Here it will be observed, that on Friday and Saturday no food was served up, but that which the church of Rome prescribes upon days of abstinence, and that whereas, on ordinary days, dinner and supper constitute the two meals of the day, on Friday supper is commuted for what is called "Bever." The word is not found in Johnson, but

* So in the MS., in which there are other mistakes, as below.

occurs in other dictionaries, and is explained to mean an afternoon draught, the derivation being perhaps bevere, the Italian for "to drink," from which Johnson derives "beverage." The substitution in the bill of bever for supper every seven days first drew me to remark that the days on which it occurred were, in fact, fast days. The bever seems to have consisted of fruit and cheese, wine and ale, neither of which last seems to have been prohibited on any of their fasts. On one occasion only, a dish of fish was, I think, also added to the bever.*

The account as regards Cranmer is much longer than that of Latimer, and so lets us into more particulars. On Saturday, the 26th of October, for example, bever is substituted for supper, as well as on the 25th. This is, no doubt, on account of the Vigil of St. Simon and St. Jude, which could not be observed on the 27th, being Sunday. The 31st of October is a day of abstinence, though a Thursday, as the Vigil of All Saints. Throughout Lent, beginning the 19th of February in the following year, up to the period of his death, nothing but fish is found charged in the account, and that even on Sundays. Every Wednesday and Friday, bever is substituted for supper, consisting of fruit, cheese, wine, and ale alone (no fish). On Monday, the 24th February, St. Matthias's day, I found dinner and bever only charged, which is not so easy to account for, except it were to make up for an omission on Saturday, which should have been kept as a vigil, and on which dinner and supper are charged as usual.

I remain, Mr. Editor, your obedient servant, O. R. H.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CONTROVERSY ON THE DISPUTED VERSE OF ST. JOHN AS REVIVED BY MR. GIBBON, ETC.

BY THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY.†

SIR,-This book consists of two short treatises, with a preface of twenty-seven pages and an appendix. "Christian Theocracy," the last of the two, will be read with gratification and improvement by all whose sentiments are not confuted by it. It meets the audacious assertion of those who deny the catholic doctrine of the Trinity, that it is not to be found in Scripture, as well as the thoughtless admission of the believer, that it is only the man of learning who would have discovered it there without previous aid. The author accompanies the humble, unlearned inquirer through all parts of the New Testament, and lays before him, in the simplest form, evidence everywhere, of which he himself is left to be the judge. I may, therefore, recommend it to every one who would either establish his faith on the only real foundation, or, having established it, would be ready to give an answer to every man that asketh

* In a trial in the North, a few days ago, the word occurred, and was explained to be "luncheon," which is its common use there.—ED.

+ This review of the Bishop of Salisbury's book (which the Editor has not seen) is communicated by an excellent friend, and is given as the opinion of an individual only. The Editor will, at any time, be glad to receive notices of other books in the same way, and, whenever he has room, and the book is one of consequence, will insert them. It is very often, as in the case of Mr. Knox, better to discuss a book by various opinions being offered than to give merely a short tranchant notice of it.

a reason of the hope that is in him. I am persuaded, from a delightful circumstance that has been communicated to me, that it will be received with peculiar satisfaction by Mrs. Joanna Baillie, to whom it is addressed.*

The first tract concerns the origin of the second grand controversy respecting the two disputed verses of St. John. The first was excited by Mr. Emlyn, in 1715. When I call this the first, I am perfectly aware that the world has been drilled into the belief of there having been a decided controversy occasioned by Erasmus having given at first only that portion of the two verses that is retained by Griesbach. Nothing, however, can be farther from the fact. No one will venture to give that name to Erasmus's exposure of Lee's puling over his two favourite texts, 1 John, iv. 3, (qui solvit Jesum,) and v. 7, for he is equally concerned for them both. And it is a pretty considerable abuse of language to give it to the very little which passed between him and Stunica here. Each of the combatants stands repressed on this particular passage with a consciousness that the high ground which he had assumed could not be maintained, and that he was in presence of an adversary who would be ready to take advantage of that false position. Now, if the question had been left as the first controversy did leave it, the critics alone would have been concerned in it. We might all have read our New Testaments in comfort, whatever would be the issue of their debate. But the enemies of the Heavenly Witnesses were too highly triumphant over the imbecility of Martin to be contented with saying that improved versions ought to eject them. The passage must be held out as a distinct and separate act of forgery in every one of the numerous Greek documents in which it has appeared. In this view, the question is of the greatest importance to every man, woman, and child that uses the received text and the authorized version. And great thanks are due to Bishop Burgess for his examination of Mr. Gibbon, and of Mr. Gibbon's decision in his celebrated note, which is set up as the brief rule of faith on the point, that must be professed by every one who would aspire to the character of a critical scholar. Though you, sir, have held the scales with blind justice, you have shewn throughout your deep feeling of the momentous consequence of the general question, whether Robert Stephens was as honest an editor of the New Testament as he confessedly was of classical authors. Under this impression, you refused, at vol. vi. p. 120, to attend to the call you had received to put a stop to the discussion which was then proceeding, and afterwards spoke in the strong terms that may be seen, vol. vii. p. 60, note. With respect to the controverted passage of St. John, as Mr. Oxlee had laid down that "for the original text of the Heavenly Witnesses, no authority can be alleged than that of a printer of the sixteenth century, who must have translated it from the corrupted Latin version;" his language at your vol. vii. p. 302, cannot be much wondered at-viz., "could the printed text have been supported by one single Greek MS., however humble its pretensions to antiquity,. .. we should have been compelled to blush less, when required to say whence we have that passage." But what does this say for all those who hold with him, and yet read, as the word of God, whether in Greek or English, the text that is given upon the authority of the collations of this printer of the sixteenth century? If Mr. Porson's second Cloten left him who does this publicly to be suffused with blushes, he may stand forth as a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, when he sees at pp. 21 and 23 of the bishop's little book the exposure of Mr. Gibbon's assertion, even as it appears corrected by his mighty defender, (Porson, p. 132,) that the passage owes its place in our printed copies to the typographical error of Robert Stephens in the placing of a crotchet, and the strange misapprehension of Theodore Beza. The crotchet, as the historian was pleased to call it, was used in the folio edi

I have been assured, upon authority which I cannot doubt, that this highly respectable lady received the sacrament at Hempstead Church, last Trinity Sunday.

tion of 1550, for marking what appeared in the MSS. that were selected to furnish opposing readings to the text of that edition; but the passage, as it stands in our printed copies, was given in the 16mo edition of 1546, and again in that of 1549, for the text of which the printer had fifteen MSS. from the royal library; and solemnly pledged himself, in those editions, not to give a single letter which was not warranted by these royal MSS., eight only of which were selected, first and last, to oppose the text of the folio in the margin. In the name, then, of common sense and common honesty, how could "the three witnesses have been established in our present printed Greek Testaments by any fraud or error of Robert Stephens, "whether of the pen in preparation or of the press in printing, by the placing a crotchet," four years afterwards, or again, seven years after that, by "the deliberate falsehood or strange misapprehension of Theodore Beza"-and strange indeed is the misapprehension that is made for him.

The bishop's preface gives a concise account of the evidence for the two verses. Without saying that I accord with his Lordship throughout, in every particular, I recommend it to the general reader, and that upon far better authority than my own-viz., that of a fair lady, who would be perfectly shocked at the thought of being classed among the bas-bleu. She was induced to look at it, probably, by veneration for the author, and expressed her gratification, declaring that it was the only "readable" thing on the subject she had ever met with.

NOTICES AND REVIEWS.

The Name and Number of the Beast. Aarevoç-LATEINOS-or, the only proper and appellative name of the MAN, whose prophetical number in Greek numerals is xž5, or 666, (Rev. xiii. 18,) &c. &c. &c., being none other than the Pope of Rome, &c. By the Rev. Reginald Rabett, A.M., of Queen's Col lege, Cambridge. Seeley and Burnside. 1835. 8vo. pp. 306.

MR. Rabett has written this learned work to settle, once for all, the grand question of the meaning of the mystical number, 666, which he pronounces most positively to be, as Irenæus said so long ago, Lateinos, which seems to be Latin for the pope. He falls sadly foul of Mr. Faber, Professor Lee, and various other writers, and shocks the reviewer's tender feelings considerably by pronouncing terrible things of poor Archbishop Laud, who (alas!) was more than half a papist. It is a very emphatic book, being nearly half italics; but in so fierce an encounter, on so mysterious a subject, the reviewer thinks it best to say nothing, and leave parties to fight their own battles.

The Constitution of Society as designed by God. E. Wilson. 1835. 8vo. pp. 630.

THE object of this large 8vo, closely printed, is, as far as the Reviewer can make out, to prove that every government where any man is excluded from any right which another possesses, is directly against the law of God, which commands that every man should do to others, &c. &c.-that this law is regarded in no form, but a pure democracy-and that, consequently, to get rid of all vice, evil, &c., we ought at once to overturn our present government -that no one of the family of Guelphs, Lords, Commons, or Judges, can be a wise or good man, as all by their station contradict this great law, or, at least, have never shewn that their condition agrees with it. Probably it is more charitable to say no more about this gentleman's book.

The Child's Book of Bible Stories. By the Rev. J. H. Gallandet. London: Seeleys. 1835. 24mo.

THE stories are nicely told for children, and no objection can be made to the views; but it strikes the reviewer in this, and in many other books of the same kind, that there is much incongruity in addressing children, on the one hand, as infants, who want every word explained, and then calling on them to think and act in the full light of the Gospel Covenant.

First Impressions: a Series of Letters from France, Switzerland, and Savoy. By John Davies, B.D., Rector of St. Pancras, Chichester. London: Seeley and Burnside. 1835. Svo. pp. 330.

MR. DAVIES is a person of very considerable powers of thought, and wherever his ground-work of facts is sufficient, his reflexions on them are truly valuable. His work relates principally to the religious condition of the countries he saw. Now, while it may be allowed that the first impressions of a sensible man have some value, perhaps it may be open to those who may not agree with Mr. D. to say that religion is a subject where it is not safe to trust to first impressions. The French, for example, on whose religious condition he is very severe, may say this. But it is to be feared that though his own observation was not long enough to supply the facts, he could collect from competent evidence quite enough to bear out all he has said. Indeed, the actual religious condition of France is one of the most melancholy exhibitions which can be conceived, and our own close intercourse with that country makes it a matter of the deepest interest to us.

Mr. Davies's work gives some information on the state of religious societies in France; and on this account, as well as for its own merits, will be read with interest.

Testimonies of the Fathers of the first four Centuries to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, as set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles. By the Rev. H. Cary, M.A., of Worcester College, Oxford. Oxford: Talboys. 1835. 8vo. pp. 402.

MR. CARY has done a most acceptable service in giving a fair selection of passages (either pointed out by others or suggested by his own reading) from the works of the early fathers, shewing that what we hold was held in the first four centuries. To the principles of Mr. Cary's preface the reviewer would, for himself, accede, but the ultra-protestant churchman need not be alarmed. Mr. Cary, at present, uses the fathers as witnesses only, and no protestant, it is to be presumed, will be offended at finding that the fathers of the churches of the four first centuries agreed with him. Those who know the value of antiquity will feel deep obligations to Mr. Cary for the service which he has rendered in turning the student's attention to a quarter too much neglected. Does not Mr. Cary give rather too much space, comparatively, to Tertullian?

A Letter to the Rev. S. R. Maitland, on the Opinions of the Paulicians. By J. G. Dowling, M.A., Rector of St. Mary Crypt, Gloucestershire. London: Rivingtons. 1835.

It is a matter of real pleasure to find another writer pursuing the same path of church history as Mr. Maitland, and on the same principle of original investigation. Mr. Dowling's object is to shew, by passages from early writers, what was their opinion as to the Paulicians, and thus to give the general reader safe ground for forming his judgment. This task he has performed very well, and displays a clearness and diligence which will lead us to hope for very valuable contributions to church history from his pen.