the King his discourse on The Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ;' which being immediately printed by special command, so much offence was conceived at it's doctrines by the clergy, that it was resolved to proceed against him in Convocation. The Lower House, accordingly, drew up their representation; but before it could be brought into the Upper, the whole assembly was prorogued by an order from his Majesty, nor was it permitted to transact any business till it's resentment had entirely subsided.

It was upon the publication of this sermon, that the Bangorian controversy commenced, the event of which was a death-stroke to the principles of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. Dr. Snape's letter to Hoadly formed it's actual beginning; but it may be said to have taken it's rise from the seizing of a number of copies of A Collection of Papers,' written by Dr. Hickes in 1716, designed to light up afresh the flames of an expiring rebellion, which had been kindled chiefly by the joint efforts of Papists and Nonjurors. This produced many able publications, and among others the two last-mentioned pieces of the Bishop. In these he showed from Scripture, that Christ alone was King in his own kingdom, and sole Lawgiver; that for his laws we must appeal to Him, and his inspired followers; that he had declared "his kingdom to be not of this world," and that it's sanctions were of the same spiritual nature; and that, consequently, all encouragements and discouragements of this world were what Christ disapproved of, tending as they did to make men of one profession, not of one faith; hypocrites, not Christians.' These tenets were falsely regarded as levelled against all Esta

blishments, and that of the Church of England in particular: and the Bishop was, accordingly, attacked by some of the greatest names in the lists. of orthodoxy; Drs. Snape, Sherlock, Hare,* and Potter, &c. Their real arguments and misrepresentations he solidly confuted; their slanders, calumnies, and falsehoods he forgave: never for a moment departing from the character of the Christian divine, and the accomplished gentleman; making controversy what he wished it to be, and what he proved by his example it might be the glory, not the shame, of Christianity.

In 1719, he published, in one volume 8vo., The Common Rights of Subjects defended; and the Nature of the Sacramental Test considered: in Answer to the Dean of Chichester's (Sherlock) Vindication of the Corporation and Test Acts.' In the preface to this performance, he observes, "The following book is an answer to the most plausible and ingenious defence that, I think, has ever yet been published, of excluding men from their acknowledged civil rights upon the account of their differences in religion, or in the circumstances of religion; and of making the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, instituted by our Lord for the remembrance of himself, the instrument of this exclusion by a new human institution." "In the course of his work (he elsewhere remarks) the Dean is repeatedly careful to observe that, in vindicating the Test and Corporation Acts, he endeavours to justify the legislature, and to justify

He had a contest with Hare, upon the nature of prayer: the latter contending, that the fervor of zeal was necessary to the sacrifice;' and Hoadly arguing, that it ought to be offered up in a calm, rational, and dispassionate manner.'

the laws of his country, which he represents me arraigning and condemning. I beg leave therefore here to tell him, once for all, that there was a time when the laws of this country were on the side of a Popish Establishment; and that the writing on any side of any law, as such, is not a thing greatly to be boasted of; and that the whole of the question is, Whether the laws we defend be good and just, equit able and righteous? and not, Whether they be the laws of the land, or not? I shall also observe, that it is so far from being a crime, or an affront to any legislature, to endeavour to show the evil conse, quences or inequitableness of any law now in being, that all law-makers, who act upon principles of public justice and honour, cannot but esteem it an advantage to have such points laid before them: and as to myself, I shall ever, I hope, esteem it as great an honour to contend against debasing any of Christ's institutions into political engines, as others can do to plead on the side of an Act of Parliament. And I shall add farther, that I enter into this cause, both as a Christian, and I trust as one truly concerned for the public good of the society to which I belong; considering it not as the cause of any particular body of men, or any particular sort of Christians distinct from others, but as the cause of all men equally and of all sorts of Christians, who in several places and at several times have an equal interest in it."

In 1721, Dr. Hoadly, having resigned his Rectory of St. Peter le Poor, was translated to the see of Hereford;* and, two years afterward, he was made Bishop of

* On the death of Dr. Bisse. Whiston asserts, that though he had been Bishop of Bangor six years, and constantly received those revenues which were intended for the maintenance of a

Salisbury. In 1724, he published a Visitation Charge to the Clergy of his Diocese. In 1732, he drew up An Account of the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Samuel Clarke,' which accompanied the posthumous works of that eminent divine (then first published), a lasting monument to the memory of his illustrious friend. In the conclusion of his Memoir, he thus feelingly expresses himself: "Having paid this last duty to the memory of this excellent man, which I could not but esteem a debt to such a benefactor to the cause of religion and learning united; as these works of his must last as long as any language remains to convey them to future times, perhaps I may flatter myself that this faint and imperfect account of him may be transmitted down with them and I hope it will be thought a pardonable piece of ambition and self-interestedness, if fearful lest every thing else should prove too weak to keep the remembrance of myself in being, I lay hold of his fame to prop and support my own. I am sure, as I have little reason to expect that any thing of mine without such an assistance can live, I shall think myself greatly recompensed for the want of any other memorial, if my name may go down to posterity thus closely joined to his, and I myself be thought of and spoken of, in ages to come, under the character of the friend of Dr. Clarke." This, indeed, may be regarded by some as overstrained humility; since Hoadly might well be supposed to need no other tes

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resident Prelate, he never once visited the diocese; afraid, as it is said in his behalf, of the violences of party-fury! He, surely, could not think this an honest discharge of his pastoral duties. On his translation to the see of Sarum, he resigned the Rectory of Streatham,

timony than his own works, to enable him to live in the voice and memory of men: but, perhaps, his singular condescension is chiefly to be ascribed to his zeal for those tenets, which had found in Dr. Clarke one of their ablest abettors.

In 1734, he was advanced, on the death of Bishop Willis (whom he had, also, succeeded at Salisbury) to the bishopric of Winchester; and, in the following year, he gave to the world his Treatise entitled, A plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper; in which all the Texts in the New Testament relating to it are produced and explained, and the whole Doctrine about it is drawn from them alone.'*

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In 1754, he published a volume of plain and energetic discourses entitled, Sixteen Sermons formerly printed, now collected into one Volume, &c. To which are added Six Sermons upon public Occasions, never before printed,' &c.: and, in 1755, Twenty Sermons, the first nine of them preached before the King in Lent.'

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Notwithstanding the disputes, in which Dr. Hoadly had been engaged, he passed many years of his life in great tranquillity: but when he had attained to a very advanced age, his repose was cruelly disturbed through the villainous attempt of one Bernard Fournier (a pretended Popish convert, and a Curate in Jersey) to defraud him of no less a sum than 8,8007., by producing a note of hand which he pretended to have received from his Lordship.† This iniquitous

* This, likewise, exposed his Lordship to considerable opposition.

† He had procured the Bishop's name at the foot of a scrap of paper, folded up and used as a frank, to which he prefixed a