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persons to honour him by a particular religious worship, without incurring the penalty of superstitious worshippers; but in canonization, the pope speaks as a judge, and determines, ex cathedra, upon the state of the person canonized. Beatification was introduced when it was thought proper to delay the canonization of saints, for the greater assurance of the truth of the steps taken in the procedure. Some particular orders of monks have assumed to themselves the power of beatification: thus, Octavia Melchiorica was beatified by the Dominicans. Encyc. Amer.

BEATITUDE imports the highest degree of happiness human nature can arrive to, the fruition of God in a future life to all eternity. It is also used when speaking of the theses contained in Christ's sermon on the Mount, whereby he pronounces the several characters there mentioned blessed.

BEDE, (generally styled "the Venerable Bede,") an eminent writer and an English monk, was born at Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the bishopric of Durham, in the year 673. At the early age of six years he was sent to the monastery of St. Peter, at Wearmouth, under the superintendence of Abbot Benedict, by whom, and his successor Ceolfrid, he was educated for twelve years. When he had arrived at the age of nineteen, he was ordained deacon by bishop Beverley. In a short time, by his diligence and application, he became a proficient in general knowledge, and in classical literature. He was so strongly attached to a monastic life, that when Pope Sergius wrote to Abbot Ceolfrid, in a very urgent manner, to send him to Rome to give his opinion on some important points, Bede would not accept it. Several years were spent by him in making collections for his celebrated work on ecclesiastical history, the materials for which he collected from the lives of eminent persons, annals in convents, and such chronicles as were written before his time. Nearly all the knowledge we possess of the early state of Christianity in this country is derived from this work. That work was published in the year 731, when he was fifty-nine years of age. It gained him such universal applause, that the most profound prelates conversed with him, and solicited his advice on the most important subjects; particularly Egbert, bishop of York,

a man of very extensive learning; and to whom he wrote a long, learned, and judicious letter, which furnished the world with such an account of the state of the church at that time, as cannot be met with in any other history. He had then every symptom of consumption, which at last proved to be the case. This affliction he supported with incredible firmness of mind; and though this lingering complaint was united with asthma, he was never heard to complain, but was always calm and resigned. Though his body was much afflicted, his mind was buoyant and active; and he continued, with great assiduity, to translate the Gospel of John into the Saxon language, and also some passages which he was then extracting from the works of Isidore. He had just time to finish his translation on the day, and at the very hour, of his death. He also took his usual interest in the education and improvement of some monks whom he was instructing. His piety and virtue, united to his lengthened days, entitled him to the appellation of venerable. England scarcely ever produced a greater scholar or divine. Bayle says, that "there is scarcely any thing in all antiquity worthy to be read, which is not to be found in Bede, though he travelled not out of his own country;" and that "if he had lived in the times of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, or Chrysostom, he would undoubtedly have equalled them, since, even in the midst of a superstitious age, he wrote so many excellent treatises." Bede died at the age of sixtythree, A.D. 735. His remains were interred, first in the church of his own monastery, but afterwards removed to Durham, and placed in the same coffin with those of St. Cuthbert. There were several epitaphs composed in honour of him, but none considered suitable to his virtues and talents. As an author he excelled in the purity and elegance of his style; and, as a man, he was eminent for those virtues and graces which adorn human nature.

BEGHARDS, or BEGUARDS, a sect that arose in Germany in the thirteenth century, and took St. Begghe for their patroness. They employed themselves in making linen cloth, each supporting himself by his labour, and were united only by the bonds of charity, without having any particular rule; but when Pope Nicholas IV. had confirmed

that of the third order of St. Francis, in 1289, they embraced it the year following.

BEGUINES, a congregation of nuns, founded either by St. Begghe or by Lambert le Bègue. They were established, first at Liege, and afterwards at Neville, in 1207; and from this last settlement sprang the great number of Beguinages which are spread over all Flanders, and which have passed from Flanders into Germany. In the latter country some of them fell into extravagant errors, persuading themselves that it was possible, in the present life, to arrive to the highest perfection, even to impeccability, and a clear view of God; in short, to so eminent a degree of contemplation, that there was no necessity, after this, to submit to the laws of mortal men, civil or ecclesiastical. The council of Vienna condemned these errors; permitting, nevertheless, those among them, who continued in the true faith, to live in charity and penitence, either with or without vows. There still subsists, or at least subsisted till lately, many communities of them in Flanders. Their grand rule of conduct was universal charity, and their only motive the love of God.

BEHMEN, or BOEHME, JACOB, a celebrated mystic writer, born in the year 1575, at Old Seidenburgh, near Gorlitz, in Upper Lusatia; he was a shoemaker by trade. He is described as having been thoughtful and religious from his youth, taking peculiar pleasure in frequenting public worship. At length seriously considering within himself that speech of our Saviour, My Father which is in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him, he was thereby thoroughly awakened in himself, and set forward to desire that promised Comforter; and, continuing in that earnestness, he was at last, to use his own expression, surrounded with a divine light for seven days, and stood in the highest contemplation and kingdom of joys!" After this, about the year 1600, he was again surrounded by the divine light, and replenished with the heavenly knowledge; insomuch that, going abroad into the fields, and viewing the herbs and grass, by his inward light he saw into their essences, use and properties, which were discovered to him by their lineaments, figures, and signatures. In the year 1610, he had a third special illumination, wherein still further mys

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teries were revealed to him. It was not till the year 1612 that Behmen committed these revelations to writing. His first treatise is entitled Aurora, which was seized on and withheld from him by the senate of Gorlitz (who persecuted him at the instigation of the primate of that place) before it was finished, and he never afterwards proceeded with it, further than by adding some explanatory notes. The next production of his pen is called The Three Principles. In this work he more fully illustrates the subjects treated of in the former, and supplies what is wanting in that work. The contents of these two treatises may be divided as follows: 1. How all things came from a working will of the holy triune incomprehensible God, manifesting himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, through an outward perceptible working triune power of fire, light, and spirit, in the kingdom of heaven. 2. How and what angels and men were in their creation; that they are in and from God, his real offspring; that their life began in and from this divine fire, which is the Father of light, generating a birth of light in their souls; from both which proceeds the Holy Spirit, or breath of divine love in the triune creature, as it does in the triune Creator. 3. How some angels, and all men, are fallen from God, and their first state of a divine triune life in him; what they are in their fallen state, and the difference between the fall of angels and that of man. 4. How the earth, stars, and elements were created in consequence of the fallen angels. 5. Whence there is good and evil in all this temporal world, in all its creatures, animate and inanimate; and what is meant by the curse that dwells every where in it. 6. Of the kingdom of Christ; how it is set in opposition to and fights and strives against the kingdom of hell. 7. How man, through faith in Christ, is able to overcome the kingdom of hell, and triumph over it in the divine power, and thereby obtain eternal salvation; also how, through working in the hellish quantity or principle, he casts himself into perdition. 8. How and why sin and misery, wrath and death, shall only reign for a time, till the love, the wisdom, and the power of God shall in a supernatural way (the mystery of God made man) triumph over sin, misery, and death; and make fallen man rise to the glory of angels, and this material

system shake off its curse, and enter into an everlasting union with that heaven from whence it fell.

The year after he wrote his Three Principles, by which are to be understood, the dark world, or hell, in which the devils live;-the light world, or heaven, in which the angels live;--the external and visible world, which has proceeded from the internal and spiritual worlds, in which man, as to his bodily life, lives,-Behmen produced his Threefold Life of Man, according to the Three Principles. In this work he treats more largely of the state of man in this world: 1. That he has that immortal spark of life which is common to angels and devils. 2. That divine life of the light and spirit of God, which makes the essential difference between an angel and a devil, the last having extinguished this divine life in himself; but that man can only attain unto this heavenly life of the second principle through the new birth in Christ Jesus. 3. The life of the third principle, or of this external and visible world. Thus the life of the first and third principles is common to all men; but the life of the second principle only to a true Christian or child of God.

Behmen wrote several other treatises, besides the three already enumerated; but these three being, as it were, the basis of all his other writings, it was thought proper to notice them particularly. His conceptions are often clothed under allegorical symbols; and in his latter works he has frequently adopted chemical and Latin phrases to express his ideas, which phrases he borrowed from conversation with learned men, the education he had received being too illiterate to furnish him with them: but as to the matter contained in his writings, he disclaimed having borrowed it either from men or books. He died in the year 1624. His last words were"Now I go hence into Paradise."

Some of Behmen's principles were adopted by the late ingenious and pious William Law, who has clothed them in a more modern dress and in a less obscure style. See Behmen's Works; Okeley's Memoirs of Behmen.

BELLARMINE, CARDINAL, a great Roman Catholic oracle and Jesuit, born at Monte Puleiano, in Tuscany, in 1542. He was most assiduous in his opposition to the Protestants, and was sent into the Low Countries to arrest

their progress. The talent which he displayed in his controversies, called forth the most able men on the other side; and, for a number of years, no eminent divine among the Reformers failed to make his arguments a particular subject of refutation. His principal work was A Body of Controversy, written in Latin, the style of which is perspicuous and precise, without any pretension to purity and elegance. He displays very considerable acquaintance with the Scriptures, and is deeply versed in the doctrine and practice of the church. He was, on the points of predestination and efficacious grace, more a disciple of Augustine than a Jesuit. As his book did not assert that the Popes had a direct power over temporal things, it was placed by Sixtus V. among the prohibited books; which, with the differences that were found among the Catholics themselves, gave the Protestants no small advantage. At his death the Cardinal bequeathed one half of his soul to the Virgin Mary and the other to Jesus Christ.

BELIEF, in its general and natural sense, denotes a persuasion or an assent of the mind to the truth of any proposition. In this sense belief has no relation to any particular kind of means or arguments, but may be produced by any means whatever: thus we are said to believe our senses, to believe our reason, to believe a witness. Belief, in its more restrained sense, denotes that kind of assent which is grounded only on the authority or testimony of some person. In this sense belief stands opposed to knowledge and science. We do not say that we believe snow is white, but we know it to be so. But when a thing is propounded to us, of which we ourselves have no knowledge, but which appears to us to be true from the testimony given to it by another, this is what we call belief. See FAITH.

BELIEVERS, an appellation given, toward the close of the first century, to those Christians who had been admitted into the church by baptism, and instructed in all the mysteries of religion. They were thus called in contradistinction to the catechumens who had not been baptized, and were debarred from those privileges. Among us it is often used synonymously with Christian. See CHRISTIAN.

BEL AND THE DRAGON (HISTORY of), an apocryphal and uncanonical book

of Scripture. It was always rejected by the Jewish church, and is extant neither in the Hebrew nor the Chaldee language; nor is there any proof that it ever was so. Jerom gives it no better title than " the fable of Bel and the Dragon."

Selden thinks this little history ought rather to be considered as a sacred poem, or fiction, than a true account. As to the Dragon, he observes, that serpents (dracones) made a part of the hidden mysteries of the Pagan religion; as appears from Clemens Alexandrinus, Julius Firmicus, Justin Martyr, and others. And Aristotle relates, that in Mesopotamia there were serpents which would not hurt the natives of the country, and infested only strangers. Whence it is not improbable that both the Mesopotamians themselves, and the neighbouring people, might worship a serpent, the former to avert the evil arising from those reptiles, the latter out of a principle of gratitude. But of this there is no clear proof; nor is it certain that the Babylonians worshipped a dragon or serpent.

BELLS are not to be reckoned among the ancient utensils of the Christian church, because they are known to be a modern invention. During the three first centuries, it is certain the Christians did not meet in their assemblies by the notice of any public signal; nor can it be imagined that, in an age of persecution, when they met privately in the night, they would, as it were, betray themselves by such notice to their enemies. Baronius, indeed, supposes there was an order of men appointed to give private notice of assembling to every particular member of a Christian congregation; but, for want of light, we can determine nothing about it.

In the following ages, we find several inventions before that of bells, for the calling religious assemblies together. In Egypt they seem to have used trumpets, after the manner of the Jews. And the same custom prevailed in the sixth century, in Palestine. But, in some monasteries, they took the office by turns of going about to every one's cell, and calling the monks to their devotions with the stroke of a hammer; which instrument was from thence termed the nightsignal, and awakening-mallet, žurnargiov qugivo. In the nunnery erected at Jerusalem by the famous Paula, a Roman lady, the usual signal was given by singing an Hallelujah. In the other

parts of the east they made use of sounding instruments of wood, called Sacred Boards.

The use of bells was not known in the eastern church till the year 865, when Ursus Patrisiacus, duke of Venice, made a present of some to Michael the Greek emperor, who first built a tower to the church of Sancta Sophia, to hang them in. Who first brought bells into use in the Latin church, is a thing not yet determined; some ascribing them to Pope Sabinianus, successor of St. Gregory, A.D. 604; and others to Paulinus, bishop of Nola, contemporary with St. Jerom. But the latter opinion seems to be a vulgar error, and to have no better foundation than Paulinus's being bishop of Nola in Campania, where it is pretended bells were first invented, and thence called Nola and Campanæ. Cardinal Bona would have it thought that they began to be used in the Latin church immediately upon the conversion of the emperors to Christianity, because the tintinnabula, or lesser sort of bells, had been used before by the heathens to the like purpose: but there is no ancient author that countenances his conjecture.

The Turks, since they became masters of the Greek empire, have prohibited the use of bells among their Christian subjects; for which reason," they hang by ropes, upon the branches of trees, several bent plates of iron, like those on our cart-wheels, of about half an inch thick, and three or four inches broad, with holes made in them lengthways. They chime upon these plates with little iron hammers, to call the monks to church. They have another sort of religious music, which they endeavour to bring into concert with these iron chimes. They hold a piece of board, about four or five inches broad, in one hand, and beat upon it with a wooden mallet in the other."

The Romish church has a great deal of superstition in relation to the use of bells. In the Roman ritual, they are said to represent the duration of the Gospel, the sound of which has been carried through all the earth, because they make themselves be heard by the faithful a great way off. They likewise represent the church exciting the faithful to praise God, and the pastors of the Gospel preaching the word of God. They have several other mysterious significations, to be found in the rituals. The Romanists believe that the sound of bells keeps the powers of the air at a distance; in this

not much unlike the ancient Lacedemo nians, who thought the sound of brass would drive away evil spirits; for which reason, at the death of their kings, they beat upon brass kettles.

The ceremony of the benediction, or blessing, of bells, in the Romish church, is a very remarkable piece of superstition. It is supposed to consecrate them to God's service, to the end that he may bestow on them the power, not of striking the ear, but of touching the heart. When a bell is to receive benediction, it is hung up, and disposed in such a manner, as to leave room to walk round it. They prepare beforehand an holy-water pot, another for salt, napkins, a vessel of oil, incense, myrrh, cotton, a bason and ewer, and a crum of bread. They then proceed to sanctify the bell in the following manner:-A procession is made from the vestry, and the officiating priest, having seated himself near the bell, instructs the people in the holiness of the action he is going to perform, and then sings the miserere. Next, he blesses some salt and water, and puts up a prayer, that the bell may acquire the virtue of guarding Christians from the stratagems of Satan, of driving away ghosts, of breaking the force of tempests, and raising devotion in the heart, &c. He then mixes the salt and water, and crossing them thrice, in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost, pronounces over each of them, "God be with you." This done, he dips the aspergillum, or sprinkler, in the holy water, and with it washes the bell; during which ablution psalms are sung. After this a vessel, containing what they call oil for the infirm, is opened by the dean, into which the officiating priest dips the thumb of his right hand, and applies it to the middle of the bell, signing it with the sign of the cross. The 28th Psalm being then sung, the bell is marked with seven other crosses, during which the priest honours the bell with a sort of baptism, consecrating it in the name of the Trinity, and naming some particular saint, who stands godfather to the bell, which from that time bears his name. The bell, thus baptized, is perfumed with incense and myrrh, which, in a prayer used on that occasion, is called the dew of the Holy Ghost.

The rituals tell us, that the consecration of bells represents that of pastors; that the ablution, followed by unction, expresses the sanctification acquired by

baptism; the seven crosses show that pastors should exceed the rest of Christians in the graces of the Holy Ghost; and that, as the smoke of the perfume rises in the bell, and fills it, so a pastor, adorned with the fulness of God's spirit, receives the perfume of the vows and prayers of the faithful.

We likewise meet with, in a Catholic author, a kind of religious anatomy of a bell, and all its parts. The metal signifies the strength of the preacher's understanding, and the clapper his tongue; the stroke of the clapper, the tongue's censure of vice; and that, which holds the clapper, the moderation of the tongue. The wood on which the bell hangs denotes the wood of the cross; the pieces, to which the wood is fixed, the oracles of the prophets. The cramp-iron, fixing the bell to the wood, represents the preacher's attachment to the cross of Christ. The bell-rope likewise includes considerable mysteries: the three cords, for instance, of which it is made, are the three senses of the Scripture; viz. the historical, the moral, and the allegorical.

This practice of consecrating and baptizing bells is a very modern invention. Baronius carries it no higher than the time of John XIII. A.D. 968, who consecrated the great bell of the Lateran church, and gave it the name of John. Menardus and Cardinal Bona carry it up a little higher, namely, to the time of Charles the Great; and it is certain the practice prevailed at that time, because we find, in the capitulars of that prince, a censure and prohibition of it,ut clocas non baptisent.

That bells were an early invention, is evident from their use in the days of Moses, since it was enjoined on the high priest of the Israelites, that the lower hem of the robe in which he officiated should be ornamented with pomegranates and gold bells, set alternately, in order that he might minister therein, that his sound might be heard when he went into the holy place before the Lord, and when he came out, that he might not die. It seems to have been ordained as a mark of respect, that the high priest might give public notice of his entering before the Lord; and, perhaps, to prevent his being put to death by those who watched the temple, that its sacred precincts might not be violated; none but the high priest being permitted to enter into the holy place.

Viewed in this light, there appears nos

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