[q. v.] Law's ‘Letters’ are rightly said by his biographer to have ‘raised him at once to the very highest rank in controversial divinity’ (Overton, Life of Law). For the most part the tracts written in this controversy were of no great merit or importance. Hallam professes that after looking over forty or fifty of them he felt a difficulty in stating the propositions in dispute (Const. Hist. ii. 394). In fact all the topics in dispute between whig and tory, high and low churchmen, were brought into the controversy, and an unusual amount of heat and bitterness animated the writers. The number of the tracts was prodigious, amounting probably to near two hundred. The catalogue of them as printed in Hoadly's works occupies eighteen folio pages. The list of the writers' names gives fifty-three; most of these wrote several pamphlets, and there were also a great number of anonymous publications. Hoadly made the following contributions to the controversy between 1717 and 1720: 1. ‘An Answer to Dr. Snape's Letter to the Bishop of Bangor.’ 2. ‘Advertisements in the “Daily Courant” and “Evening Post.”’ 3. ‘Preface to F. de la Pillonière's Answer to Dr. Snape.’ 4. ‘Letter to Dr. Snape prefixed to F. de la Pillonière's Reply.’ 5. ‘Some few Remarks on Dr. Snape's Letter before Mr. Mill's Book.’ 6. ‘A Postscript to Dr. Sherlock, dean of Chichester.’ 7. ‘An Answer to the Representation drawn up by a Committee of the Lower House of Convocation.’ 8. ‘Answer to a Calumny cast upon the Bishop of Bangor by Dr. Sherlock.’ 9. ‘Answer to a late Book written by Dr. Sherlock, intituled “The Condition and Example of Our Blessed Saviour vindicated.”’ 10. ‘The Common Rights of Subjects vindicated, and the Nature of the Sacramental Tests considered’ (1718). 11. ‘An Answer to Dr. Hare's Sermon, intituled “Church Authority vindicated.”’ 12. ‘The Dean of W——r still the same, or his new Defence of the Lord Bishop of Bangor's Sermon considered’ (1720). The antagonists whom Hoadly selected for attack were Snape, Hare, and Sherlock. The two former were royal chaplains, and as such their opinions were thought to require notice from one who wrote under royal patronage. They were deprived of their office for their attacks on the popular doctrines. Sherlock was certainly among the ablest of the writers in opposition to him, and had been an old opponent of Hoadly at Cambridge; but the bishop, perhaps prudently, abstained from answering Law, the most powerful of all his critics.
Hoadly was now in the highest favour at court, the intimate friend of Mrs. Clayton, afterwards Lady Sundon, the favourite of the queen, and might expect high preferment. In 1721 he was translated to Hereford, having previously resigned the rectory of St. Peter-le-Poer. During his occupancy of this see occurred the famous trial of his old opponent, Atterbury, for high treason. Hoadly cordially acquiesced in the sentence passed on the bishop, but he did not take any prominent part in the debate on the trial, as he was a poor orator. For this, however, he made ample amends to his patrons by the letters published in the ‘London Journal’ under the signature of ‘Britannicus.’ These letters (42–55) attack and dissect with great vigour and minute criticism the defence made by Atterbury in the House of Lords, and labour to damage the reputation and character of the bishop in every way. The whole series of the ‘Britannicus’ letters, which occupy nearly a folio volume in Hoadly's works, must have been most valuable to the government. In October 1723 Hoadly was translated to the see of Salisbury, having previously resigned his benefice of Streatham. Being now the occupant of a prominent English see, Hoadly thought it necessary to make some episcopal utterances for the guidance of his clergy. In 1726 he delivered his primary charge at Salisbury, a jejune composition, very different in spirit and power from the ‘Britannicus’ letters. He is much more at home in his tract on the ‘Enquiry into the Reasons of the Conduct of Great Britain,’ in which he criticises the proceedings of the emperor and king of Spain in making the secret treaty of Vienna (1725), and defends the action of England and the other powers, which had responded by the Alliance of Hanover (3 Sept. 1725). This performance was very severely criticised by Hoadly's political opponents, and was defended by him in a tract published two or three years afterwards, ‘A Defense of the Enquiry,’ &c. In 1732 the bishop wrote an ‘Essay on the Life, Writings, and Character of Dr. Samuel Clarke’ [q. v.], prefixed to the edition of his ‘Sermons’ in 10 vols. Hoadly, being almost in entire sympathy with the refined Arianism of Clarke, and greatly admiring his learning and power, desired that for a memorial ‘he may be thought and spoken of in ages to come under the character of the friend of Dr. Clarke.’
In September 1734 Hoadly was advanced to the rich see of Winchester, this being his fourth bishopric in succession. In the charge which he delivered to his clergy two years after his translation (1736) he entered into an apology for his life and writings, and strongly repudiated the conclusions drawn from his writings by others. He alluded in particular to
