:

of either be popish or unscriptural, the learned world hath mistaken strangely in admiring both : that instead of being a strict Dissenter, he never was a communicant in any dissenting assembly; on the contrary, that he went occasionally, from his early years, to the established worship, and became a constant conformist to it when he was barely of age, and entered himself, in 1714, of Oriel College that his elevation to great dignity in the church, far from being sudden or unexpected, was a gradual and natural rise, through a variety of preferments, and a period of thirty-two years: that, as bishop of Durham, he had very little authority beyond his brethren, and in ecclesiastical matters had none beyond them; a larger income than most of them he had; but this he employed, not, as was insinuated, in augmenting the pomp of worship in his cathedral, where, indeed, it is no greater than in others, but for the purposes of charity, and in the repairing of his houses.' After these remarks, the letter closes with the following words: Upon the whole, few accusations, so entirely groundless, have been so pertinaciously, I am unwilling to say, maliciously, carried on, as the present; and surely it is high time for the authors and abettors of it, in mere common prudence, to show some regard, if not to truth, at least to shame.'

"It only remains to be mentioned, that the above letters of Archbishop Secker had such an

effect on a writer, who signed himself in the St. James's Chronicle, of August 25, 'A Dissenting Minister,' that he declared it as his opinion, that 'the author of the pamphlet, called, The Root of Protestant Errors examined, and his friends, were obliged in candour, in justice, and in honour, to retract their charge, unless they could establish it on much better grounds than had hitherto appeared;' and he expressed his hopes that it would be understood, that the Dissenters in general had no hand in the accusation, and that it had only been the act of two or three mistaken men.' Another person, also, a foreigner by birth,' as he says of himself, who had been long an admirer of Bishop Butler, and had perused with great attention, all that had been written on both sides in the present controversy, confesses he had been wonderfully pleased with observing with what candour and temper, as well as clearness and solidity, he was vindicated from the aspersions laid against him.' All the adversaries of our prelate, however, had not the virtue or sense to be thus convinced; some of whom still continued, under the signatures of Old Martin,' Latimer,' An Impartial Protestant,' 'Paulinus,' 'Misonothos,' to repeat their confuted falsehoods in the public prints; as if the curse of calumniators had fallen upon them, and their memory, by being long a traitor to truth, had taken at last a severe revenge, and compelled them to credit their own lie. The first

of the gentlemen, Old Martin,' who dates from Newcastle, May 29, from the rancour and malignity with which his letter abounds, and from the particular virulence he discovers towards the characters of Bishop Butler and his defender, I conjecture to be no other than the very person who had already figured in this dispute, so early as the year 1752."

160

CHAPTER VIII.

Archdeacon Blackburne, the author of the Serious Inquiry. Notice of him.-His son's account of the controversy.Opening of the Serious Inquiry.-Isaac Walton of Hooker and the Pope.-Lindsey probably engaged in the controversy.-Notice of him.-Robert Hall's remarks upon him.Quarterly Review upon Belsham's Life of Lindsey.-Robert Hall's notice of ditto.-Lindsey's portrait of Butler erroneous.-Bishop Halifax's reasons for vindicating Butler.Halifax himself accused of popery.-No eminent character has ever escaped calumny. Horace Walpole's remark of Secker.-Ditto of Butler.-His unfairness to the Bishops.-Secker on slander.-Butler on talkativeness.

SUCH is Bishop Halifax's account of the controversy, in which there is no direct evidence to decide, whether or not he was acquainted with the name of the anonymous author of the original attack upon the Charge, in 1752*. This point, however, is no longer one of uncertainty, as the

(6

* From an observation of Dr. Kippis, indeed, it appears that Bishop Halifax was ignorant of the source from whence the aspersions upon Bishop Butler had arisen. "The calumny," he said, is no longer worth noticing, else we know more than Halifax about it." The unhappy connexion of Dr. Kippis with the Unitarian heresy, would render it unlikely that any movements of importance, amongst those who were, either directly or indirectly, connected with that school, should escape his knowledge. He was probably aware of the part which both Archdeacon Blackburne and Theophilus Lindsey took in the attacks upon Bishop Butler.

authorship of the Serious Inquiry was admitted by Archdeacon Blackburne; and the reason which led him to commence the attack, is stated by his son, in his account of the life and writings of his father. Before we introduce the extracts from this work, which relate to the subject, however, it may be desirable to inform the reader, who may not be acquainted with Archdeacon Blackburne, that this restless polemic was born at Richmond, in Yorkshire, in 1705, and educated at Cambridge, at Catherine Hall; that in 1739, he became curate of Richmond, his native town; and in 1750, was advanced to the archdeaconry of Cleveland, by Archbishop Hutton. He is reported, at this period, to have entertained scruples about subscription; chiefly, perhaps, on account of the 1st, 2nd, and 5th Articles; but his scruples were surmounted upon the perusal of Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, and some arguments in MS., prepared by Dr. Law, bishop of Carlisle.

Amongst his various controversial writings, he supported the views of Bishop Law, in his Theory of Religion, upon the unconscious state of the soul of the departed, prior to the resurrectionpublished remarks on some passages of Warburton's Divine Legation, and wrote a general view of the controversy. His most popular work was, The Confessional; or a full and free Inquiry into the Right, Utility, Edification, and Success of esta

M