BEFORE GEORGE THE FIRST.

THE NATURE OF THE KINGDOM,

OR

CHURCH, OF CHRIST:

A Sermon,

PREACHED BEFORE THE KING,

AT THE ROYAL CHAPEL AT ST. JAMES'S,

ON SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 1717.

BY THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD,

BENJAMIN, LORD BISHOP OF BANGOR.

PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S SPECIAL COMMAND.

LONDON:

EFFINGHAM WILSON, 18, BISHOPSGATE STREET; SMALLFIELD & SON, 69, NEWGATE STREET.

HACKNEY:

PRINTED BY CHARLES GREEN.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following Sermon, on its first appearance, excited the attention of the whole kingdom, and ran through an incredible number of editions. The Clergy of the Lower House of Convocation drew up a Report upon its "Dangerous Positions and Doctrines," which inflamed the Church and Nation to such a degree as to cause the interference of the Government the proceedings of the Convocation were stopped by a Royal prorogation, and from this period that once formidable clerical parliament has been convened only as a matter of form, and for the sake of being prorogued as soon as convened. A war of pamphlets ensued, and lasted for several years, drawing forth the ablest pens of the nation on the question of Church Authority. The Bishop of Bangor, from whom the controversy has taken its name, the Bangorian, was nobly supported by the King, and was afterwards promoted to the see of Winchester. A learned and impartial ecclesiastical historian, Mosheim, says of this prelate, that he was "eminently distinguished by the accuracy of his judgment, and the purity of his flowing and manly eloquence;" adding, that he "used his utmost endeavours, and not without success, to lower the authority of the Church, or at least to reduce the power of its rulers within narrow bounds."*

* Ecclesiastical Hist., translated by Maclaine, ed. 1782, 8vo, VI. 34.

The controversy enlightened the public mind, emboldened the friends of Religious Liberty, gave the death-blow for nearly a century to High-Church principles, and consecrated the name of HOADLY to the veneration and gratitude of posterity.

After this long slumber, Church Authority is once more raising its head. The Church, by which is meant the Priesthood, is represented as being equal or rather superior to the State, or the whole united People. Churchmen insult, defy and threaten the Government and the Commons' House of Parliament. If they cannot overturn-they give warning that they will" obstruct"-both. Their open boast is, that they block up the path of Reform, whether ecclesiastical, municipal or political. One of their schemes is the revival of the Convocation, with its power of overawing the press, converting the pulpit into an engine of faction, pressing the Magistrate into the service of the Church, worrying such Bishops as hold that there is something higher and better than their Order, and troubling the Court, whenever the Sovereign will not yield to the dictation of the Priesthood.

In this state of things, it is thought seasonable to republish Bishop HOADLY'S Sermon, in which common sense is opposed to absurdity, truth to imposture, and the spirit of the Gospel to the pretensions of a worldly Church,-eagerly grasping wealth and power, exclusive, arrogant, overbearing, and on the watch for means and opportunities of Persecution.

A SERMON.

ST. JOHN Xviii. 36:

JESUS ANSWERED, MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD.

ONE of those great effects which length of time is seen to bring along with it, is the alteration of the meaning annexed to certain sounds. The signification of a word, well known and understood by those who first made use of it, is very insensibly varied by passing through many mouths, and by being taken and given by multitudes in common discourse, till it often comes to stand for a complication of notions, as distant from the original intention of it, nay, as contradictory to it, as darkness is to light. The ignorance and weakness of some, and the passions and bad designs of others, are the great instruments of this evil; which, even when it seems to affect only indifferent matters, ought in reason to be opposed, as it tends in its nature to confound men's notions in weightier points; but, when it hath once invaded the most sacred and important subjects, ought in duty to be resisted with a more open and undisguised zeal, as what toucheth the very vitals of all that is good, and is just going to take from men's eyes the boundaries of right and wrong.

The only cure for this evil, in cases of so great concern, is to have recourse to the originals of things: to the law of reason, in those points which can be traced back thither; and to the declarations of Jesus Christ and his immediate followers, in such matters as took their rise solely from those declarations. For the case is plainly this, that words and sounds have had such an effect (not upon the nature of things, which is unmoveable, but) upon the minds of men in thinking of them, that the very same word remaining, (which at first truly represented one certain thing,) by having multitudes of new inconsistent ideas, in every age and every year, added to it, becomes itself the greatest hindrance to the true understanding of the nature of the thing first intended by it.

For instance, Religion, in St. James's days, was virtue