long and broad beard, and grey and venerable hair. His strength continued firm to the last, so that the week before his last sickness, he walked as vigorously and nimbly as any of the company, and leaped over a broad ditch, insomuch that his sons, who were amazed at it, had enough to do to follow him. He never used spectacles. By a fall in his childhood he had unhappily contracted a deafness in his left ear. He had great strength and health of body, excepting that a few years before his death he had some severe fits of the stone, occasioned by his sedentary life, which he bore with wonderful patience. The remedy he used for it was to dig in the garden (in which he much delighted) until he heated himself, and that mitigated the pain. His judgment and memory remained with him to the last. He always preached without notes, but often wrote down his meditations after he had preached them. He shewed no other learning in his sermons but in clearing the difficulties of his text, by comparing the originals with the most ancient versions.

His style was clear and full, but plain and simple. He read the Hebrew and Septuagint so much, that they were as familiar to him as the English translation. He had gathered a vast heap of critical expositions, which, with a trunk full of other manuscripts, fell into the hands of the Irish, and were all lost, except his great Hebrew manuscript, which was preserved by a converted Irishman, and is now in Emanuel college, in Cambridge. Every day after dinner and supper a chapter of the Bible was read at his table, whether Papists or Protestants were present; and Bibles were laid before every one of the company, and before himself either the Hebrew or the Greek, but in his last years, the Irish translation; and he usually explained the occurring difficulties. He wrote much in controversy, occasioned by his engagements to labour the conversion of those of the Roman communion, which he looked on as idolatrous and antichristian. He wrote a large treatise on these two questions: "Where was our religion before Luther? And what became of our ancestors who died in Popery?" Archbishop Usher pressed-him to have printed it, and he resolved to have done so; but that and all his other works were swallowed up in the rebellion. He kept a great correspondence not only with the divines of England, but with others over Europe. He observed a true hospitality in house-keeping; and many poor Irish families

about him were maintained out of his kitchen; and in Christmas the poor always eat with him at his own table, and he had brought himself to endure both their rags and rudeness. At public tables he usually sat silent. Once at the earl of Strafford's table, one observed, that while they were all talking, he said nothing. The primate answered, "Broach him, and you will find good liquor in him." Upon which the person proposed a question in divinity, in answering which the bishop shewed his abilities so well, and puzzled the other so much, that all, at last, except the bishop, fell a laughing at the other. The greatness of his mind, and undauntedness of his spirit, evidently appeared in many passages of his life, and that without any mixture of pride, for he lived with his clergy as if they had been his brethren. In his visitation he would accept of no invitation from the gentlemen of the country, but would eat with his clergy in such poor inns, and of such coarse fare, as the places afforded. He avoided all affectation of state in his carriage, and, when in Dublin, always walked on foot, attended by one servant, except on public occasions, which obliged him to ride in procession among his brethren. He never kept a coach, his strength suffering him always to ride on horseback. He avoided the affectation of humility as well as pride; the former often flowing from the greater pride of the two. He took an ingenious device to put him in mind of his obligations to purity: it was a flaming crucible, with this motto: "Take from me all my Tin," the word in Hebrew signifying Tin, being Bedil, which imported that he thought every thing in him but base alloy, and therefore prayed God would cleanse him from it. He never thought of changing his see, but considered himself as under a tie to it that could not easily be dissolved; so that when the translating him to a bishopric in England was proposed to him, he refused it; and said, he should be as troublesome a bishop in England as he had been in Ireland. He had a true and generous notion of religion, and did not look upon it as a system of opinions, or a set of forms, but as a divine discipline that reforms the heart and life. It was not leaves, but fruit that he sought. This was the true principle of his great zeal against Popery. He considered the corruptions of that church as an effectual course to enervate the true design of Christianity. He looked on

the obligation of observing the Sabbath as moral and petual, and was most exact in the observation of it.1

per

BEDERIC (HENRY), a celebrated preacher in the fourteenth century, was a monk of the order of St. Augustin at Clare, and surnamed de Bury, because he was born at St. Edmund's Bury, in Suffolk. Having from his youth shewn a quick capacity, and a great inclination to learning, his superiors took care to improve these excellent faculties, by sending him not only to our English, but also to foreign universities; where closely applying himself to his studies, and being a constant disputant, he acquired such fame, that at Paris he became a doctor of the Sorbonne. Not long after he returned to England, where he was much followed, and extremely admired for his eloquent way of preaching. This qualification, joined to his remarkable integrity, uprightness, and dexterity in the management of affairs, so recommended him to the esteem of the world, that he was chosen provincial of his order throughout England, in which station he behaved in a very commendable manner. He wrote several things, as: 1. "Lectures upon the master of the sentences, i. e. Peter Lombard, in four books." 2. "Theological Questions," in one book. 3. "Sermons upon the blessed Virgin." 4. "A course of sermons for the whole year. Besides several other things of which no account is given. He flourished about the year 1380, in the reign of Richard II. *

2

BEDFORD (ARTHUR), a pious and learned clergyman of the church of England, and many years chaplain to the Haberdashers' hospital at Hoxton, was the son of Richard Bedford, and was born at Tiddenham, in Gloucestershire, Sept. 1668. Having received the rudiments of learning from his father, he was in 1684, at the age of sixteen, admitted commoner of Brasen-nose college, Oxford, where he acquired some reputation as an Orientalist. He became B. A. in Feb. 1687, and M. A. July, 1691. In 1688 he received holy orders from Dr. Frampton, bishop of Gloucester, and about this time removed to Bristol, and became curate to Dr. Read, rector of St. Nicholas church, with whom he continued till 1692, when, having taken priest's orders from Dr. Hall, bishop of Bristol, the mayor and corporation of the city presented him to the vicarage

1 Life by Burnet, 1685, 8vo, bishop Kennet's and Dr. Farmer's copies p. m. with MS notes.-Birch's Prince Henry.

* Bale.-Pitts.-Biog. Brit.

of Temple church. From this he was removed to Newton St. Loe, a private living in Somersetshire, soon after which, as he himself informs us, he was prompted to undertake a work on "Scripture Chronology," by reading over the preface to Abp. Usher's Annals, in which the primate gave his opinion concerning a more exact method of “ A chronological system of the sacred Scriptures, by the help of astronomy and a competent skill in the Jewish learning." After many difficulties, Mr. Bedford flattered himself that he had succeeded, and then digested his thoughts into some method. Soon after this, coming to London, to assist in the correction of the Arabic Psalter and New Testament, for the benefit of the poor Christians in Asia, hẹ shewed his thoughts to some friends, who advised him to publish them; with which he complied, with a design not to have exceeded fourscore or an hundred pages in the whole. A few sheets were printed off, but the author having received information that a work of a similar nature was intended to be published from the papers of sir Isaac Newton, and being advised by some friends, contrary to his first intention, to publish the work on a more extensive plan, he suppressed his papers. In the mean time, in 1724, he was chosen chaplain to Haberdashers hospital, (founded in 1690, by alderman Aske), and continued to reside there for the remainder of his life. In 1728 he published "Animadversions upon sir Isaac Newton's book entitled The chronology of Ancient Kingdoms amended," 8vo, in which he attempts to prove that sir Isaac's system entirely contradicts the scripture history, and he appeals, as his supporters in this opinion, to Bochart, Dr. Prideaux, archbishop Usher, and the bishops Lloyd, Cumberland, Beveridge, &c.

Two years afterwards, he published a sermon (from 2 Tim. ii. 16.) at St. Botolph's, Aldgate, where he was afternoon lecturer, against the then newly-erected playhouse in Goodman's fields. This was a favourite subject with Mr. Bedford, who, in other of his publications, proved an able assistant to Mr. Collier, in his attempt to reform the stage. He began, indeed, in this necessary labour, many years before coming to London, as will appear by our list of his works. He continued in his office of chaplain to the hospital, until 1745, when he died, Sept. 15, and was buried in the ground behind the hospital, probably at his own desire. Tradition informs us his death

was occasioned by a fall whilst making observations on the comet of that year, an accident which was very likely to prove fatal to a man in his seventy-seventh year. He furnished the hall of the hospital, where the pensioners assemble, with some pious works, chained, in the old library manner, to the windows, and, as appears by his writings, was a man of unfeigned piety and zeal. These writings are: 1. "Serious reflections on the scandalous abuse and effects of the Stage, a sermon," Bristol, 1705, with a long preface. 2." A second advertisement concerning the Play-house," ibid. 8vo. 3. "The evil and danger of Stage Plays," ibid. 1706, 8vo, a most curious work, but much enlarged in the subsequent edition. 3. "The temple of Music," Lond. 1706, 8vo. 4. "The great abuse of Music," ibid. 1711, 8vo, in which he examines all the series of English songs, pointing out their impious or immoral passages, concluding with a Gloria Patri set to music, apparently by himself, in four parts. 5. “Essay on singing David's psalms," 1708. 6. His "Evil of Stageplays" republished under the title of "A serious remonstrance in behalf of the Christian Religion, against the horrid blasphemies and impiéties which are still used in the English Playhouses, &c." In this he has so completely perused the whole range of the English drama, as to produce "seven thousand instances, taken out of plays of the present century, and especially of the last five years, in defiance of all methods hitherto used for their reformation;" and he has also given a catalogue of "above fourteen hundred texts of scripture, which are mentioned, either as ridiculed and exposed by the stage, or as opposite to their present practices." 7. "Animadversions on sir Isaac Newton," mentioned above. 8. "Scripture Chronology, demonstrated by astronomical calculations, in eight books," ibid. 1741, fol. which Dr. Waterland justly characterises as a very learned and elaborate work. 9. "Eight sermons on the doctrine of the Trinity, at lady Moyer's lecture," ibid. 1741, 8vo. 10. "The doctrine of Justification by Faith stated according to the articles of the church of England. Contained in nine questions and answers," ibid. 1741, 8vo. 11. "Horæ Mathematica Vacuæ, or a treatise of the Golden and Ecliptick Numbers," ib. 1743, 8vo. The original MS. of this work, which was written during an illness which deprived him of the use of his limbs, is now preserved in Sion college library.