great and good man is to be regarded. His character was preeminently pastoral. He owed nothing of his celebrity to any secular exertions; nor does it appear from history that he took an active part in the ecclesiastical controversies of his time, though he seems to have expressed his judgment upon them as a minister of the Church of England, with uncompromising plainness and simplicity. In short, the advancement of his Divine Master's glory appears to have been the great object of his life; and he was permitted to witness, in a very eminent degree, the effects of his faithful services.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

OBSERVING in your Number for January, the communication of CLERICUS, on 1 John v. 7, I thought it might gratify some of your readers to see the very words of Cyprian, on which there has been so much discussion. They occur in his "Treatise

De simplicitate Prælatorum,"at fol.80 of Rembolt and Waterloe's edition, printed at Paris, A. D. 1512; an edition which abounds with contractions. The words are: "Dicit Dns, Ego et Pr unû sum; et iterû, de Patre et Filio et Spiritu Sancto scriptû est, Et Tres Unû sunt." "The Lord says, I and the Father are one: and, again, Of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it is written, And the Three are One." No MS. now known comes near the age of Cyprian by several centuries; the nearest are the Vatican, the date of which is said to be between the fourth and sixth century; and the Alexandrian, between the close of the fourth and the sixth. The above quotation, therefore, strongly supports the authenticity of the verse.

HISTORICUS.

Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer.

THE interest which your biblical readers must have taken in the information lately conveyed through your pages, respecting the first edition of the New Testament in the

English tongue, only one perfect copy of which appears to be in existence, induces me to think it may not be unacceptable to them to be presented with a brief specimen of several of the earlier translations. It would be a curious and pleasing task, as Mr. Cotton has observed in his "List of Editions," to trace the gradual change and improvement which took place, as new light broke in upon the minds of the translators. It is pleasing also to observe how many of the earliest expressions have withstood repeated revisals of the translation, and are retained and approved at the present day. This last is a circumstance, as the same accurate observer has remarked, which cannot fail to strike forcibly any one who has been led to examine our earlier printed Bibles. Let any person take up the first edition of CoverCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 268.

dale's Bible, printed in 1535, and read from it one of the Psalms; and besides the general similarity which pervades the whole, in many verses he will find that every word is the same with what he reads in the Prayer-book, as now printed and used. Surely that rendering must have been near the truth, which repeated examination has not made it appear necessary to alter; that language must have been well chosen, which could not only maintain its ground amidst so many changes of style and of taste, but could continue to be generally intelligible after nearly three centuries have elapsed, and when almost every other composition of the same age has become enveloped in considerable obscurity.

For the present Number, I send a short series of extracts from the versions of the Old Testament; reserving, for another, a corresponding series from the New, beginning with

the first edition of Tindal.

D.

curtesie bawlme, and a curtesie of hony; spyces and myrre, dates and almondes. And take as moch money more with you. And the money that was brought agayne in your sackes, take it agayne with you in your handes, peradventure it was some oversyghte.

Take also youre brother with you, and aryse and goo agayne to the man. And God Almightie geve you mercie in the sighte of the man, and send you youre other brother and also Be Jamin, and I wilbe as a mã robbed of his childern *.

Coverdale's Bible. 1535. fol. Then sayde Israel their father unto the Yf it must nedes be so, then do this: Take of the best frutes of the lande in your sackes, and brynge the man a present: a curtesy balme, and hony and spyces, and myrre, and dates, and almondes. Take other money with you also, and the money that was brought agayne in youre sacke mouthes, carry it agayne with you: peradventure it was an oversight. And take youre brother, get you up, and go agayne unto the man. The Allmightie God geve you mercy in the sight of y man, that he maye let you have youre other brother, and Ben Jamin. As for me, I must be as one, that is robbed of his children.

Matthew's Bible. 1537. fol. Than their father Israel sayd unto them: Yf it must ned? be so now: than do thus, take of the best frutes of the lande in youre vesselles, and brynge the mã a present, a curtesye bawlme, and a curtesye of hony, spices and myrre, dates and almodes. And take as moche money more with you. And the money that was brought agayne in your sackes, take it agayne with you, peradventure it was some oversyghte.

Take also youre brother with you, & aryse and goo agayne to the ma. And God Almightie geve

The second edition, of 1534, agrees with the first.

you mercie in the syghte of the mã and send you youre other brother and also 'Ben-Jamin, and I wylbe as a man robbed of his chyldren.

Cranmer's Bible. 1539. fol.

And their father Israel sayd unto the: If it must nedis be so now : than do thus. Take of the best frutes of the lade in youre vesselles, and brynge the man a present, a curtesye bawlme, and a curtesye of hony, spices and myrre, nottes and almondes. And take dubble money in youre hande. And the money that was brought agayne in your sackes, take it agayne with you, lest peradventure it was some oversyghte.

Take also youre brother with you, and aryse and goo agayne to the man. And God Almightie geve you mercie in the syghte of the man, y' he maye delyver you youre other brother, and this Ben Jamin, and I shalbe robbed of my chylde, as I have been.

Taverner's Bible. 1539. fol.

Then theyr father Israel said unto them. Yf it must nedes Le so now, then do thus, take of the best frutes of the lande in your vessels, and cary the man a present, a quantitie of bawlme, and a porcion of hony, spyces and myrre, dates and almondes. And take as moch money more with you. And the money that was brought agayn in your sackes, take it agayn with you, peradventure it was some oversyght.

Take also your brother with you, and aryse and go agayne to the man. And God Almyghtye gyve you mercy in the sight of the man and sende you your other brother, and also Ben Jami and I wyl be as a man robbed of his children.

Genevan Bible. 1560. 4to.

11. Then their father Israel said unto them, If it must nedes be so nowe, do thus: take of the best frutes of the land in your vessels, and bring the man a present, a litle rosen, and a litle honie, spices and myrre, nuttes, and almondes:

12. And take double money in your hand, and the money that