RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Biblicists Biddle
to England in 1882, and he became rector of Framlingham, Suffolk. In 1886 he was consecrated bishop of Japan. He was an extreme High-churchman and strove to reproduce this type of church life among the Japanese. The result was the so-called " Catholic Church of Japan" (Nippon Sei Kokwai). In 1887 a visit to Korea bore fruit in the establishment of a mission in that country. In 1892 his visit to the Anglican mission stations in Japan convinced him that there should be more bishops; accordingly his diocese was made that of South Tokyo. Again his health gave way and he returned home to die. His lectures for Japanese divinity students were published under the title Our Heritage in the Church (London, 1898).
Bibliography: S. Bickersteth, Life and Letters of Edward Bickersteth, Bishop of South Tokyo, London, 1905 (by his brother).
BICKERSTETH, EDWARD HENRY: Bishop of Exeter, son of Edward Bickersteth, 1; b. at Islington, London, Jan. 25, 1825 ; d. in London May 16, 1906. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1847), and was ordered deacon in 1848, and ordained priest in the following year. He was curate of Banningham, Norfolk (1848-51); rector of Hinton Martell, Dorset (1852-55); vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead (1855-85); rural dean of Highgate (1878-85), and dean of Gloucester (1885). He was consecrated bishop of Exeter in 1885, but resigned five years later on account of age. He wrote Water from the Well Spring (London, 1852); The Rock of Ages (1857); Commentary on the New Testament (1864); Yesterday, To-day, and Forever (poem in twelve books, 1866; prized as a devout revelation of heaven); The Spirit of Life (1869); Hymnal Companion to the Book of Common Prayer (1870); The Two Brothers and Other Poems (1871); The Reef and Other Parables (1873); The Shadowed Home and the Light Beyond (1874); Words of Counsel to the Clergy and Laity of the Diocese of Exeter (1888); Charge at Third Visitation (1895); From Year to Year (1895); The Feast of Divine Love (1896); and Charge at Fourth Visitation (1898). He was the author of a number of wellknown hymns.
Bibliography: F. K. Aglionby, Life of E. H. Bickersteth, London, 1907.
BICKERSTETH, SAMUEL: Church of England, second son of Edward Henry -Bickersteth (q.v.); b. at Hampstead Sept. 9, 1857 He was educated at St. John's College, Oxford (B.A., 1881), and was ordered deacon in 1881 and ordained priest m the following year. He was successively curate of Christ Church, Lancaster Gate (1881-84); chaplain to the bishop of Ripon (1884-87); vicar of Belvedere, Kent (1887-91); and vicar of Lewisham (1891-1905). Since 1905 he has been vicar of Leeds and rural dean. He has written Life and Letters of Edward Bickersteth, D.D., Bishop of South Tokyo (his brother, London, 1899), and is the editor of the Preachers of the Age series.
BIDDING PRAYER: Originally bidding of prayers, signifying " the praying (offering) of prayers," one of the meanings of the verb "to bid" down to the Reformation being "to ask pressingly, to
beg, to pray." As this meaning became obsolete the phrase was interpreted to mean " the ordering or directing of prayers"; i.e., an authoritative direction to the people concerning what or whom they should pray for, such directions being not uncommon in England in the sixteenth century. Still later "bidding" was taken as an adjective and the phrase "bidding prayer" came to mean the prayer before the sermon, which the preacher introduced by directing the congregation to pray for the Church catholic, the sovereign and the royal family, different estates of men, etc. (Constitution and Canons of the Church of England, § 55). A collect is now usually substituted for it, as the sermon, except on rare occasions, is preceded by the common prayers, which include the petitions prescribed by the canon. When, however, these prayers are not said before the sermon (as at university sermons), and on occasions of more than usual solemnity, the " bidding prayer" is used.
Bibliography: Forms of the Bidding Prayer are to be found in Manuale et Processionale . ecclesiw Eboracensis, ed. W. G. Henderson in Surtees Society Publications, no. 63, Durham, 1875, and in F. Procter. Hist, of Book of Common Prayer . revised by W. H. Frere, p. 394, London, 1905. Consult C. Wheatley, Bidding of Prayers before Sermons, London, 1845; D. Rock, Church of our Fathers, 3 vols., ib. 1849-53.
BIDDLE, JOHN: A founder of modern English Unitarianism; b. at Wotton-under-Edge (15 m. s. of Gloucester), where he was baptized Jan. 14, 1615; d. in a London jail Sept. 22, 1662. He was educated at Oxford, and appointed head master of the free school in the parish of St. Mary le Crypt, Gloucester, 1641. Study of the Scriptures led him to disbelieve the doctrine of the Trinity, and, his unsoundness being reported to the city magistrates, he was summoned before them. Fearing imprisonment, he made a confession of faith (May 2, 1644) which was not satisfactory, and so he made a second in which he used more conventional language and was allowed to go free. He then committed to paper Twelve Arguments Drawn out of Scripture : wherein the commonly received opinion touching the Deity of the Holy Spirit is clearly and fully refuted, and to these views he was faithful the rest of his life. A friend informed the magistrates of the existence of this paper and so he was cited before the committee of Parliament then at Gloucester, and put in the common jail Dec. 2, 1645. Happily a prominent citizen bailed him out. In 1646 he was summoned to appear before Parliament at Westminster to explain his position, and boldly avowed his belief. He was committed to the custody of one of the officers of the House of Commons and so continued for five years. Meanwhile a committee of the Assembly of Divines sitting at Westminster considered his case and to them he gave a copy of his Twelve Arguments. They made answer to it, but did not move him. So in 1647 he published his paper, which makes a tract of thirtyeight small pages. It stirred up great indignation and was suppressed and burned by the common hangman. Next he published A Confession of Faith Touching the Holy Trinity, according to the Scripture (1648), a tract of seventy-five_ small pages, in which in six articles, accompanied by
Biedermann Billican