BALGUY, John. - An English Protestant theologian, born in Sheffield in 1866 and died on 1748. He studied at the University of Cambridge. The Bishop of Bangor, Benjamin Hoadly, noting his keen intellect, took him into his service and procured for him a prebend. During this time there arose the famous Bangor controversy (v.) occasioned by the sermon preached by the said bishop on 31 March 1717 in which he affirmed that individual sincerity was the only requirement for a Christian, and maintained that Jesus Christ had not delegated His power to any ecclesiastical authority. The controversy did not end with the suppression of the "Convocations" (v.) but continued extra-officially for several years between Whigs and Tories, between non-jurors and jurors, between High and Low Church, and extended to the legality or illegality of state intervention in ecclesiastical affairs, and to the visibility or invisibility of the Church. Throughout the controversy, Balguy proved himself a skilled polemicist and faithful to his bishop.
Among the various works of Balguy, the following are noteworthy: A Letter to a Deist Concerning the Beauty and Excellence of Moral Virtues, and the Second Part of the Foundation of Natural Goodness, in which he replies to the critics of the Letter. Two volumes of sermons are also preserved (3rd ed., London 1890), many of them on moral subjects. He is reproached for giving too much importance to reason and almost excluding every supernatural element from perfection.