Christianity in the year 1390. In 1599 there was a Polish translation of the Bible published at Cracow. which was the work of several divines of that nation, and in which James Wieck, a Jesuit. had a principal share. The Protestants, in 1596, published a Polish Bible from Luther's German version, and dedicated it to Uladislaus, fourth king

of Poland.

37. BIBLES, Polyglot. See Nos. 29, 31.

38. BIBLES, Russian; or,

39. BIBLES, Sclavonian. The Russians or Muscovites, published the Bible in their language in 1581. It was translated from the Greek by St. Cyril, the apostle of the Sclavonians; but this old version being too obscure, Ernest Gliik, who had been carried prisoner to Moscow after the taking of Narva, under took a new translation of the Bible into Sclavonian; who dying in 1705, the Czar Peter appointed some particular divines to finish the translation; but whether it was ever printed we cannot

say.

tiful character: and since his time there have been several other editions. Gabriel Sionita published a beautiful Syriac edition of the Psalms at Paris in 1526, with a Latin interpretation. There is a Syriac copy of the Bible written in the Estrangelo character, and was brought from the Christians of Travancore, being a present from Mar Dionysius, the resident bishop at Cadenatte to Dr. Buchanan The size is large folio in parchment: the pages are written in three columns, each column containing sixty lines. It is supposed to have been written about the seventh century. Dr. White, it is said, has for some time been engaged in reprinting the Syriac Old Testament

42. BIBLES, Turkish. In 1666 a Turkish New Testament was printed in London to be dispersed in the East. In 1721, it is said, the grand Seignor ordered an impression of Bibles at Constantinople, that they might be contrasted with Mahomet's oracle, the Alcoran. The modern Greeks in Turkey have also a translation of the Bible in their language.

guage, was printed in 1620: it is called Parry's Bible. An impression of this was printed in 1690, called Bishop Lloyd's Bible: these were in folio. The first octavo impression of the Welch Bible was made in 1630.

40. BIBLES, Spanish. The first Spanish Bible that we hear of, is that men- 43. BIBLES, Welch. There was a tioned by Cyprian de Valera, which he Weich translation of the Bible made says was published about 1500. The from the original in the time of queen epistles and Gospels were published in Elizabeth, in consequence of a bill that language by Ambrose de Montesian brought into the House of Commons in 1512; the whole Bible by Cassiodore for this purpose in 1563: it was printed de Reyna, a Calvinist, in 1569; and the in folio in 1588. Another version, which New Testament, dedicated to the em-is the standard translation for that lanperor Charles V., by Francis Enzina, otherwise called Driander, in 1543. The first Bible which was printed in Spanish for the use of the Jews was that printed at Ferrara in 1553, in Gothic characters, and dedicated to Hercules D'Este, duke of Ferrara This version is very ancient, and was probably in use among the Jews of Spain before Ferdinand and Isabella expelled them out of their dominions in 1492. After very violent opposition from the catholic clergy, the court of Spain ordered Spanish Bibles to be printed by royal authority in 1796, and put into the hands of people of all ranks, as well as to be used in public worship.

44. BIBLES. Bengalee. It is with pleasure we add to all the above accounts, that a translation of the New Testament into the Shanscrit, and the last volume of the Bengalee Bible are now completed, by the missionaries resident in that part.

Much has been done by the British and Foreign Bible Society, in printing new editions of the Scriptures in various languages. The reader will find much 41. BIBLES, Syriac. There are ex-pleasing information on the subject, in tant two versions of the Old Testament the Annual Reports of that Society. in the Syriac language; one from the Septuagint, which is ancient, and made probably about the time of Constantine: the other called antiqua et simplex, made from the Hebrew, as some suppose, about the time of the apostles. This version is printed in the Polyglots of London and Paris. In 1562, Wedmanstadius printed the whole New Testament in Syriac, at Vienna, in a beau

See Le Long's Bibliotheca Sacra; Wolfii Bibliotheca Hebræa, vol. ii. p. 338 Johnson's Historical Account of English Translations of the Bible; Lewis's Hist of the Translations of the Bible into English; Newcome's Historical View of English Translations ; Butler's Hora Biblica; and the article BIBLE in the Encyclopædia Britannica and Perthensis.

BIBLIOMANCY, a kind of divination performed by means of the Bible. It consisted in taking passages of Scripture at hazard, and drawing indications thence concerning things future. It was much used at the consecration of bishops. F. J. Davidius, a Jesuit, has published a bibliomancy under the borrowed name of Veridicus Christianus. It has been affirmed that some well-influences a man to embrace it wheremeaning people practise a kind of bibliomancy with respect to the future state of their souls; and, when they have happened to fix on a text of an awful nature, it has almost driven them to despair. It certainly is not the way to know the mind of God by choosing detached parts of Scripture, or by drawing a card on which a passage may be written, the sense of which is to be gathered only from the context.

commits the crime must do it knowingly. This is real blasphemy but there is a relative blasphemy as when a man may be guilty ignorantly by propagating opinions which dishonour God, the tendency of which he does not per

Adam's Lives; Fuller's and Clark's || phemy is an injury offered to God, by Lives; Gilpin's Lives of Wickliffe, denying that which is due and belongCranmer, Latimer,&c.; Walton's Lives ing to him, or attributing to him what by Zouch; Baxter's Narrative of the is not agreeable to his nature. "Three most remarkable Passages of his Life things," says a divine, "are essential to and Times, by Silvester; Palmer's this crime; 1. God must be the object. Nonconformist Memorial; Lives of P. -2. The words spoken or written, inand M. Herry; Life of Halyburton; dependent of consequences which others Orton's Memoirs of Doddridge; Gil- may derive from them, must be injulies' Life of Whitfield; Doddridge's||rious in their nature.-And, 3. He who Life of Gardiner; Life of Wesley by Hampson, Coke, More, and Whitehead; Middleton's Biographia Evangelica; Edwards's Life of D. Brainerd; Gibbon's Life of Watts; Brown's Life of Hervey; Fawcett's Life of Heywood; Brown's Lives in his Student and Pas-ceive A man may be guilty of this tor; Burnet's Life of Rochester; Hay-constructively: for if he speak freely ley's Life of Cowper; Benson's Life against received errors, it will be conof Fletcher; Jay's Life of Winter; strued into blasphemy." By the English Cecil's Life of Newton; Priestley's laws, blasphemies of God, as denying Chart of Biography with a Book de- his being or providence, and all contuscribing it, 12mo; Haweis's Life of melious reproaches of Jesus Christ, &c. Romaine; Fuller's Life of Pearce. are offences by the common law, and BISHOP, a prelate consecrated for punishable by fine, imprisonment, and the spiritual government of a diocese. pillory; and, by the statute law, he that The word comes from the Saxon bis- denies one of the persons in the Trichop, and that from the Greek nos,nity, or asserts that there are more an overseer, or inspector. It is a long than one God, or denies Christianity to time since bishops have been distin-be true for the first offence is rendered guished from mere priests, or presby-incapable of any office; for the second, ters; but whether that distinction be of adjudged incapable of suing, being exdivine or human right; whether it was ecutor or guardian, receiving any gift settled in the apostolic age, or intro- or legacy, and to be imprisoned for duced since, is much controverted. years. According to the law of ScotChurchmen in general plead for the land, blasphemy is punished with death: divine right; while the Dissenters sup- these laws, however, in the present pose that the word no where signifies age, are not enforced; the legislature more than a pastor or presbyter; the thinking, perhaps, that spiritual offences very same persons being called bishops should be left to be punished by the and elders, or presbyters, Acts xx. 17, Deity rather than by human statutes. 28. 1 Pet. v. 1, 3. Tit. i. 5, 7. Phil. i. 1. Campbell's Prel. Diss. vol. i. p. 395; See EPISCOPACY. All the bishops of Robinson's Script. Plea, p. 58. England are peers of the realm, except the bishop of Man; and as such sit and vote in the house of lords. Besides two archbishops, there are twenty-four bishops in England, exclusive of the bishop of Sodor and Man. The bishops BOGOMILI, or BOGARMITE, a sect of London, Durham, and Winchester, of heretics which arose about the year take the precedence of the other bi-1179. They held that the use of shops, who rank after them according churches, of the sacrament of the to their seniority of consecration. See Lord's supper, and all prayer except EPISCOPACY. the Lord's prayer, ought to be abolishBLASPHEMY, from Basque, ac-ed; that the baptism of Catholics is cording to Dr. Campbell, properly de-imperfect that the persons of the Trinotes calumny, detraction, reproachful nity are unequal, and that they often or abusive language, against whomso-made themselves visible to those of their ever it be vented. It is in Scripture sect. applied to reproaches not aimed against BOHEMIAN BRETHREN, a sect God only but man also, Rom. iii. 8. of Christian reformers which sprung up Rom. xiv. 16. 1 Pet. iv. 4 Gr. It is, in Bohemia in the year 1467. They however, more peculiarly restrained to treated the pope and cardinals as antievil or reproachful words offered to christ, and the church of Rome as the God. According to Linwood, blas-whore spoken of in the Revelations.

BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. See UNPARDONABLE SIN.

BODY OF DIVINITY. See THE

OLOGY.

They rejected the sacraments of the Romish church, and chose laymen for their ministers. They held the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith, and rejected the popish ceremonies in the celebration of the mass; nor did they make use of any other prayer than the Lord's prayer. They consecrated leavened bread. They allowed no adoration but of Jesus Christ in the communion. They rebaptized all such as joined themselves to their congregation. They abhorred the worship of saints and images, prayers for the dead, celibacie, vows, and fasts; and kept none of the festivals but Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide.

beauty, that she had her admirers. From her childhood to her old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She set up for a reformer, and published a great number of books filled with very singular notions; the most remarkable of which are entitled, The Light of the World, and The Testimony of Truth. In her confession of faith, she professes her belief in the Scriptures, the divinity and atonement of Christ. She believed also that man is perfectly free to resist or receive divine grace; that God is ever unchangeable love towards all his creatures, and does not inflict any arbitrary punishment; but that the evils they suffer are the natural consequence of sin; that religion consists not in outward forms of worship nor systems of faith, but in an entire resignation to the will of God. She held many extravagant notions, among which, it is said, she asserted that Adam, before the fall, possessed the principles of both sexes; that in an ecstacy, God represented Adam to her mind in his original state; as also the beauty of the first world, and how he had drawn from it the chaos; and that every thing was bright, transparent, and darted forth life and ineffable glory,

In 1503 they were accused by the Catholics to king Ladislaus II., who published an edict against them, forbidding them to hold any meetings, either privately or publicly. When Luther declared himself against the church of Rome, the Bohemian brethren endeavoured to join his party. At first, that reformer showed a great aversion to them; but, the Bohemians sending their deputies to him in 1535, with a full account of their doctrines, he acknowledged that they were a society of Christians whose doctrine came nearest to the purity of the Gospel. This sect pub-with a number of other wild ideas. She lished another confession of faith in 1535, dressed like an hermit, and travelled in which they renounced anabaptism, through France, Holland, England, and which they at first practised: upon Scotland. She died at Fanekir, in the which a union was concluded with the province of Frise, October 30, 1680. Lutherans, and afterwards with the Her works have been printed in 18 Zuinglians, whose opinions from thence- || vols. 8vo. forth they continued to follow.

BOYLE'S LECTURES, a course of BOOK OF SPORTS. See SPORTS. eight sermons, preached annually, set BORRELLISTS, a Christian sect in on foot by the honourable R. Boyle, by Holland, so named from their founder a codicil annexed to his will, in 1691, Borrel, a man of great learning in the whose design, as expressed by the inHebrew, Greek, and Latin tongues. stitutor, is to prove the truth of the They reject the use of the sacraments, Christian religion against infidels, withpublic prayer, and all other external out descending to any controversies acts of worship. They assert that all among Christians, and to answer new the Christian churches of the world difficulties, scruples, &c. For the suphave degenerated from the pure apos-port of this lecture he assigned the rent tolic doctrines, because they have suf- of his house in Crooked Lane to some fered the word of God, which is infalli- learned divine within the bills of morble, to be expounded, or rather corrupt-tality, to be elected for a term not exed, by doctors who are fallible. They ceeding three years. But, the fund lead a very austere life, and employ a proving precarious, the salary was ill great part of their goods in alms. paid; to remedy which inconvenience, archbishop Tennison procured a yearly stipend of 501. for ever, to be paid quarterly, charged on a farm in the parish of Brill, in the county of Bucks. To this appointment we are indebted for many excellent defences of natural and revealed religion.

BOURIGNONISTS, the followers of Antoinette Bourignon, a lady in France, who pretended to particular inspirations. She was born at Lisle in 1616. At her birth she was so deformed, that it was debated some days in the family whether it was not proper to stifle her as a monster; but, her deformity diminishing, she was spared: and afterwards obtained such a degree of

BRANDENBURG, Confession of. A formulary or confession of faith, drawn up in the city of Brandenburg by order

BRIEFS (apostolical) are letters which the pope dispatches to princes and other magistrates concerning any public affair.

BROTHERS, Lay, among the Romanists, are illiterate persons, who devote themselves in some convent to the

of the elector, with a view to reconcile || on any account. This order spread the tenets of Luther with those of Cal- much through Sweden, Germany, and vin, and to put an end to the disputes the Netherlands. In England we read occasioned by the confession of Augs- of but one monastery of Brigittins, and burgh. See AUGSBURGH CONFESSION this built by Henry V. in 1415, opposite BRETHREN AND SISERS OF to Richmond, now called Sion House; THE FREE SPIRIT, an appellation the ancient inhabitants of which, since assumed by a sect which sprung up to- the dissolution are settled at Lisbon. wards the close of the thirteenth century, and gained many adherents in Italy, France, and Germany. They took their denomination from the words of St. Paul, Rom. viii. 2, 14 and maintained that the true children of God were invested with perfect freedom from the jurisdiction of the law. They held that all hing flowed by emanation from God; that rational souls were portions of the Deity; that the universe was God; and that by the power of contemplation they were united to the Deity, and acquired hereby a glorious and sublime liberty, both from the sinful lusts and the common instincts of nature, with a variety of other enthusi astic notions. Many edicts were published against them; but they continued till about the middle of the fifteenth

century.

service of the religious.

BROWNISTS, a sect that arose among the puritans towards the close of the sixteenth century; so named from their leader, Robert Brown. He was educated at Cambridge, and was a man of good parts and some learning. He began to inveigh openly against the ceremonies of the church, at Norwich, in 1580. but, being much opposed by the bishops he with his congregation left England and settled at Middleburgh, in Zealand, where they obtained leave to worship God in their own way, and form a church according to their own

BRETHREN AND CLERKS OF THE COMMON LIFE, a denomina-model. tion assumed by a religious fraternity towards the end of the fifteenth century. They lived under the rule of St. Augustin, and were said to be eminently useful in promoting the cause of religion and learning.

BRETHREN WHITE, were the followers of a priest from the Alps about the beginning of the fifteenth century. They and their leader were arrayed in white garments. Their leader carried about a cross like a standard. His apparent sanctity and devotion drew together a number of followers This deluded enthusiast practised many acts of mortification and penance, and endeavoured to persuade the Europeans to renew the holy war. Boniface IX. ordered him to be apprehended, and Committed to the flames; upon which his followers dispersed.

BRETHREN UNITED. See Mo

RAVIANS.

BREVIARY, the book containing the|| daily service of the church of Rome.

BRIDGE INS, or BRIGITTINS, an order denominated from St. Bridgit, or Birgit, a Swedish lady, in the fourteenth century. Their rule is nearly that of Augustin. The Brigittins profess great mortification, poverty, and self-denial; and they are not to possess any thing they can call their own, not so much as an halfpenny; nor even to touch money

They soon, however, began to differ among themselves; so that Brown, growing weary of his office, returned to England in 1589, renounced his principles of separation, and was preferred to the rectory of a churchin Northamptonshire. He died in prison in 1630. The revolt of Brown was attended with the dissolution of the church at Middleburgh ; but the seeds of Brownism which he had sown in England were so far from being destroyed, that Sir Walter Raleigh, in a speech in 1592, computes no less than 20,000 of this sect.

The articles of their faith seem to be nearly the same as those of the church of England. The occasion of their separation was not, therefore, any fault they found with the faith, but only with the discipline and form of government of the churches in England. They equally charged corruption on the episcopal and presbyterian forms; nor would they join with any other reformed church, because they were not assured of the sanctity and regeneration of the members that composed it. They condemned the solemn celebration of marriages in the church, maintaining that matrimony being a political contract, the confirmation thereof ought to come from the civil magistrate; an opinion in which they are not singular. They would not allow the children of such as were not members of the Church