Hoadly, BENJAMIN

Hoadly, BENJAMIN, English prelate, was born at Westerham, in Kent, November 14, 1676, and educated at Catherine Hall, Cambridge, of which he became tutor after taking his degree of M.A. Two years after that event he was chosen lecturer of St Mildred in the Poultry, London, and with this office two years later still combined that of rector of St Peter-le-Poer. Hoadly figures amongst the principal controversial writers of the 18th century, ranking amongst the 'rationalists,' and defending the cause of civil and religious liberty against both the crown and the clergy. He carried on a controversy with Dr Atterbury on the extent of the obedience due to the civil power by ecclesiastics in such a way as to secure the applause of the House of Commons. His Low Church principles made him an opponent of Sacheverell, whom he contended against in the pulpit. As a reward for his attitude in this matter, and for his zeal against the doctrine of non-resistance, he was made a hero of by the Whigs. Through their instrumentality he was in 1710 presented to the rectory of Streatham in Surrey; and in 1715, when the accession of George I. had secured the triumph of Whig principles, Hoadly was made Bishop of Bangor. In 1717 he preached before the king a sermon on the text 'My kingdom is not of this world,' in which he endeavoured to show that Christ had not delegated his powers to any ecclesiastical authorities. Out of this originated the famous Bangorian Controversy, regarding which Hallam says that it was 'managed, perhaps on both sides, with all the chicanery of polemical writers, and is disgusting both from its tediousness and from the manifest unwillingness of the disputants to speak ingenuously what they meant.' The controversy branched off into such a multiplicity of side-issues, and produced such an extraordinary number of pamphlets (in July 1717 alone no less than seventy-four appeared), that the main question became almost irrecoverably lost in a tangle of extraneous matter. The public excitement it created is said to have been so great that business in London was virtually at a standstill for some days. The dispute had, however, one important consequence—the indefinite prorogation of Convocation (q.v.). In 1721 Hoadly was transferred to the see of Hereford, in 1723 to that of Salisbury, and in 1734 to that of Winchester. He died at Chelsea, April 17, 1761. His Collected Works were published by his son in 1773, with Life prefixed.