Biography

At the outset of the eighteenth. century, there was no man more to be envied than Dr. William Beveridge. As a preacher he was much admired, but no reputation could be more independent of rhetorical artifice : for no preacher of that day was more exclusively beholden for the attraction and success of his ministry to the seriousness of his own spirit, and the surpassing importance of the truths he proclaimed. Although he was known to the learned as the author of masterly treatises on chronology, Church history, and the Oriental languages, it was the exemplary assiduity and success with which he had discharged the laborious duties of a protracted parochial pastorate which gained for him the good report of all men. And although it was a time of fierce political rancour, there were circumstances in his position which went far to exempt him from the opposing antipathies of Whigs and Tories. The kingdom to which he belonged was evidently "not of this world," and whilst his allegiance to the House of Orange saved him from the irritations and hardships incident to the lot of a non-juror, his refusal to succeed Kenn, the deprived Bishop of Bath and Walls, gained him the respect of the Jacobites.

This good man was born in 1637, at Barrow, in Leicestershire, where his father and grandfather had each held the vicarage. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge. The successive cures he held were Baling, in Middlesex, and St Peter's, Cornhill. In July 1704, he was consecrated Bishop of St Asaph, and died at Westminster, March 5, 1708. Early in life,when he was about twenty-three years of age, he drew up a series of practical resolutions for the guidance of his own conduct. These were published after his death, under the title, Private Thoughts Upon a Christian Life.

From Our Christian Classics: Readings from the Best Divines, by James Hamilton.