himself absolute if the monarch never interposes. Interpreting laws, on the same hypothesis, is but a periphrasis for making laws.

33. So far Hoadly's logic is unimpeachable, though its relevancy might be disputed. His main arguments would have been far more coherent if, instead of attacking the 'absolute,' he had attacked the 'supernatural' authority of the priesthood. In the Preservative' he assails the fundamental inconsistency of Protestant sacerdotalism, the attribution to fallible men, or bodies of fallible men, of powers intelligible only the hypothesis of infallibility, and, therefore, of the continuous intervention of supernatural powers. A church claiming such powers must, as he said, come into conflict with the state; it forms an imperium in imperio, and sooner or later one of the rivals must swallow up the other. Resistance to such claims is, therefore, of vital importance to the state. According to Hoadly, the state must have every power necessary for its own preservation; and resistance becomes its imperative duty. This theory, which lies, as we have seen, at the base of his political speculations, would find its full realisation when the state and church were placed, so to speak, on the same level. Their claims would then be commensurable, instead of resting in one case on divine and in the other on mere human authority. An equitable distribution of powers might be arranged between two corporations, when both allow an appeal to the common tribunal of human reason, judging by motives of expediency. Though Hoadly does not adopt this theory explicitly, his main arguments are those which would naturally arrange themselves in its support. Since the Church is fallible, he says, its decisions cannot possibly affect the relation of man to his Creator. The power of looking into men's hearts, and therefore of pronouncing the forgiveness of sins, might be granted to Peter along with the equally miraculous power of healing the sick; but Atterbury, who could not cure a pope of one twinge of toothache, could certainly not excuse Chartres one minute of hell-fire.2 The Church may excommunicate a notorious sinner in the sense of refusing to associate with him, but not in the sense of sentencing him

Hoadly's Works, i. 582, 'Preservative.'

See specially i. 594, Preservative.'

2

to future punishments.' Excommunication is thus 'a mere external thing.' The Lord's Supper, as he argued some twenty years later, in a separate treatise,3 is a mere commemorative rite, for we must otherwise admit that priests have a power of working miracles. Every vestige of supernatural endowment is stripped off the priesthood; the power of the keys is an absurdity, and no magical influence remains in church ceremonials. A bishop, in short, as Bolingbroke more frankly said, is nothing but a layman with a crook in his hand.

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34. With the claim to supernatural privileges goes naturally the claim to a supernatural monopoly of truth, or faith in any church can be no more necessary to salvation than submission to its ordinances. The Church, indeed-for Hoadly could not repudiate the Articles-has' authority in matters of faith ;' but it is the authority of a witness, not of a judge; and an authority consistent with the right, or, rather, with the indispensable duty, of every man to judge for himself. Sincerity, therefore, is the only moral duty connected with faith. A man is not bound to accept certain opinions, but to accept those opinions which commend themselves to his unbiassed reason. God, he argues in the 'Preservative,' cannot favour a man because he belongs to a particular communion, but because he has chosen his communion honestly. The favour of God, therefore, follows sincerity considered as such; and, therefore, equally follows every equal degree of sincerity.' The words led to a good deal of wrangling; as, indeed, they are the contradictory of the doctrine which lies at the bottom of all the theology of the preceding century, and the main justification of all persecutions, the necessity of a certain faith to salvation. Law tries to prove that, in admitting the innocence of error, Hoadly gives up the old standing ground against heresy. This argument need not be followed out; though one remark may be suggested. So long as the ill consequences of any action are regarded as proofs of divine displeasure, it is impossible to deny that honest error is a sin 1 Hoadly's Works, ii. 465, 'Answer to Representation.'

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most severely punished. The doctrine of the innocence of error is, therefore, naturally connected with disbelief in the visible interference of providence.

35. Hoadly, however, did not clearly see the tendencies of his own argument. Law, with his invariable keenness of logical perception, recognised the true key of the position. His second letter to Hoadly is, in fact, an argument that Hoadly ought to be a deist. One passage sufficiently indicates the point. Is it,' he asks, 'impossible for men to have this authority' (the authority, namely, of pronouncing absolution) 'from God, because they may mistake in the exercise of it? This argument proves too much, and makes as short work with every institution of Christianity as with the power of absolution. For, if it is impossible that men should have authority from God to absolve in his name, because they are not infallible, this makes them equally incapable of being entrusted with any other means of grace; and, consequently, supposes the whole priest's office to imply a direct impossibility in the very notion of it.'1 Law, as usual, is applying the reductio ad absurdum-a dangerous weapon which is apt to go off at both ends. Hoadly never made a direct answer to Law; a neglect for which Sherlock thought that there could be 'but one good reason.' 2 Hoadly, that is, had no answer to make. Perhaps it would be truer in this case to say that a perfectly frank answer would have been dangerous. Hoadly denied, indeed, the truth of the doctrines of the apostolical succession and its various corollaries, which Law endeavours to support by the usual texts and arguments. But he did not deny outright the existence of any supernatural powers and privileges in the Church.3 though he constantly used language tending to such a denial. He met his antagonist by a distinction which really raised a false issue, and throws the whole controversy into hopeless perplexity. The central knot of the controversy disappears in a hopeless entanglement of crossing threads. His opponents had charged him with assailing all Church authority. He should have replied: I deny that the Church can send a man to hell; I don't deny that it 2 Sherlock, Works, v. 37.

1 Second Letter, p. 32.

The point is pretty clearly stated in the Answer to the Representation.' See xvii.; ii. 484.

can and ought to censure him for immorality. But he chose to reply: That he had not denied all authority, but only absolute authority, or authority to which the people are indispensably obliged to submit.' His opponents replied that the insertion of the word 'absolute' was a mere evasion intended to conceal his true sentiments; and this charge led, amongst other things, to that episcopal version of the counter-check quarrelsome, which, for a moment, silenced even the roar of London commerce.

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36. The charge against Hoadly's honour proved only the extreme bitterness of his antagonists. The assault made upon his logic by Law was more successful. Hoadly's arguments, as Law showed, were as good against authority in general as against absolute authority. They were pointed at the very vital principle of supernatural authority; not to its extent or limitations. He did not really object to a certain degree but to a certain kind of authority; nor could Hoadly escape except by making his doctrine nugatory. All Anglicans admitted that the spiritual authority of the Church, like the authority of the English Crown, was in some sense limited. The Reformation in the one case, like the Revolution in 1688 in the other, was a proof that a blind and implicit obedience to authority was not demanded. If, therefore, Hoadly merely attacked absolute authority, he attacked what no one supported. Law naturally supposed that Hoadly's disavowal was merely intended to cover an anarchical doctrine; though we may more charitably believe that it was rather due to a want of acuteness, which prevented the Bishop from ever attaching a very distinct meaning to the word 'absolute.' Hoadly had expressly wished to make the whole stream of controversy hopelessly turbid, he could not have acted more skilfully; but, in such cases, natural puzzleheadedness performs all the functions of malevolent design.

37. The confusion of ideas thus introduced perplexes that part of the controversy which seems to come nearest to a direct practical issue. What is the bearing of these speculations upon the great question of toleration? Does Hoadly raise another barrier against persecution? So far as persecution implies a belief in infallibility or in the sinfulness of intel1 Hoadly's Works, ii. 484.

In his first Letter.

lectual error, he is, of course, opposed to it. When priests admit themselves to be mere fallible men, the great justification for burning other men disappears. But the difficulty still remains of so drawing the line between the spiritual and secular authority that all persecution shall be abolished. Perhaps, indeed, the problem is insoluble. So long as religions affect the same part of our lives which is regulated by legislation, the division of powers cannot be completely carried out; and Hoadly himself approved of measures which show. how the old spirit might be reintroduced in a new shape. He declared himself unwilling to exclude a Papist or a Protestant from public offices on account of his religion, or on any account but that of his open avowed enmity to the civil government as settled in this land." The ground of their exclusion from the throne was not, as he elsewhere says, 'their religion considered as such, but the fatal, natural, certain effect of it upon themselves to our destruction.' Law fairly ridicules the ingenious logic of this passage, as, in fact, it would make little difference to a heretic whether he was persecuted for his religion considered as such,' or for consequences which the persecutor held to be its inevitable result.

38. Hoadly, indeed, uses language which seemed to his opponents to declare for the most absolute separation between church and state. It was not competent for the state even to add its sanctions to the laws of the church. To apply, said Hoadly, force or flattery, worldly pleasure or pain, as motives for religion, is to act against the maxims on which Christ founded his kingdom. Motives of this world must not be used to support a kingdom which was not of this world. Such a theory appeared to Hoadly's adversaries to condemn every connection between the church and the state. But by one of the odd turns which mark the troublesome controversy, it appeared that his meaning was entirely different. In fact, Hoadly was not talking of the Church of England nor of any visible church. The denial of any supernatural authority inherent in any particular organisation leads him, logically enough, to regard the Church of Christ or the Kingdom of Christ-equivalent expressions, according to him—as con

Hoadly's Works, ii. 788, 'Common Rights of Subjects Defended.'