HOADLEY, BENJAMIN, an English clergyman, successively bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, was born in 1670, at Westerham in Kent. In a general view of Bishop Headley's character, and his relation to the times in which he lived, he is to be regarded, 1st, as a principal writer among the divines of the English Church (of whom there were many in the 18th century) who are called Rational, that is, who have renounced the whole of what constitutes proper Calvinism, and have advanced more or less near to the opinions which are comprehended under the term Unitarianism. Hoadley's ' Plain Account of the Sacrament,' and still more his 'Discourses on the Terms of Acceptance,' show how 'rational' was the view which he took of Christianity, its requirements, and its ordinances. These works are still much read, and greatly valued by those who coincide In his opinions, whether in or out of the Establishment. 2. He is to be regarded as the great advocate of what are called Low Church principles, a species of Whiggiam in ecclesiatics, iu opposition to the high pretensions sometimes advanced by the church or particular churchmen. It was in this character that he wrote his treatise on the Measure of Obedience to the Civil Magistrate,' which was animad verted upon by Bishop Atterbury [ATTERBURY, Fnericis], and defended by Headley, whose conduct on this occasion so pleased the House of Commons that they represented in an address to Queen Anne what signal service be had done to the cause of civil and religious liberty. But ho was engaged more earnestly in defence of those principles when, being then bishop of Bangor, he printed a sermon from the text, "My kingdom is not of this world," concerning the true nature of that kingdom which Christ came to establish on earth, the prin. ciples of which were attacked by various persons. It was out of this
sermon that the celebrated Bangorian controversy arose, one of the most remarkable in the history of the Protestant Church of England. The doctriues of Headley being vehemently oppoaed by the Lower House of Convocation, excited such violent discussions in that body that the government in order to prevent further dissensions suddenly prorogued the Convocation, and the Houses of Convocation have never since been permitted to meet for the despatch of business.
In the reigns of the first and second Georges, divines of the school to which Headley belonged found favour at court. It was otherwise in the reign of George III. The succession of Headley's preferments with the dates follows. In early life he was a city clergyman, having the rectory of St. Peter is Poor, with the rectorship of St. Mildred in the Poultry. In 1710, when the Tory influence was becoming predo minant in the councils of Queen Anne, a private patron, Mrs. Howland, of Streatham, who was connected with the noble house of Russell, presented him with the rectory of Streatham. The queen died in 1714, and the accession of King George I. brought with it a great change in the politics of the court; one of the first bishoprics that fell vacant, which was that of Bangor, was presented to him. In 1721 he was translated to Hereford, and thence in 1723 to Salisbury. In 1734 he was made Bishop of Winchester. He died in 1761.
A full account of Bishop Headley, with the particular. of an extra ordinary attempt at imposition upon him in his old age, in an affair of money, by a foreigner to whom he had shown great favour, detected and exposed by him with a vigour which is rarely found in persons et the a.ze of eighty, may be mad in the Biographia Britannica.'