Beveridge, William

BEVERIDGE, WILLIAM: Bishop of St. Asaph; b. at Barrow (8 m. n. of Leicester), and baptized there Feb. 21, 1637; d. in London Mar. 5, 1708. He was educated at Cambridge; was rector of Ealing, a west suburb of London, 1661–72; of St. Peter's, Cornhill, London, 1672–1704, when he became bishop. In his day he was styled "the great reviver and restorer of primitive piety" because in his much admired sermons and other writings he dwelt so affectionately upon the Church of the early centuries. His collected works (incomplete) are in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology in 12 vols. (Oxford, 1842–48) and embrace six volumes of sermons; The Doctrine of the Church of England Consonant to Scripture, Reason, and the Fathers: A Complete System of Divinity (2 vols.); Codex canonum ecclesiæ primitivæ vindicatus ac illustratus, with the appendices, I. Prolegomena in Συνοδικὸν, sive pandectas canonum; and II. Præfatio ad annotationes in canones apostolicos (2 vols.); and the still read Private Thoughts on Religion, and Church Catechism Explained. His Institutionum chronotogicarum libri duo, una cum totidem arithmetices chronologicæ libellis (London, 1669) was once an admired treatise on chronology.

Bibliography: T. H. Horne, Memoir of the Life and Writings of W. Beveridge, London, 1824, also prefixed to his works in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, ut sup.; DNB, iv, 447–448.