William Gibson. Enlightenment Prelate: Benjamin Hoadly, 1676-1761. Cambridge: James Clarke, 2004. 384 pp. $86.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-227-67978-4.
Reviewed by Paul Monod
Published on H-Albion (August, 2007)
Bishop Benjamin Hoadly deserved a modern than Bishop Hoadly. Ironically for a man so devot‐ biography. He was probably the most prolifc, cer‐ ed to tolerance, Hoadly's career seems to defy the tainly the most controversial, Church of England Anglican doctrine of adiaphora, or "things indif‐ prelate of the eighteenth century. His voluminous ferent." He was not indiferent to much, and it is writings virtually defned Latitudinarianism, a hard to be indiferent to him. We either like him, position characterized by a tolerance for religious or we do not. Happily for the Bishop, William Gib‐ Dissent, an emphasis on individual judgment, and son evidently likes him a great deal. a general dislike for ceremony. Hoadly was at the There is much to be admired in Hoadly. He center of the furious Bangorian controversy (so- was physically disabled from a young age, and called because he was then Bishop of Bangor), had to use walking sticks or crutches for mobility. which remains one of the least understood dis‐ This did not prevent him from visiting the dioce‐ putes in the history of the Church. Despised by ses over which he presided (Bangor 1716-21, contemporary High Churchmen, condemned by Hereford 1721-23, Salisbury 1723-34, and fnally Victorian Church historians as a time-serving Winchester 1734-61), in spite of nasty claims by politician, Hoadly had to wait a long time for a his critics that he never set foot in the frst three. positive reassessment of his career. He made regular surveys or visitations of the cler‐ His biographer, William Gibson, has written gy in all his dioceses except Bangor, where he extensively on the eighteenth-century Church of asked a neighboring bishop to carry out confrma‐ England. Gibson is one of a group of historians tions. In short, Hoadly's reputation for negligence who have underlined the intellectual vitality and in his episcopal duties is calumny. While he al‐ localized energy of the Church, efectively refut‐ lowed pluralism, the holding of more than one ing the Victorian picture of laxity and decline. benefce, as a way of augmenting meager clerical These revisionists, however, have tended to con‐ incomes, he also carefully measured distances so centrate on subjects less prickly or polarizing H-Net Reviews as to avoid appointing a cleric to parishes that Church in virtually any way it saw ft, from issu‐ were too far apart. ing a prayer book to depriving Nonjuring bishops, Hoadly was always sympathetic towards Dis‐ so long as individual belief was not violated. In senting Protestants, defending them against High this respect, Hoadly difered fundamentally from Church attacks and seeking to reintegrate them John Locke, for whom all State authority was hu‐ into the Anglican Church. According to Gibson, man and strictly limited. Hoadly's view of the this attitude guided his polemical writings, and State can be called modern--it refected contempo‐ was crucial to the Bangorian controversy. It led rary Whig attitudes, it resembled the thought of Hoadly to claim that the Church was a spiritual Samuel Pufendorf, and it was similar to French rather than a temporal institution, and that it Gallicanism or the "regalism" of the Spanish Bour‐ therefore lacked the authority to impose penalties bons. We are free to wonder, however, whether on those who disagreed with its teachings. Each or not it should be labeled "enlightened." individual, in Hoadly's view, had to approach reli‐ Hoadly's respect for the power of the State gion through a personal interpretation of Scrip‐ may explain why this champion of voluntary reli‐ ture. True Christian belief lay not in ritual obser‐ gion accepted an established Church, and was vances or the rigorous application of accepted willing to uphold its rules, even when that meant dogmas, but in a heartfelt sincerity. To his critics, overriding the sincere beliefs of individuals. He Hoadly seemed to undermine the Church entirely insisted, for example, that clerics within his dio‐ by denying the need for structures, discipline, or cese subscribe to the 39 Articles whenever this even common doctrine. In his own mind, he was was required, no matter what their private opin‐ simply reafrming the essential religion of Protes‐ ions may have been. Whether he would have sup‐ tants, a religion of voluntarism rather than coer‐ ported those Latitudinarians, several of them his cion, of individual faith rather than collective rit‐ former protégés, who called for the suspension of uals. subscription to the 39 Articles in the Feathers Tav‐ In discussing Hoadly's major works, as well as ern Petition of 1771, may be more of a moot point the responses to them, Gibson does not disguise than Gibson implies. Hoadly's tolerance also which side he favors. Hoadly's enemies are por‐ stopped short of Roman Catholicism, which he de‐ trayed as rigid, narrow-minded, and frequently tested, although he was accused of coddling recu‐ spiteful. Convocation, the clerical assembly that sants by calling for repeal of the Test Acts. was suspended in 1717 after it censured Hoadly in Unlike Bishop Francis Atterbury, Hoadly did the Bangorian controversy, is condemned by Gib‐ not try to lead a political movement. He was a son as a fractious, repressive body whose silenc‐ forerunner of the maverick Anglican clerics of ing benefted the Church. By contrast, the Bishop our own times, who raise the most radical ques‐ is shown as an exemplary fgure of the Enlighten‐ tions about their own Church, while adhering to ment, a broad-minded disciple of John Locke, and its strictures in their personal behavior. As with a precursor of modernity. By focusing so strongly some of them, Hoadly's deeper motivations are on the issue of tolerance, however, Gibson under‐ hard to grasp. He was ambitious, of course, and plays an aspect of Hoadly's thought that may have willing to play the game of politics, but those out‐ been equally important, and certainly antago‐ er features do not provide us with a key to the in‐ nized his Tory adversaries: namely, his elevation ner man. While his ideas glowed with the heat of of the power of the State, which he sometimes de‐ seventeenth-century Puritanism, his fascination scribed as divinely sanctioned. He never ques‐ with the court made him seem like a coolly calcu‐ tioned that the State could impose itself on the
2 H-Net Reviews lating Restoration ofce seeker. What drove this complex and contradictory man? The question has not been fully answered in this book. Nevertheless, scholars of the eighteenth century can at least be satisfed that, in Gibson, Hoadly has found a diligent and thorough modern defender, with a fne grasp of contemporary ec‐ clesiastical politics. Gibson's research, in both printed and archival records, is painstaking and admirable. He does make a few small mistakes (as we all do). William III was not a Lutheran (p. 57); "Camisards" is misspelled as "Commissards," evoking a Red scare two centuries too early (p. 98); and the Jacobite who threatened George I's life was Sheppard, not the theatrical sounding Stoppard (p. 183). "Mr. H---y," who won grudging respect in a pro-Sacheverell pamphlet of 1710 (p. 109) seems more likely to be Robert Harley than Benjamin Hoadly. As the author notes, Hoadly was burned in efgy by Henry Sacheverell's angry Tory supporters. Let us hope that, with the publi‐ cation of this biography, the radical Whig bishop now stands in higher esteem.
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Citation: Paul Monod. Review of Gibson, William. Enlightenment Prelate: Benjamin Hoadly, 1676-1761. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. August, 2007.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13524
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