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THE LATE REV. MR. BIDDULPH.

WE received too late for last month's publication the intelligence of the death of this eminently holy and useful servant of Christ. As one of our earliest, long-continued, and most valuable correspondents, we cannot but be deeply affected at his removal; though well assured that our loss is his exceeding gain. The following account of our departed friend is compiled from the Bristol papers and other sources, and will we doubt not prove interesting to our readers.

The Rev. Thomas Tregenna Biddulph was the only son of the Rev. Thomas Biddulph, of Padstow, in Cornwall. He was born July 5, 1763, in the parish of Claines, in Worcestershire, where his father had gone for the benefit of his health.

Little is known of his early education. At the proper age he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he appears to have been a diligent and successful student, and where he proceeded in due time to the degrees of B. A. and M. A.

One remarkable incident has been mentioned in connection with his college life, of a peculiarly afflictive description-the death of two young men, who were drowned while bathing in company with him and his friend Mr. Joseph Shrapnell. This event is said to have produced in his mind very deep religious impressions, the effect of which was manifest in his future life.

Mr. B. was admitted to Deacon's orders, by the Bishop of Exeter, Sept. 26, 1785, to the Curacy of Padstow, and was ordained Priest May 18, 1788, by the Bishop of Salisbury. He successfully laboured at Ditchett and Wansbrough, in Somersetshire; at Bengeworth, in Worcestershire ; and at Congresbury, near Bristol. In February, 1789, Mr. Bid

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dulph married Miss Rachel Shrapnell, daughter of Zachariah Shrapnell, Esq. of Bradford, Wilts, by whom he had fourteen children, ten of whom he survived. Soon after his marriage he removed to Bristol, and became assistant to the Rev. Wm. Tandy, then minister of St. Mary-le-port, with whom he shared not only the ministry of the Cross, but the reproach of the Cross also; for whilst an eminent blessing attended the preaching of the gospel by those two faithful servants of Christ, such was the obloquy excited by a simple enunciation of the doctrines contained in the Articles and Homilies of the Church of England, that even some piously-disposed persons were ashamed to be seen entering the church where these stigmatized principles were inculcated, and specific cases are recollected of respectable parties quitting their carriage at the distance of a street, that they might steal unobserved into the proscribed resort of reputed fanaticism.

In the early part of the year 1796, the Sunday evening lecture of St. Werburgh's was established, and Mr. Biddulph was appointed the first lecturer. This appears to have been the first evening service opened in a church in Bristol; and it is well worthy of remark, that the very argument which of late years has been alleged against evening services, was a prominent motive adduced at that time in favour of the adoption of the plan; namely, that some of the unprincipled and unhappy vagrants of both sexes, who spend the Lord'sday hours in the streets of our city, may be expected to drop in amongst the assembled worshippers'-and may thereby be brought under the sound of that word which is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.

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Mr. Fisher Weare, of Ashton, having conceived the design of establishing this eminent servant of God in a more permanent and ostensible post of duty, purchased the presentation of the living of Congresbury, with the express object of effecting an exchange when any opening might occur in this city. Dr. Small having obtained the erection of a new church in his parish, now called St. Paul's, procured its separation from St. James's, and an arrangement was made, whereby Mr. B. was nominated to the Incumbency of St. James, to which he was instituted 21st Sept. 1799. He preached his first sermon in St. James's church from Acts xxiv. 14. "But this I I confess unto you, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets." This sermon he published, dedicating it to the Vestry and Inhabitants of the Parish as the groundwork of his after ministrations.

To one who has only contemplated the latter portion of Mr. Biddulph's career-ministering as he has been to a devout and attentive audience, gathered around him from all quarters of the city – his preaching listened to with avidity by many of the more refined and polished of society, whilst a numerous body of clergy sedulously employed in inculcating the same divine truths, have looked to him for advice and counsel, and venerated him as their best earthly exemplar; whilst, too, the prelates who for the last twenty years have successively filled the See, have seemed to vie each with his predecessor in the kindest expressions of their confidence and esteem to one so worthy of them-to an observer who has only witnessed these halcyon days of Mr. Biddulph's ministry, it might seem almost incredible that only thirty years ago the same truths, uttered by

the same lips, did but render the promulgator of them a bye word amongst the people. But the like thing has happened to a Milner at Hull, to a Simeon at Cambridge, and to many other faithful servants of Christ, who by a patient continuance in well doing have lived down opposition, and stopped the mouths of gainsayers. And it should encourage the Christian, and especially the Christian minister, to go on steadily and perteveringly in his work, even when assailed with unmerited reproach; not being afraid of the fear of man, but in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if peradventure God will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth."

As a Preacher, Mr. Biddulph was throughout the whole course of his ministry very effective. His style was peculiarly impressive, but it owed its power not to any laboured rhetorical arts, but to soundness of doctrine, perspicuity of thought, felicity of illustration, and gravity of diction; above all, to that spiritual savour which ran through the whole, and which may best be described in the language of the Apostle, "his speech and his preaching were not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power." The doctrines which he preached were indeed very unfashionable at the time of the commencement of his ministry, and for many years afterwards, but he boldly avowed, and firmly defended them on all occasions; while the most honourable testimony that can be supplied in regard to his preaching is to be found in its actual results. The known instances of spiritual benefit derived by his hearers are very numerous; and not a few who are or have been useful and eminent preachers of the gospel in the Church of England, have owed their first impressions. under God,

to his ministry; so that to him may be appropriately transferred much of the beautiful eulogium so generously pronounced by the devout and eloquent Robert Hall, on an equally distinguished clergyman, Mr. Robinson of Leicester. Who ever heard him without feeling a persuasion that it was the man of God who addressed him? or without being struck by the perspicuity of his statement, the solidity of his thoughts, and the rich unction of his spirit? He, being dead, yet speaks: he speaks by his writings, he speaks from his tomb. His name will long combine with the mention of this place a train of solemn recollections; and many a visitor of this city will indulge a pious curiosity in inspecting the spot where he dwelt, and the church where he exercised his ministry.'

As a Writer too, Mr. B. has rendered great service to the cause of vital religion, as well as to the Established Church. His object in this, as in every department of his labours, was to serve his Divine Master, and not to rear a monument to his own fame. His writings have been for the most part either doctrinal and practical, or else of a polemical nature, and drawn forth by the theological controversies which incidentally

arose.

Among the former class of his works, his Essays on the Liturgy stand deservedly high, even by the admission of adverse criticism. Amongst his controversial writings, his answer to Dr. Mant, on the subject of baptismal regeneration, which has recently been republished as an antidote against some of the doctrines of the Oxford Tracts) his Search after Truth, on the subject of some novel opinions in Theology.' "His Christian charity exerting itself by means of Missionary excitement for the correction of Hindoo immorality,' his Evangelical Preaching

defended,' his Conversion, not miracle, the standing test of Divine influence in the Christian Church,' and his dialogues on Baptismal Regeneration. These his works,' and others not specified, will praise him in the gates,' long after the removal of all his earthly acquaintance.

The last sermon which he published, was preached at the primary visitation of the Archdeacon of Bristol, on the doctrine of justification by faith, which he called

The Septuagenarian Confession of Faith.' This doctrine he found to be, according to the language of the Eleventh Article of the Church of England, 6 a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.' It was the subject of his last discourse at St. Stephen's church, on Friday morning, April 27th, when he preached on Isaiah xlii. 21; and was very much dwelt upon in his last sermon at St. James's, on the following Sunday morning, on Gal. v. 6.

Mr. Biddulph was a most attached member of the Church of England. He held very high views of the apostolic character of the church and its ministry. He employed his pen most successfully in the elucidation of her formularies, and was ever found in the foremost rank of her defenders. The peroration of his sermon preached at the primary visitation of the Archdeacon of Bristol, contains a most animated passage, the reiterated burden of which is, "I LOVE MY CHURCH." It was, and it was felt to be, the cygnea vox, the last testimony of a true lover of our venerable establishment, and those who were privileged to hear him can bear witness with what fervency it was uttered. Mr. Biddulph's principles and conduct as a firm member of the church, afford a striking refutation of the calumny once extensively prevalent, but which the recent current of events

has tended pretty effectually to

wipe away: that evangelical preachers are necessarily low churchmen, or in other words, that those who preach according to the letter of the Church's Articles and Homilies, must needs be disaffected to her constitution and discipline!'

Closely allied in Mr. Biddulph's character with his attachment to the church, were those inseparable concomitants of true churchmanship, loyalty and patriotism. He knew, indeed, the boundary beyond which it does not comport with the sacred office of the minister of Christ to mingle in the strife of this world's politics. The uniform tenor of his course seemed to say to mere earthly politicians, what Nehemiah said to those that would have hindered him in his labours, "I am doing a great work, why should the work cease whilst I come down to you?" But on the other hand, he was far from subscribing to the principle, that the minister of Christ ceases as such to be a citizen-or is exonerated from the duties that arise out of that relation, He knew how to estimate the blessings of our unparallelled constitution, and was sensibly alive to the danger of tampering with so nicely poised a piece of mechanism, a machinery which the wisest and best man could never have made, but which the weakest and wickedest can mar; he looked with anxious forebodings at the swelling tide of political agitation, as threatening to sweep away by one overwhelming flood the time-hallowed institutions of our country; especially did he view with apprehension the encroachments of Papal influence, and the manifest workings of that baneful leaven toward the extinction of the Protestant Establishment in the sister island, and the consequent endangering of Protestantism, with all its concomitant blessings in this highly-favoured country.

He regarded Popery as the Upas, under whose penitential droopings the fair fields of Ireland are withering, and he laboured by means of scriptural instruction, and the dissemination of the word of God, to uproot the poison-tree, and plant in its place the tree of life, "whose leaves are for the healing of the nations." Nor did he restrict his support to those efforts for the maintenance of Protestantism, which are merely defensive. He knew well that it was by employing the sword of the Spirit in direct attacks upon the strong holds of Popery, that Luther and his compeers became the instruments of emancipating whole regions from its thraldom; he therefore inferred that God's blessing may be looked for on similar means in the present day, and that it is the duty of churchmen not only to defend truth, but to expose error. On this principle he not only supported the Bible Society, the London Hibernian Society, the Church of England Tract Society, but also the Reformation Society, which is in its character strictly theological, and it was one of the last acts of his life to have his name enrolled on the list of the newly-formed Protestant Association thus in a most marked manner recording his final protest against Popery.

It was a common Occurrence with Mr. Biddulph, to be applied to for counsel by young men under serious impressions, avowing their desire to enter the ministry, with the one object of labouring to promote the glory of God and the salvation of men. In such cases, when in the exercise of a sound discretion, Mr. B. considered that the applicants were sincere and single-eyed in their professions, he encouraged them with his counsel and influence; and when a defect of pecuniary resources was the sole bar to the progress of the candidate in his studies for the holy office, he was often

enabled by the help of friends, to remove that impediment. Hence originated that valuable institution, the British Clerical Education Society for educating and preparing suitable young men for the ministry of our church. By its means, and by Mr. B.'s private exertions, it is conjectured that not fewer than a hundred clergymen have entered the church under his auspices, many of whom are at this time faithfully dispensing the word of life in different parts of the kingdom; and the benefit which. the Church of England has derived, from his zealous and wise efforts to spread its doctrines in agreement with the Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy, will not be ascertained until the day shall come which will declare all things, and when it will be said to him, "Well done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

It was by Mr. Biddulph's influence and zeal, that the Benevolent Schools, and the Sunday Schools of his parish were originally formed, and the school-house in St. James's Barton erected. On the anniversary of the latter, which was held on the day after Christmas-day, he always delivered addresses to the teachers and scholars, many of which will long be remembered. Au Infant School was also erected in his parish a few years ago. A district visiting society was established eight years since, for the benefit of which a collection was made after the last discourse that he delivered to his congregation.

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ried into effect by his friends and congregation from respect to his memory. Mr. B. deeply felt the obstacles so unwisely interposed in the way of building churches, and strenuously advocated the removal of every restriction.

In the year 1798, Mr. Biddulph, in conjunction with some other clergymen, cominenced a small theological miscellany, entitled

Zion's Trumpet: from this our work derives its origin. After a short time the title was changed, the work itself enlarged, and its publication transferred from Bristol to the Metropolis. Mr. B. however still continued for many years a steady and valuable contributor. His work on the Theology of the early patriarchs, appeared in our pages in 1819-20, and he continued his valuable assistance as long as his health and other engagements would allow.

It would occupy far too much space to attempt even an enumeration of the religious and benevolent societies and institutions in which Mr. B. took an active part. He was a member of the Christian Knowledge Society, and of the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts but whilst he cordially supported these institutions, he did not hesitate to join at an early period the Church Missionary Society, which now numbers among its supporters a considerable portion of the bench of Bishops, and thousands of the most attached lay members of the church; a society set up not to contravene or rival the labours of other institutions, but to occupy ground not taken by them, to carry the glad tidings of salvation far beyond the limits to which the old societies had for the most part restricted their operations, into the wide field of the heathen world, whose objects, in short, are coextensive with the Saviour's parting command, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to

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