his religion before the senate, and had exhorted the magistrates to reconcile themselves to the church of Rome; and that, by a special order from the pope, the bishop had absolved him before his death. They who invented and spread this story were little acquainted with the true interests of their church. The falsehood was easily confuted by the ministers of Geneva, who published two pieces, one in Latin, and the other in French, attended with all the authenticity necessary to refute this foolish lie. Beza confuted it in a letter to William Stuckius; and the jesuit Clement du Puy, who was looked upon as the inventor of this fable, had a shower of satyrical verses on himself in particular, and on his own order in general, which Beza's muses, old as they were, made very formidable. The last time that Beza preached was on the day that peace was proclaimed in 1598, when he expounded the eighty-fifth Psalm, Thou hast made peace, O Lord, with thy people. The last verses which he composed were a Votiva Gratulatio, to Henry IV. after he had been kindly received by that monarch near Geneva, in the month of December, 1600. The king had been obliged to embrace the Romish religion in 1593: But, in 1598, he published an edict at Nantz, to quiet the minds of the Protestants, by securing to them the free exercise of their religion. He concluded a peace with Spain at Vervins, and then attacked the duke of Savoy, whose dominions he had almost conquered, and lay encamped at St Catharine's-fort, about two leagues distant from Geneva, when he received the deputies at Luysel, a quarter of a league from the fort. Dr Span reports the speech which Beza made to that prince, and the king's answer. Beza praised the piety of Henry, in rescuing the churches of GOD from oppression; and contented himself in "saying and applying to "human things, what Simeon said of divine, " Now, Lord, "let thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; "seeing that mine eyes have seen, before I die, not only "the deliverer of us, but of all France, and of the faith«ful in general." The king answered, Father, these few words, which signify much, are worthy the reputation you have acquired.' He then granted the deputies what they desired, which was the demolition of St Catharine's-fort: And Thuanus says, that the king made Beza a present of five hundred crowns: But Collier says five hundred pistoles, for the good services he had done his father and mother. Beza Beza preserved his senses to the last day of his life. His memory was very good as to things which he had learnt, during the vigour of his mind; for he could repeat all the Psalms in Hebrew, and all St Paul's epistles in Greek, by heart: But it was very bad as to things present; for he soon forgot many things, of which he had been speaking. He continued in this condition almost two years, if we may believe Thuanus: And Casaubon affirms, that in point of erudition, Beza shewed himself in the latter years of his life, such as he had appeared twenty years before. He discoursed so clearly upon ancient history, that it seemed as if he had just been reading Plutarch, and the like authors: But, after having amply discoursed on the subject of the new king of England, he would often ask, in the same conversation, whether it was true that Q. Elizabeth was dead. His last sermon was preached in January, 1600, when he was eighty-one years of age, on these words; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. In his last illness he was afflicted with tedious watchings, lying awake all the nights; but he sweetened the time by holy meditations: And speaking to his friends of it, he used the words of the Psalmist: My reins also instruct me in the night season. I have set the Lord always before me. In his favour is life. My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. He often used the words of the apostle; We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works. Likewise those of St Augustine; I have lived long, I have sinned long: Bless ed be the name of the Lord.' He often repeated the following prayer; "Cover, Lord, what has been: Go"vern what shall be. O perfect that which thou hast "begun, that I suffer not shipwreck in the haven." Likewise from Bernard: Lord, we follow thee, through thee, unto thee: We follow thee, because thou art the truth; through thee, because thou art the way; way; and to thee, because thou art the life.'-On the Lord's day in the morning, October 13, he rose and prayed with his family; and then desiring to go to bed again, he sat down on the side of the bed and asked, "if all things were "quiet in the city?"-He was answered, They were.' And being perceived to be near his end, a minister was sent for and immediately came; and while he was praying with him, Beza, without the least pain or noise, yielded up up his spirit to GOD, in the year 1605, aged eighty-six years, three months, and nineteen days *. He was a robust man, and of a robust constitution; and, what is very unusual among hard students, never felt the head-ach. In his last will he expressed his thankfulness, "That "GOD had called him to the knowledge of the truth at "sixteen years of age, though he walked not answerably to "it, till the Lord in mercy brought him home and carried "him to Geneva, where under that great man Calvin, " he learned Christ more fully: That having returned to "Geneva, after many dangers, he was there chosen pastor, "while he deserved not to be one of the sheep: That not "long after, he was made colleague with that excellent "man, John Calvin, in reading divinity; and that God "had preserved him in many dangers." He never had any children; and he left Catharine de la Plane, his wife, who supported his old age, and placed all her glory in taking the greatest care of him for seventeen years, sole heiress of his estate at Geneva. He was interred in St Peter's cloister, and not in the burying place of the Plein-palaix; because the Savoyards gave out, that they would take up his corps, and send it to Rome. Beza *Beza, in his younger years, after the Lord had touched his heart by the word, was one day in the church of Charenton, where he providentially heard the ninety-first Pfalm expounded. It was followed with fuch power to him, that he not only found it fweet at prefent, but was enabled to believe that the Lord would fulfil to him all the promifes of that Pfalm. At his death, he declared to his Christian friends, that he had found it fo indeed! That as he had been enabled to clofe with the fecond verse, in taking the Lord for his GOD, and got a fure claim that he would be his refuge and fortrefs; so he had found remarkably in the after changes of his life, that the Lord had delivered him from the fnare of the fowler; for he had been in frequent hazard from the lying in wait of many to enfiare him: And from the noisome peftilence; for he was fometimes in great hazard from the peftilence in thofe places where he was called to refide. And amidft the civil wars which were then fo hot in France, he had most convincing deliverances from many imminent hazards, when he was called to be present sometimes with the Proteftant princes upon the field, where thoufunds did fall about him. And thus, when near his end, he found that Pfalm fo obfervably verified, on which he was caufed to hope, that he went through all thefe promifes, declaring the comfortable accomplishment of them. How he had found the Lord giving his angels charge ever him, often anfwering him when he called upon him; how he had been with bim in trouble, bad delivered him, and bad fatisfied him with long life. " And "now (fays he) I have no more to wait for, but the fulfilling of these laft "words of the Pfalm, I will fhew him my falvation; which with confidence "I long for." Beza was a man of extraordinary merit, and very in strumental in conducting the Reformation. He was looked upon as the chief of the Protestants of France and Switzerland. The Romanists commonly called him the Hugonot pope: And pope Sixtus V. caused two conferences to be held, at which himself was present, to deliberate about the means of depriving the Protestant party of the great support they had in the person of Beza. They would have assassinated, or poisoned him, if it had been possible that any enterprize against his person could succeed. What could be said more to the honour of this minister, than the representing him as a man who made the pope and cardinals uneasy, as to affairs of state; for there was no controversy in the case? His WORKS. He wrote a great number of books, besides those already mentioned, particularly the " Icones of illustrious persons, who assisted in the Reformation; and the Ecclesiastical History of the Reformed Churches." This last work is very curious, and extends from 1521, to the thirteenth of March, 1563. His Annotations upon the New Testament have ever been much esteemed. Our archbishop Grindal, to whom Beza presented a copy, gave them very particular commendations; and indeed, for their learning and piety, they are invaluable. Henry IV. survived Beza but a few years; for he was stabbed in his coach by Francis Ravillac in 1610. Thus this hero, after having surmounted innumerable difficulties in his way to the crown, and stifled above fifty conspiracies, most of them formed by churchmen, against his life, died by the hands of a villain. Hostilities were recommenced against the Hugonots in 1625, when their strength was entirely broke, and an end was put to the wars which had so long ravaged France on a religious account. Historians say, that these wars cost above a million of lives, in which two kings were murdered, and above one hundred and fifty millions of livres, or seven millions and a half of pounds sterling, were spent: And that nine cities, four hundred villages, twenty thousand churches, two thousand monastries, and ten thousand houses were burnt, or otherwise destroyed, during their continuance. Lewis XIV. revoked the edict of Nantz in 1685, whereby the Protestants were prohibited the exercise of their religion, and their churches demolished. The consequence was, that France lost above five hundred thousand inhabitants; a prodigious quantity of specie; and, above all, the arts with which her enemies enriched themselves. JOHN JOHN RAINOLDS, D. D. THIS HIS singular man of infinite reading, this treasury of all learning, both divine and human,' (says Dr Featly) John Rainolds, was born at Pinto in Devonshire, in 1549, and sent to Merton-college in Oxford, in 1562. He removed to Corpus Christi-College, of which he became first scholar, and then fellow. He took both the degrees in arts and divinity. In 1598, he was made dean of Lincoln; but, being unwilling to quit an academical life, he exchanged his deanry the year following, for the presidentship of Corpus Christi-college. Q. Elizabeth offered him a bishopric; but he modestly refused it, and said (what is not very usual), nolo episcopari in real earnest. The learned have bestowed most uncommon praises upon this divine. Bishop Hall, a very competent judge, observes, that he alone was a well-furnished library, full of all faculties, of all study, of all learning. The memory, the reading of that man, were to a miracle.' Dr Crakenthorp says, that for virtue, probity, integrity, and piety, he was so eminent, that as Nazianzen speaks of Athanasius, to name him is to commend virtue itself.' He had a hand in translating part of the Old Testament, by command of K. James I. He was inclined to Puritanism, but with such moderation, that he continued a conformist to the church of England. He was thought to shorten his life by too severe application to his studies; but when his friends urged him to desist, he used to reply, that he would "not lose the very "end of living for the sake of life: Non propter vitam "vivendi perdere causas." He was a most able adversary, as well as his friend Dr Whitaker, against Bellarmine and Rome. He departed this life with great comfort and testimony of faith, much lamented by all learned and good men, on the twenty-first of May, 1607, in the fifty-eighth year his age. of His WORKS. Those that have been printed are: 1. "Two Orations, printed in the year 1576. 2. Six Theses, in 1579. 3. His conference with Heart, in |