buried in the churchyard 27 Jan., when Simeon preached his funeral sermon.
Although Berridge was a man of great knowledge, he in later life, to the regret of Wesley, rejected the aid of human learning for christianity. When at Cambridge he was an Arminian in creed, but afterwards he became a Calvinist, putting his faith in divine mediation and ‘free grace,’ whilst refraining as much as possible from controversy. His works were numerous:
- ‘A Collection of Divine Songs’ (1760), mostly from Wesley's hymns, a volume which he afterwards suppressed, substituting for it ‘Sion's Songs’ (1785, and 1815).
- ‘Justification by Faith alone,’ the substance of a letter to a clergyman (1762), reproduced in 1794 under the title of ‘A Short Account of the Life and Conversion of Rev. John Berridge,’ and in 1827 and 1836 as ‘The great Error detected, or Self-righteousness disclaimed.’
- ‘The Christian World unmasked, pray come and peep’ (1773), a plain and homely, but an effective, expression of his religious belief, which passed through many editions, and was answered by Fletcher of Madeley in the first and second parts of his ‘Fifth Check to Antinomianism.’
- ‘Chearful Piety, or Religion without Gloom’ (1792), 7th edition in 1813.
- ‘Last Farewell Sermon, preached at the Tabernacle 1 April 1792, with a short account of Mr. Berridge's death’ (1793 and 1834).
The Rev. Richard Whittingham, who had been Berridge's curate at Everton, added a short memoir of his life to a reprint of the ‘Christian World unmasked,’ about 1818. An enlarged biography by Mr. Whittingham, with a reprint of the same work and of ‘Sion's Songs,’ appeared in 1838; an appendix was published in 1844, and a second edition of the whole work in 1864. A sermon on his death by Rev. William Holland, and an anonymous elegy, were published in 1793; and so late as 1882 there appeared a volume of ‘Gospel Gems, a Collection of Notes from the Margins of the Bible of the Rev. J. Berridge. Numerous anecdotes, as well as letters from him, are contained in the ‘Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,’ and in the ‘Congregational Magazine’ for 1841 and 1845.
[Tyerman's Whitefield, ii. 410, 441, 462; Tyerman's Wesley, ii. 309–70, 463, 491, iii. 2, 158; Tyerman's Fletcher, 51–3, 283–5, 294–8, 371; Gadsby's Hymn Writers, 14–35, 153; Dyer's Cambridge, i. 122–4.]
BERRIMAN, JOHN (1691–1768), divine, born in 1691, was the son of John Berriman, a London apothecary, and thus brother of William Berriman, D.D. [q. v.] He was a member of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he matriculated 11 May 1714, proceeding B.A. 1718, and M.A. 1720, was for many years rector of St. Olave's and St. Alban's. He published in 1722 a sermon (on Kings xxi. 12–13) entitled ‘The Case of Naboth considered and compared with that of the Royal Martyr,’ 4to. This was followed in 1741 by ‘Θεός ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκὶ, or a critical dissertation on 1 Tim. iii. 16. Wherein rules are laid down to distinguish in various readings which is genuine. … Being the substance of eight sermons preached at the Lady Moyer's lecture in 1737–8,’ 8vo. In 1751 he edited his brother William Berriman's ‘Christian Doctrines explained in Forty Sermons,’ 8vo, and in 1758 he wrote a preface to C. Wheatley's ‘Fifty Sermons.’ He died in 1768.
[Gent. Mag. xxxviii. 590; Rawlinson MSS., fo. 16182, Bodleian Library; British Museum Catalogue.]
BERRIMAN, WILLIAM, D.D. (1688–1750), divine, son of John Berriman, apothecary in Bishopsgate Street, London, in the parish of St. Ethelburga (by Mary, daughter of William Wagstaffe, of Farnborough, Warwickshire), and grandson of the Rev. Charles Berriman, rector of Beddington, Surrey, was born on 24 Sept. 1688. His first school was at Banbury, Oxfordshire; he continued there seven years. Thence he was removed to Merchant Taylors' School, London, under Dr. Shorting, in 1700. He was entered commoner of Oriel College, Oxford, on 4 March 1705. He went to reside in Oxford on 21 June 1705; was B.A. 2 Nov. 1708; M.A. 2 June 1711; D.D. 25 June 1722. His brother, in his memoir of him, lauds his learning at the university, and Glocester Ridley, LL.B., in his funeral sermon remarks: ‘Aware of the ridiculousness of that dangerous and troublesome acquisition, “a little learning,” he did not quit the university when yet but a novice there, and rush into the world to be a teacher of it, till he had formed his judgment by the compleat axle of academical sciences and the exercises of the school’ (p. 11). He mastered Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. He was ordained deacon at Oxford by Bishop Talbot, but continued in residence at the university till he was settled in London on 5 May 1712. He is found as curate at Allhallows in Thames Street in 1712. He was ordained priest on 12 Dec. 1712 by the Bishop of Hereford (Dr. Bisse). He was chosen lecturer of St. Michael's, Queenhithe, 22 July 1714. He became domestic chaplain to Dr. Robinson, bishop of London, April 1720, and resided at Fulham. On 26 April
