[List of Notes and Queries volumes and pages]
Notes.
LORD KING, THE SCLATERS, DR. KELLET, ETC.
The Original Draught of the Primitive Church, 8vo. Lond. 1717, written in reply to An Inquiry into the Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive Church, by Mr. Peter King, afterwards Lord Chancellor [from 1725 to 1733], and Baron King of Ockham, is usually attributed to Mr. William Sclater. Respecting this writer, whose work attained and has preserved considerable celebrity, and respecting others of his name, I forward some Notes which I have met with, and beg anxiously to solicit others from your correspondents.
In Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors, cap. vii. p. 303., he is thus mentioned:
"Sclater at length stepped forth [to reply to King's Inquiry], and it is said that King was not only convinced by his arguments, but that he made him an offer of a living in the Church of England. Sclater was a nonjuring clergyman; consequently he could not accept preferment in the Anglican Church, which involved the taking the oath of allegiance. All the arguments in King's book were considered with the greatest candour and ability. The author was a man of singular modesty, of unaffected piety, and of uncommon learning, of which this work affords abundant evidence."
Dr. Hinds, the present Bishop of Norwich, in his History of the Rise and early Progress of Christianity, Preface, page xv., 1st edit., thus speaks:
"Lord King wrote his once celebrated Inquiry in an honest and candid spirit, as the result testifies; but his research was partial, and led him to adopt the congregational principle of the Independents. In Mr. Sclater's reply, principles scarcely less erroneous may be pointed out; yet, as far as the controversy went, he was right, and his opponent, by an act of candour perhaps unexampled, acknowledged himself convinced, and gave Sclater preferment for his victory."
Lord Campbell, however, in his Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iv. p. 369., discredits the idea of this conversion. He says:
"This work [the Inquiry] made a great sensation, passed through several editions, and called forth many learned and able answers, particularly one by a nonjuring clergyman of the name of Sclater, which is said (I believe without authority) even to have made a convert of King himself."