Bangorian Controversy

The Bangorian Controversy was a theological argument within the Church of England in the early 18th century, with strong political overtones. The origins of the controversy lay in the 1716 posthumous publication of George Hickes's Constitution of the Catholic Church, and the Nature and Consequences of Schism. In it, Hickes, on behalf of the small minority faction who had broken away from the Church of England after the Glorious Revolution, as Bishop of Thetford excommunicated all but the non-juror churchmen. Benjamin Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, wrote a reply entitled, Preservative against the Principles and Practices of Non-Jurors; in it his own Erastian position was sincerely proposed as the only test of truth.