18 Law's Life after the Loss of his Fellowship.

CHAPTER III.

LAW AND THE BANGORIAN CONTROVERSY.

THERE is a tradition that, after the resignation of his fellowship, Law was a curate in London under the famous preacher Dr. Heylin, Rector of S. Mary-le-Strand, Vicar of Sunbury, and Prebendary of S. Paul's. Law himself, a few months before his death, alluded incidentally, in the course of conversation, to a time when he was 'curate in London.''1 Byrom twice2 mentions the report; once on the authority of a Mr. Rivington, who, however, threw discredit upon the whole story by adding the very improbable piece of gossip that Law was then 'a gay parson, and that Dr. Heylin said his book (The Serious Call') would have been better if he had travelled that way himself.' A Mrs. Collier also told Byrom that Mr. Law was a great beau, would have fine linen, was very sweet upon the ladies, and had made one believe that he would marry her; that he made his great change in the year 1720; that he wore a wig again.' All this, however, is mere gossip, unworthy of a moment's serious consideration. It is quite possible that Law's serious impressions may have been deepened about the year 1720; but that he was ever other than a grave, conscientious, God-fearing man is highly improbable.

It is also reported that he was offered several pieces of valuable preferment by, or through the instrumentality of,

See the Memoirs of the Life, Death, Burial, and Wonderful Writings of Jacob Behmen, now first done at large into English &c., by Francis Okely. Northampton, 1780.

2 Journal, Dec. 29, 1734, and Sept. 1739.

3 Ibid. Jan. 3, 1731.

his friend Dr. Sherlock; but how this could be, it is not easy to see. Of course, if Law persisted in refusing the oaths, he could not have held any preferment; and Dr. Sherlock, then Dean of Chichester, if he knew Law's character at all, must have been aware that he might as well try to persuade his cathedral to walk into the sea, as try to persuade Law to change his convictions or to sacrifice them to his interests. The only evidence of Law's having officiated in church at all after he became a nonjuror is a notice in the Preacher's Assistant' that he published a single sermon in 1718 on the text 1 Cor. xii. 3; but this sermon does not appear to be extant.

Law, however, was certainly not idle. In 1717 he wrote his 'Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor,' which raised him at once to the very highest rank of writers in controversial divinity. The appearance of so powerful an ally was warmly and quickly welcomed by the High Church party. Mr. Pyle tells us he wrote against Law because 'his was thought to be the strongest and most impartial piece that has appeared against his Lordship.' 2 Law's friend, Dean Sherlock,.himself one of the most clear-headed and powerful writers of the time, declared that 'Mr. Law was a writer so considerable that he knew but one good reason why. his Lordship did not answer him.'3 Some years later, Mr.

1 See Preacher's Assistant, vol. ii. 1737.

2 See a Vindication of the Bishop of Bangor in answer to W. Law, by T. Pyle, Lecturer of Lynn Regis, 1718. Mr. Law's performance,' writes Mr. Pyle, 'has been so much approved of by the rest, and particularly by Dr. Snape'-Dr. Snape being himself, it need hardly be said, one of the foremost opponents of Bishop Hoadly.

3 Quoted in A Full Examination of Several Important Points relating to Church Authority, &c., by Gilbert Burnet, 1718. See also Hoadly's Works, ii. 694-5, where the bishop gives his reasons to Dr. Sherlock for not answering Law; but promises that, if the dean will publicly own any one of Mr. Law's main principles,' he will reply to him. This was a severe home-thrust; for Hoadly knew that Sherlock was not prepared to identify himself with Law, whose uncompromising character was not of the stuff of which bishops were

20

Merits of the Three Letters.

Jones of Nayland, himself an able advocate of High Church principles in their older and nobler sense, characterised Law's 'Three Letters' as 'incomparable for truth of argument, brightness of wit, and purity of English.'1 Later still, Dean Hook singled out these alone among all the voluminous literature on the subject, as 'perhaps the most important of the works produced by the Bangorian controversy;' and added, 'Law's "Letters" have never been answered, and may indeed be regarded as unanswerable.' Bishop Ewing thinks that the Letters to Hoadly may fairly be put on a level with the "Lettres Provinciales" of Blaise Pascal, both displaying equal power, wit, and learning.'" Mr. F. D. Maurice is of opinion that 'the "Letters" show that Law had the powers and temptations of a singularly able controversialist.' 4

2

3

One of the chief among the many merits of these fine pieces of composition is that they always keep close to the true point at issue. As a rule, the writers on both sides in the tedious but very important Bangorian controversy show a constant tendency to fly off at a tangent to all sorts of irrelevant questions. This Law never does. Whether Bishop Hoadly was justified or not in having a converted Jesuit as tutor in his family; whether he did or did not interpolate some modifying epithets in his printed sermon which were not in the original MS.; whether Sherlock had or had not once preached the same doctrines as

made in the eighteenth century. Though I do not agree with Bishop Hoadly's principles, I admit that he was a very able controversialist, and not afraid of any antagonist.

See The Scholar Armed.

2 Church Dictionary. Art. Bangorian Controversy.'

Present-Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology.

4 F. D. Maurice's Introduction to Remarks on the Fable of the Bees,'

p. xi. 1844.

5 This is noticed by Mr. Leslie Stephen in his interesting account of Law. See English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, ii. p. 161.

First Letter to Bishop Hoadly.

21

Hoadly; whether occasional conformity ought or ought not to be allowed; whether the Test and Corporation Acts ought or ought not to be repealed;—these, and other more or less irrelevant points were discussed in many an angry pamphlet and letter.

But Law, in his attack upon the bishop, always keeps to the main point, often hitting a hard, but never a foul, blow; never losing sight of his character as a Christian and a gentleman. The one question which really required an answer was whether Bishop Hoadly's assertions did or did not tend to impair the nature of the Church in which he held high office, considered as a spiritual society. Law contends that they did, and drives his arguments home with crushing force.

He begins by pointing out that the freethinkers, who made no secret of their desire to dissolve the Church, did, as a matter of fact, regard the bishop as their ally, simply because they thought he agreed with them on this point. And had they not good grounds for so thinking? 'Your Lordship is ours,' says Law, 'as you fill a bishopric; but we are at a loss to discover what other interest we have in your Lordship.' Did not the Bishop plainly intimate that if a man were only not a hypocrite, it was no matter what religion he was of? Did he not ridicule the 'vain words of regular and uninterrupted succession' as 'niceties, trifles, and dreams'? And what was this but saying in effect that no kind of ordination was of any moment? for, if ordination was not regular, or derived from those who had authority from Christ to ordain, what was the use of it? Your Lordship's servant might ordain and baptize to as much purpose as your Lordship. You have left us neither priests, nor sacraments, nor Church; and what has your Lordship given us in the room of all these advantages? Why, only sincerity. This is the great universal atonement for all;

22

Second Letter to Bishop Hoadly.

this is that which, according to your Lordship, will help us to the communion of saints hereafter, though we are in communion with anybody or nobody here.' If a private person were to pretend to choose a Lord Chancellor, would it not be an absurdity? But was it more absurd to commission a person to act, sign, and seal in the king's name than in the name of Christ? If there were no uninterrupted succession, then there were no authorised ministers from Christ; if no such ministers, then no Christian sacraments; if no Christian sacraments, then no Christian covenant, of which the sacraments were the visible seals.

The bishop affirmed that when he said Christ had left no authority behind him he meant no absolute authority. But Law shows that his reasons are equally against any degree of authority. Absolute authority the bishop denies, and at the same time makes that which is not absolute nothing at all.' But it was quite possible that an authority might be real without being absolute: the sacraments were real means of grace, though conditional; a limited monarchy was real, though not absolute. The first letter ends with a stricture on the bishop's definition of prayer as 'a calm and undisturbed address to God.'1

In his second letter, Law strives to prove that the bishop's notions of benediction, absolution, and Church communion were destructive of every institution of the Christian

There is a very amusing squib directed against this definition, entitled 'The Tower of Babel: an Anti-Heroic Poem, Humbly Dedicated to the B-p of Br,' 1718. It commences :

I must with decent Pride confess

I've christen'd Prayer a calm address,

And likewise added undisturb'd,

For why should gentle steeds be curb'd?

A mind that keeps the Balance even,

And hangs well-pois'd 'twixt Earth and Heaven-

What should molest its ease and quiet,

Or set its passions in a riot ?'