Bangorian Controversy

The sermon was immediately published and instantly drew counter-attacks. William Law (''Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor'') and Thomas Sherlock (dean of Chichester), in particular, gave vigorous defenses of church polity. Hoadly himself wrote ''A Reply to the Representations of Convocation'' to answer Thomas Sherlock, Andrew Snape, provost of Eton , and Francis Hare , then dean of Worcester. These three men, and another opponent, Robert Moss , dean of Ely, were deprived of their royal chaplaincies by the king. Hoadly did not, however, attempt to answer William Law.

In May of 1717, the Convocation appointed a committee to study the sermon. When the report was ready for synodal sanction against Hoadly, the king dismissed the convocation, which did not meet again for over 130 years.

The controversy may seem esoteric to contemporary observers, but the stakes were quite high. Two competing visions of government were in play. On the one hand, there was a vision of God appointing the king and the bishops to be leaders, selecting them from all others and imbuing them with special characters, either through Grace or in creation. This view held that the king, as the head of the Established Church , was not merely a secular leader of a state, but also a religious primate. Power and regulation flowed downward from God to the people. This was the aristocratic model that was favored by the Tory party and which had been used to propose the Divine Right Of Kings . The other view was that power flowed up from the people to the leaders, that leaders were no more ''intrinsically'' better than those led, and that God gives out revelation freely. This Whig view was also the view of the Puritan s and the "Independents" (i.e. the various Baptist churches, Quaker s, etc.).

George I favored the Whig party in Parliament and favored a Latitudinarian ecclesiastical policy in general. This was probably not due to any desire to give up royal prerogative, but rather to break the power of the aristocracy and the House Of Lords . A significant obstacle to all kings of England had been the presence of bishops in Lords. While a king could create peers, he had a much harder time of moving bishops in and out of Lords.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cross, F. A., ed. ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church.'' 1964. London: Oxford University Press.

''Encyclopedia Britannica'' 1911 edition, unsigned article.

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Bangorian Controversy

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