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institution of our Lord himself, appointed for another purpose, wholly relating to another world. And I have shown 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 heathen's 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 shown, that it is a prostitution of the holy sacrament to apply it to a purpose of a different nature from what the great Institutor 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 abridgment of this work was published in 8vo, in 1787.

Besides his controversial and political writings, Hoadly published several works as aids to practical religion and a right understanding of the scriptures. At an early period of his life he wrote, besides pieces. in defence of miracles and prophecy, four sermons on impartial inquiry in religion. He published two or three volumes of discourses, and many single sermons at different times, and also a life of Dr Samuel Clarke, prefixed to an edition of his sermons.

But one of his most celebrated and laboured performances was 'A Plain Account of the Nature and End of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.' The character and objects of this work may be understood from the following remarks of the author. "As, for the sake of one sort of Christians," says he, "I never ceased to inculcate the necessity of universal obedience to the will of God, that there might be no help left to them of acceptance without this; so, for the defence and support of others in their sincere endeavours to please God, against all those uneasy impressions of superstition which they had a right to be freed from, I made it my care to state and explain the commands peculiar to Christianity, from the first declarations of Christ himself and his apostles, in such a manner, as that they might appear to honest minds to nave as little tendency to create distress and uneasiness, as they were designed in their first simplicity to have." Of the same work, Dr Middleton observes, in a letter to Lord Hervey, "I like both the design and the doctrine, as I do every design of reconciling religion with reason, or, where that may not be done, of bringing them as near together as possible. His enemies will insult him with the charge of lessening Christian piety, but the candid will see, that he only seeks to destroy a superstitious devotion by establishing a rational one in its

place." As the Plain Account' is elaborate, and not well-adapted to common use, it was abridged and put into a more popular form by Di Disney, in 1774.

The last publication of Hoadly was a spirited letter, written after he was eighty years old, vindicating himself from misrepresentations which had gone abroad, by reason of an impostor having forged a note against him. This letter was considered a remarkable performance, both in regard to its ability and the knowledge it discovered of the technical mysteries of the law. Horace Walpole said, in alluding to it, "the bishop has not only got the better of his adversary, but of his old age." The humanity and kind temper of the writer towards the person who had attempted to deceive and defraud him, are not the least striking excellences of this vindication.

Dr Akenside wrote an ode to Hoadly, in which he has not been unsuccessful in portraying some of the bolder features of his character. The lines quoted below are from this piece.

"O nurse of freedom, Albion, say,
Thou tamer of despotic sway,
What man among thy sons around,
Thus heir to glory hast thou found?
What page, in all thy annals bright,
Hast thou with purer joy survey'd,

Than that where truth, by Hoadly's aid,
Shines through imposture's solemn shade,
Through kingly and through sacerdotal night?

"For not a conqueror's sword,

Nor the strong powers to civil founders known,
Were his; but truth by faithful search explored,
And social sense, like seed, in genial plenty sown.
Wherever it took root, the soul, restored
To freedom, freedom too for others sought.
Not monkish craft the tyrant's claim divine,

Nor regal zeal the bigot's cruel shrine,

Could longer guard from reason's warfare sage;
Not the wild rabble to sedition wrought,

Nor synods by the papal genius taught,

Nor St John's spirit loose, nor Atterbury's rage."

Bishop Sherlock.

BORN A. D. 1678.—died a. D. 1761.

THIS illustrious prelate was a younger son of Dr William Sherlock, dean of St Paul's, the author of the well-known and popular treatise on Death. He was born in London in 1678.

At Eton, where he was educated, he had Townshend, Pelham, and Walpole, amongst his school-companions; and to the intimacy thus formed in early life with individuals who afterwards acted such couspicuous parts in the government of the country, did Sherlock owe much of that good fortune which attended him throughout life. Among his class-fellows, the future prelate excelled not only in learning, but also in the more boisterous sports and games with which they filled up their hours of recreation. Warton, on the authority of Walpole, interprets Pope's expression, the plunging prelate,' applied to Sherlock in

the Dunciad, as allusive to the boldness and readiness with which young Sherlock, when bathing with his companions, used to plunge into the water, while the rest held back, and hesitated to commit themselves to the chilling element.

He entered Cambridge in 1693, where he was admitted of Catherine hall, under the tuition of Dr Long. His future great rival and contemporary, Hoadly, had entered this college one year before him; and it is a curious fact noticed by Mr Hughes, in his memoir prefixed to Valpy's edition of Sherlock's works, that the master, the tutor, the rival student, and himself, were all destined to attain the episcopal bench. Sir W. Dawes, master of Catherine, was made bishop of Chester in 1707; and Dr Long, bishop of Norwich, in 1723. The society of Catherine hall is small in numbers; it may be supposed, therefore, that incentives to emulation may not be found there equal to those which some of the other colleges supply; but, be this as it may, Sherlock, in the person of one single student, the future bishop of Winchester, found a rival worthy of him, and one whose rivalry continued to stimulate him to renewed exertions long after they had both exchanged the academic arena for a wider and more important field of combat. It is said that the two young men very soon discovered their destiny as rivals, and in consequence never regarded each other with feelings of peculiar complacency. One day, as they were returning together from their tutor's lecture on Tully's Offices,' Hoadly observed, "Well, Sherlock, you figured away finely to-day by help of Cockman !"i "No, indeed!" replied Sherlock, "I did not; for though I tried all I could to get a copy, I heard of only one; and that you had secured."

There is no doubt that Sherlock was a very accomplished classical scholar. Warburton, in a letter to his friend Hurd, for whom he had been soliciting a Whitehall preachership from Sherlock, then bishop of London, says: "It is time you should think of being a little more known; and it will not be the least thing acceptable in this affair, that it will bring you into the acquaintance of this bishop, who stands so supereminent in the learned and political world. I can overlook a great deal for such a testimony so willing to be paid to merit." And Pope, in a letter to Warburton, says, "We are told that the bishop of Salisbury (Sherlock,) is expected here daily, who, I know, is your friend; at least, though a bishop, he is too much a man of learning to be your enemy." These are quite satisfactory testimonies to Sherlock's extra-professional scholarship. Warburton even paid him the high compliment, though he differed in many points from him, of submitting portions of the Divine Legation' to his inspection as they were passing through the press. The bent of Sherlock's genius, however, was towards the more abstruse and ratiocinative departments of study. He applied himself with unremitting ardour to the study of the mathematical and metaphysical sciences: and the fruits of that course of rigid discipline to which he subjected his mind at this period of his life ap

A translator of the Offices.

This story is sometimes told to the advantage of Hoadly:-One day, when both freshmen, after being called to lectures in Tully's Offices,' Sherlock, somewhat nettled at the approbation which Hoadly had elicited from the tutor, sneeringly remarked, “Ben, you have made good use of L'Estrange's translation to-day." "No, Tom, I have not," replied Hoadly; "and I forgot to send the bed-maker for yours, which, I understand is the only one in the college."-Georgian Era.

pear in the clear reasoning and logical precision which eminently distinguish his compositions.

He took his degree of A. B. in 1697. His name, on this occasion, appeared on the Tripos, or list of honours, in the same degree that Hoadly had obtained two years before, and the great Bentley in 1679. In August, 1698, he was elected fellow. Soon after, having reached cononical years, he entered into orders. It is told of him that he was severely reprimanded for being late in attendance on the bishop at his ordination. A fine turbot, intended for the prelate's table, happened to be brought by the same conveyance as that by which Sherlock travelled; and the bishop was under the necessity of apologizing to his company for the delay that occurred in serving up the dinner on account of the late arrival of the fish. Sherlock is said to have remarked, that he and the turbot had both reached the palace time enough to get into hot water."

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In 1701 he proceeded A. M. On the 28th of November, 1704, when only twenty-six years old, he was appointed to the mastership of the Temple, on the resignation of his father, who held that office. In this arduous situation he acquitted himself with great ability. His discourses at the Temple, which have been published, are first-rate pieces of their kind. Dr Nicolls also informs us, that " though his voice was not melodious, but accompanied rather with a thickness of speech, yet were his words uttered with so much propriety, and with such strength and vehemence, that he never failed to take possession of his whole audience and secure their attention. This powerful delivery of words, so weighty and important as his always were, made a strong impression on the minds of his hearers, and was not soon forgot.' A writer on pulpit eloquence says of Sherlock's pulpit compositions : The calm and dispassionate disquisition on some text of scripture, or the discussion of some theological question, henceforward (after the Restoration,) to be the exclusive object of an English sermon, was carried by Sherlock to a perfection rarely rivalled, unless by Smalridge, nearly his own contemporary, and by Horsley in more recent times. The question is clearly stated and limited, every objection anticipated, and the language is uniformly manly and vigorous. Sherlock indeed occasionally breaks out in passages of greater warmth and ear"4 &c. In 1707 Sherlock entered into the marriage-state with Miss Judith Fountaine, a lady of a good Yorkshire family. By this act he of course forfeited his fellowship; but he was recalled to the service of his Alma Mater in 1714, when, on the resignation of Sir William Dawes, he was unanimously elected master of Catherine hall. In this year he held the celebrated disputation with Waterland, which has already been noticed at some length in our sketch of the latter divine. Sherlock in his mastership, and more especially in his official character of vice-chancellor of the university, had a good deal of wrangling with that learned Ishmaelite, Bentley; but contrived to silence him on one point at least, namely, that the right of granting probates of wills and administrations of effects to the heirs of members of the university, did not belong to the archdeacon of Ely. Bentley consoled himself, however, by fixing on his antagonist the nickname

nestness,

'Gentleman's Magazine for 1762.

'Quarterly Review, No lviii.

of Cardinal Alberoni, by which he meant it to be understood that the vice-chancellor copied the intriguing politics of the celebrated Spanish minister.

It was during Sherlock's vice-chancellorship that the university of Cambridge received George the Second's munificent present of books, being the library of the deceased Bishop Moore, which the king had purchased for £6000, and with which he now, at the suggestion o. Sherlock's friend, Lord Townshend, rewarded the loyalty of the Cambridge men at a period when their brethren of Oxford required a troop of horse to keep down their tory and Jacobite propensities. The correspondence relating to this donation is given by Mr Hughes in his memoir of Sherlock.

In November, 1715, Sherlock was promoted to the deanery of Chichester; but he retained his university preferment till 1719. Dr Disney declares that Sherlock conducted himself with great moderation and equanimity in his university-offices. And this testimony is the more valuable as coming from the biographer of Arthur Sykes, one of Sherlock's bitterest opponents. Sherlock and his party had been severely attacked by Sykes; but the powerful pen of the master of Catherine's completely vindicated himself and the academical aristocracy, of which he was believed to be the mainspring, from the censures of Sykes.

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In the preceding memoir we have adverted to the famous Bangorian controversy, and Dr Sherlock's appearance in that great debate. Sherlock was at the head of the committee of convocation which sat on Hoadly's publications, and the chief author of the report upon them. Very early in 1717 he defended himself by the publication of his 'Remarks on the Bishop of Bangor's treatment of the Clergy and Convocation.' Sykes answered this pamphlet. The dean replied in Answer to a Letter sent to the Rev. Dr Sherlock;' which was met by a Second Letter' from Sykes, with a postscript by the bishop of Bangor himself. After a good deal of desultory warfare, the dean put forth his whole strength in his celebrated Vindication of the Test and Corporation Acts.' These absurd and disgraceful enactments-now happily blotted, and we trust for ever, from our statute book-originated in the reign of Charles II. The presbyterians had been active in bringing about the Restoration, and many of them were allowed for a time to retain their livings. On the other hand, the episcopalians clamoured loudly for exclusive possession of church preferments. The corporation act was originally designed to constitute a temporary tribunal for settling questions as to who were the rightful possessors of offices, with powers to remove all persons suspected of disaffection to the restored dynasty. For this purpose it was to be invested with power to administer the oath of allegiance and supremacy, together with an oath disclaiming the lawfulness of bearing arms against the king, and a disavowal of the solemn league and covenant. The lords, however, remodelled the bill when it came before them, and ultimately succeeded in foisting in a clause by which it was provided, that after the commission should expire (1663) no person should be placed in any office of magistracy, or place of employment in the government, who had not,

Monk's Life of Bentley, p. 387.

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