was prorogued by a special order from his majesty; nor was it permitted to sit; or do any business, till the resentment entirely subsided.

It was upon the publication of this sermon, that the famous controversy, which bears our prelate's name, commenced; in the event of which, the death stroke was given to the principles of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. Dr. Snape's letter to the bishop of Bangor on this occasion began the Bangorian controversy; but it may be said to have taken its rise from the seizing a number of copies of "A Collection of papers," written by Dr. Hickes, in 1716, designed to inflame the people, and rekindle an expiring rebellion, raised by the joint forces of Papists, Nonjurors, and Church of England men who had sworn to the government. This produced many defences of the Church of England; but none such as.the best friends of the government and the Protestant religion could rest satisfied with, till the two last-mentioned pieces of the bishop appeared. These went to the root. He shewed from the plainest Scriptures, 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 not to be of this world; and that the sanctions of it were of the same spiritual nature, not of this world;--and that consequently all encouragements and discouragements of this world were not what Christ approved of, tending, as they did, to make men of one profession not of one faith, hypocrites, not christians.-These tenets were looked upon, though falsely as designed against all establishments, and that of the church of England in particular; and the bishop was attacked by the greatest names in the church, for the defences of both church and state. 'T'heir real arguments and misrepresentations he solidly confuted; their slanders, calumnies, and falsehoods, he forgave; never a moment departing from the manly characters of the christian divine, and the accomplished gentleman; making controversy what he wished it, and what he proved by his example, it might be,-the glory, and not the shame of Christianity.

In 1719, bishop Hoadly 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

(Dr. Sherlocks) Vindication of the corporation and Test Acts." In the preface to this very able performance, bishop Hoadly says, "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." The bishop afterwards says, "In the course of this work the dean is repeatedly careful to observe, that in vindicating the Test and Corporation Acts, he endeavours to justify the legislator, and to justify 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, equitable 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 shew the evil consequences, or inequitableness, of any law now in being, that all law-makers who act upon principles of public justice and honor, 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 a great an honor 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."

:

After having very particularly and satisfactorily refuted the dif ferent arguments advanced by the dean, bishop Hoadly concludes in the following words:

"I have now examined Dr. Sherlock's arguments; first for the exclusion of good civil subjects from offices merely upon account of their disaffection to a church establishment; or rather of their lesser degree of affection for one church than for another; and then for employing to this secular purpose the communion, a sacred institution of our Lord himself, appointed for another purpose, whol ly relating to another world. And I have shewn that his arguments are inconsistent with the rights of all christians, and contrary to the principles of the whole reformation; that his plausible arguments for exclusive laws, upon religious considerations, drawn. from self-defence, or former behaviour of predecessors, hurt the church of England, itself in other places, times, and circumstances, as much as they can pretend to help it here now: that they justify the heathens exclusion of christians; the papists exclusion of protestants; and the worst of protestants exclusion of the best, from all offices whenever power may be in their hands. I have also shewn, that it is a prostitution of the holy sacrament, to apply it to a purpose of a different nature from what the great in stitutor solemnly appropriated it to; and to make that the tool of this world, which he ordered to have respect only to another. And I have proved, that the test and corporation acts are repugnant to reason and to justice.

"What I have written may probably be misrepresented; but whatever imputations may be thrown out against me, neither the dean of Chichester, nor any one else, can rob me of the inward satisfaction I enjoy, In the sincere endeavours I have used, in this piece, and in my former writings, to propose and recommend such principles as may at length, with the assistance of more able hands, effectually serve to establish the interests of our common country, and our common christianity, of human society and true religion, of the present generation and the latest posterity upon one uniform, steady and consistent foundation."

An abridgement of this work of bishop Hoadly's was published in 8vo. in 1787, under the following title: "Bishop Hoadly's Refutation of Bishop Sherlock's Arguments, against a repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts; wherein the justice and Reason. ablenes of such a repeal are clearly evinced."

In 1721, bishop Hoadly was translated to the see of Hereford; and in 1723 was made bishop of Salisbury. In 1724, he publish, ed, a Visitation Charge to the clergy of the the diocese of Salisbu ry. In 1732, he drew up" An account of the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Samuel Clarke; which was prefixed to the posthumous works of that eminent divine, then first published;

a lasting monument to the memory of his illustrious friend! 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 published a celebrated treatise intitled, “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.".

In this treatise, the right reverend author endeavoured to establish and explain the true nature, end, and effect, of the Sacra, ment of the Lord's supper; and in order to a more clear under. standing of the subject, he treated it in such a manner, as that all who are concerned might, he hoped, be led into the right way of judging about it; to which he endeavoured to guide them, by directing and confining their attention to all that is said concerning this duty, by those who alone had any authority to declare the nature of it; neither on the one hand diminishing, nor on the other augmenting, what is declared by them to belong to it. As this masterly performance, which was intended to represent one of our Lord's Institutions in its original simplicity, limited the nature and effects of this positive rite to the declarations of our lord himself, when he instituted it, and to those of St. Paul afterwards, (the only certain and authentic accounts), it was consequently unfavorable to the commonly received opinions of its peculiar ef ficacies and benefits, and accordingly met with a very warm though weak opposition. The fury of such asailants was spent to little purpose; and when the utmost efforts of their zeal had been exerted against it, the "Plain Account," still remained uninjured and secure. A judicious abridgment of this piece of bishop Hoadly's was published in 1774 by Dr. Disney.

In the year 1754, bishop Hoadly published a volume of his discourses, intitled, "Sixteen Sermons formerly printed, now col

lected into one volume, &c. To which are added six sermons upon public occasions, never before printed," &c. And in the follow. ing year he published, "twenty sermons, the first nine of them preached before the king in lent," &c. His lordship concludes his preface to the former volume (which he then thought his last publication) in terms which may as justly be applied to his labours through life, as to that particular occasion: "if any shall judge (says he) from some discourses in this volume that I used to entertain my parishioners, in my sunday discourses, with political and controversial points, they will be as much mistaken as many others were heretofore disappointed, who came to hear me with the same notion. The "Sermons on the Terms of Acceptance," printed long ago, may best shew in how plain and how particular a manner I endeavoured to instruct those in whom I was most nearly concerned. The only inferences in my own favor, which I wish to be drawn from what is now published, are, that I never omitted any one public opportunity, in proper time and place, of defending and strengthening the true and only foundation of all our civil liberties, when it was every day most zealously attacked; and of doing all in my power, that all the subjects of this government, and this royal family, should understand and approve of those principles, upon which alone their happiness is fixed; and without which it could never have been rightfully established, and must in time fall to the ground; and also that I was as ready, whenever occasion was offered, by the writings and attacks of unbelievers, and by the absurd representations of others, to defend a religion most amiable in all its precepts, and most beneficial to human society, in the only way proper; by shewing it in its native life, with which it shines in the New Testament, itself free from all the false paint with which some, or the undeserved dirt with which others, have covered it."

Notwithstanding the disputes in which bishop Hoadly had been engaged, he passed many years of his life in great ease and tranquillity; but when he had attained to a very advanced age, his repose was cruelly and unexpectedly disturbed by the villainous attempt of one Bernard Fournier (a popish convert and a curate in Jersey), to defraud him of no less a sum than £8800, by setting up a note of hand which he pretended to have received from his

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