Abstract
The Bangorian controversy has been described as ‘the most bitter ideological conflict of the [eighteenth] century’ (J.C.D. Clark). However, while its impact is widely recognised, there are few studies dedicated to the controversy itself. Moreover, the figure at the centre of it all—Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor—has not always been taken seriously. Such scholars as Norman Sykes, G.R. Cragg, and B.W. Young have dismissed Hoadly as an opportunistic ‘political bishop’, rather than an adept theological thinker. By contrast, this article demonstrates that Hoadly’s Bangorian writings were embedded within the ethical rationalist moral theology of Isaac Newton’s friend, and defender against Gottfried Leibniz, Samuel Clarke. As a follower of Clarke, Hoadly objected to the doctrine of apostolic succession, and to the existence of religious conformity laws in Church and state, because they prevented Christianity from being what he thought it ought to be: a religion of conscience.
Highlights
The Bangorian controversy followed publication of a 1717 sermon, ‘The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ’ by Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor
Hoadly’s position on ecclesiastical law and doctrine is informed by his Clarkean understanding of conscience as that through which we have knowledge of the law of reason, and possess the capacity to judge ourselves according to that law
According to Hoadly’s Clarkean ethical rationalism, the law of reason is the universal standard by which we judge all human action, including any attempts to define the law of the Church qua the law of the gospel for other Christians
Summary
The Bangorian controversy followed publication of a 1717 sermon, ‘The Nature of the Kingdom of Christ’ by Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop of Bangor. Is the Bishop of Bangor who never visited his own diocese, and who enflamed the Bangorian controversy, not from genuine theological conviction, but as part of his career as a Whig propagandist His rise through four successive bishoprics was ‘the gravest offence . Hoadly’s Bangorian writings comprise his 1717 sermon, and the A Preservative against the Principles and Practices of Nonjurors both in Church and State (Hoadly 1716); the former continued the latter, responding to the non-juror, George Hickes’ (1716), posthumously published, Constitution of the Catholic Church, and the Nature and Consequences of Schis. Sykes, and Gascoigne (see footnote above) identify Clarke as Hoadly’s central influence, but do not go on to investigate that influence within his Bangorian writings, a mantle this article takes up
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