Class Year
2022
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Spring 2020
Department 1
History
Abstract
As a Whig and a latitudinarian, Bishop Benjamin Hoadly of Bangor (1676-1761) was a persistent critic of any and all things Tory. His sermon “The Nature of the Kingdom, or Church, of Christ,” preached before King George I in 1717, touched upon the political and theological controversies that followed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. It also forwarded a radical ecclesiological schema: effectively arguing that the Church of England lacked real moral authority, he advocated for its subsumption under the state’s own auspices. An analysis of Hoadly’s sermon, as well as his conduct throughout the ensuing Bangorian controversy, will demonstrate that the Enlightenment extremism ascribed to him by some of his contemporaries was a not altogether unfair characterization of his thought.
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
Recommended Citation
Lough, Christopher T., "Bangor Revisited: Bishop Benjamin Hoadly and Enlightenment Ecclesiology" (2020). Student Publications. 833.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/833
Comments
Written for History 314: Early Modern Europe.