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 A portrait of Sherlock is preserved at Winwick. An engraving from it, by Vandergucht, is inserted in some editions of ‘The Practical Christian.’

His works are:
 * 1) ‘The Quaker's Wilde Questions objected against the Ministers of the Gospel, and many Sacred Gifts and Offices of Religion, with brief answers thereunto. Together with a Discourse of the Holy Spirit his impressions and workings on the Souls of Men,’ 1654. This book was reprinted and enlarged in 1656, with two additional discourses on divine revelation, mediate and immediate, and on error, heresie, and schism. This work was animadverted on by George Fox in ‘The Great Mystery of the Great Whore unfolded,’ 1659.
 * 2) ‘The Principles of the Holy Catholick Religion, or the Catechism of the Church of England Paraphrast, written for the use of Borwick Hall,’ 1656; this work was often reprinted.
 * 3) ‘Mercurius Christianus: the Practical Christian, a Treatise explaining the duty of Self-examination,’ 1673. This, Sherlock's principal work, was greatly enlarged in subsequent editions. To the sixth edition, which appeared in 1712, was prefixed a ‘Life’ of the author by Bishop Wilson. The four parts into which the work was divided were sometimes published separately.
 * 4) ‘Several Short but Seasonable Discourses touching Common and Private Prayer, relating to the Publick Offices of the Church,’ 1684. This includes ‘The Irregularity of a Private Prayer in a Publick Congregation,’ first published in 1674.



SHERLOCK, THOMAS (1678–1761), bishop of London, eldest son of Dr. (1640–1707) [q. v.], dean of St. Paul's, was born in 1678. He was sent to school at Eton, where Lord Townshend, Henry Pelham, and Robert Walpole were among his friends, and he was athletic as well as studious (cf., Dunciad ‘the plunging prelate,’ supposed to refer to his powers as a swimmer; so Warton's note, ed. 1797, on authority of Walpole). He entered St. Catharine's College (then Hall), Cambridge, in 1693, graduated B.A. in 1697, M.A. in 1701, and D.D. in 1714. He was two years junior to Hoadly in the same college, and it is said that their long rivalry began at Cambridge. Sherlock was elected fellow of his college on 12 Aug. 1698, and was ordained in 1701 by Bishop Patrick. On 28 Nov. 1704 he was appointed master of the Temple, on his father's resignation of the office (see, Diary, ed. Doble, i. 79, 359). He was extraordinarily popular in this post, which he held till 1753. His reputation as a preacher dated from this appointment. His voice was gruff rather than melodious, but he spoke ‘with such strength and vehemence, that he never failed to take possession of his whole audience and secure their attention’ (Dr. Nicholls in his Funeral Sermon). In 1707 he married Miss Judith Fontaine, ‘a lady of good family in Yorkshire,’ who is described as ‘a truly respectable woman’ (, Memoirs, i. 180). In 1711 he was made chaplain to Queen Anne (, Diary, iii. 111), in 1713 prebendary of St. Paul's (, Fasti, ii. 450). On the election of Sir William Dawes to the archbishopric of York in 1714, Sherlock was unanimously elected master of St. Catharine's Hall. He then took the degree of D.D., ‘commencing’ on Monday, 5 July, in a disputation with Waterland (, Diary; cf., University Life in the Eighteenth Century, p. 260). In the same year he became vice-chancellor of his university. He devoted himself at once to arranging the university archives, and embodied the results in a manuscript volume. He also vindicated the rights of the university against Bentley (then archdeacon of Ely), who nicknamed him ‘Alberoni.’ He was supposed to have connived at Jacobitism in Cambridge, but was probably no more than a ‘Hanoverian Tory;’ and it was during his year of office that George I presented to the university the library of Bishop Moore. He presented a ‘loyal address to George I on the anticipated invasion of James Stewart,’ and is said to have preached a sermon at the Temple on the Sunday after the battle of Preston strongly in favour of the Hanoverian line, which the benchers said should have been delivered the Sunday before (cf., Contin. of Granger, i. 91). In the next year (7 June 1716) he preached before the House of Commons at the thanksgiving, asserting the unrighteousness of resistance to constituted authority. In November 1715 he obtained, through Townshend's influence, the deanery of Chichester (, Fasti, i. 258), where he rebuilt the dean's house. On 10 July 1719 he was installed as canon of Norwich, a stall which had been annexed by Queen Anne to the mastership of St. Catharine's Hall, but which he was unable to obtain possession of without litigation, as he was already a prebendary of St. Paul's. In the same year he resigned the mastership of St. Catharine's Hall.

Before this he had become engaged in the