THOMAS

See also:

• THOMAS SHERLOCK (1678-1761)
• SHERLOCK, WILLIAM (c. 1641-1707)

SHERLOCK (1678-1761)  , English divine, the son of William Sherlock (q.v.), was born at London in 1678 . He was educated at Eton and at St Catharine's Hall, Cambridge, and in 1704 succeeded his father as master of the Temple, where he was very popular . In 1714 he became master of his old college at Cambridge and vice-chancellor of the university, whose privileges he defended against Richard Bentley . In 1715 he was appointed dean of Chichester . He took a prominent part in the Bangorian controversy against Benjamin Hoadly, whom he succeeded as bishop of Bangor in 1728; he was afterwards translated to Salisbury in 1734, and to London in 1748 . Sherlock was a capable administrator, and cultivated friendly relations with dissenters . In parliament he was of good service to his old schoolfellow Robert Walpole . He published against Anthony Collins's deistic Grounds of the Christian Religion a volume of sermons entitled The Use and Interest of Prophecy in the Several Ages of the World (1725); and in reply to Thomas Woolston's Discourses on the Miracles he wrote a volume entitled The Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus (1729), which soon ran through fourteen editions . His Pastoral Letter (1750) on " the late earthquakes " had a circulation of many thousands, and four or five volumes of Sermons which he published in his later years (1754-1758) were also at one time highly esteemed . He died in July 1761 . A collected edition of his works, with a memoir, in 5 vols . 8vo, by J .

S .

Hughes, appeared in 183o .