Gillian Clark, Christianity and Roman Society - Huntington University

116 BOOK REVIEWS
that argued for an extreme Non-juror view of the church. Hoadly strongly disagreed. To
him the Non-juror, Catholic, and even the Anglican claims of authority over creeds,
liturgy, ecclesiastical order and discipline were deceptive. In this sermon he argued that
belief in Christ as the only ruler of his kingdom meant that Christ did not leave any
earthly ruler to fill his empty place. The implication, therefore, was that only the invisible
church exists, and there was no such a thing as a temporal or visible church. Gibson notes
that Hoadly’s position here was a reflection of Locke’s Letter on Toleration (1689), in
which Locke wrote that the church was an association of free people, controlling over
external matters, because spiritual, internal matters belonged to the conscience. Like
Locke, Hoadly insisted on an individual’s relationship with God based on sincerity and
reading of the Scripture. According to Gibson, the significance of the Bangorian
Controversy was threefold. First, it attacked the exaggerated High Church claims of the
Non-jurors. Secondly, it strengthened the Latitudinarian interest and restored the
confidence of Low Churchmen. And third, it sent a message to the Dissenters that their
faith was as legitimate as that of the Anglicans (198).
The last two chapters of the book outline Hoadly’s role as Bishop of Hereford,
Salisbury and then Winchester. Hoadly’s Hereford period was characterized by his active
participation in writing for the London Journal, the Whig house magazine, under the
pseudonym “Britannicus.” As Bishop of Winchester, Hoadly was engaged in another
theological controversy. This time it was over the Eucharist and the divinity of Christ.
The issue of Christ’s divinity was important politically, as well as spiritually. It was
important politically, since the Toleration Act only gave license to Trinitarian Dissenters,
and it was important spiritually, because it raised the question of the role of sacraments in
obtaining salvation. Hoadly firmly believed that the Eucharist was only a remembrance.
The only significance that the Eucharist had for people was as an encouragement to
abandon sin. Gibson believes that Hoadly’s view on the Eucharist was a response to a
popular apathy toward the sacrament and not the cause of it. Hoadly wanted to reverse
the elevation of the sacrament beyond the reach of laity, as well as bring together the
Anglican and Dissenting theology of the Eucharist. The book ends with an appendix on
poems that have Hoadly as their subjects.
Gibson is to be commended for this detailed and comprehensive study of Hoadly.
He incorporated countless sources, not just by and about Hoadly, but also sources that
provide readers with a better look at Hoadly’s social, political and ecclesiastical contexts.
As a result, we are transported back to the period of the later Stuarts and early
Hanoverians, the backdrop to Hoadly’s career. Through this study Gibson is able to
present the many facets of Hoadly’s life as a Whig Latitudinarian who supported the
cause of the Enlightenment in eighteenth century England.