Beveridge, William, Dd

Beveridge, William, D.D.

bishop of St. Asaph, was born at Barrow, Leicestershire, in 1638. He was educated at Oakham, and entered the College of St. John, Cambridge, in May, 1653. He was not ordained until after the Restoration, an interval which he probably employed in the investigation of the subject to which the temper and tumult of the times directed so many others-the primitive records and history of the Church. He applied himself in the first instance to the Oriental languages; and his first publication, when he was only twenty years of age, was entitled De Lilguarum Orientalium, etc., praestantia et usu, cum Grammatica Syriaca (Lond. 1658, again in 1684, 8vo). In 1661 he was appointed to the vicarage of Ealing, and in 1672 to the living of St. Peter's, Cornhill. In 1669 he published Institutt. Chronol. libri duo (Lond. 1669, 4to). In 1681 he was made archdeacon of Colchester, and in 1691 he was offered the see of Bath and Wells, from which Ken had been expelled by the government. This see Beveridge refused; but in 1704 he accepted that of St. Asaph, which he held till his death, March 5th, 1708. In every ecclesiastical station which he held he exhibited all the qualifications and virtues which ought to distinguish an ecclesiastic. He was a man of a very religious mind, and has been styled "the great reviver and restorer of primitive piety." His profound erudition is sufficiently evidenced by his works, which include, besides those named above,

1. Συνόδικον sive Pandectae Canonum SS. Apostolorum et Conciliorum, necnon canonicarum SS. Patrum epistolarum, cum scholas (Oxf. 1672, 2 vols. fol.). Vol. 1 contains the Prolegomena, canons apostolical, and those of the ancient councils, together with the Commentaries of Balsamon, Zonaras, and Aristenes, in Greek and Latin, in double columns; the Arabic paraphrase of Joseph the Egyptian on the first four councils, and a translation by Beveridge. Vol. 2 contains the Canons of Dionysius, Peter of Alexandria, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Athanasius, St. Basil, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, together with the Scholia of the Greek Canonists, the Syntagma of Matthew Blastares, and the Remarks, etc., of Beveridge: —

2. Codex Canonum Eccl. Primitivae vindicates et illustratus (Lond. 1678): —

3. An Explication of the Church Catechism (5th ed. 1714, 12mo): —

4. Private Thoughts (Lond. 1709: written in his youth, but not printed until after his death): —

5. Sermons (2 vols. fol. 1720; and besides many other editions, in 1842, Oxf. 8vo): —

6. Thesaurus Theologicus (Lond. 1711, 4 vols. 8vo; Oxf. 1820, 2 vols. 8vo). His writings were collected into a new edition by T. Hartwell Horne (Lond. 1824, 9 vols. 8vo), also in a more complete edition in the "Anglo- Catholic Library" (Oxf. 1844-1848, 12 vols. 8vo).