Wallis, addressed to Robert Boyle [q. v.] South was installed canon of Christ Church on 29 Dec. 1670.
In June 1676 he travelled to Poland as chaplain to the ambassador, Laurence Hyde (afterwards Earl of Rochester) [q. v.] A valuable account of his journey, including a realistic sketch of John Sobieski, is given in the form of a letter (Danzig, 16 Dec. 1677) to Edward Pococke [q. v.] On his return he was presented (1678) by the dean and chapter of Westminster to the rectory of Islip, Oxfordshire. Half the income he gave to a curate; with the rest he restored the chancel (1680), built a new rectory-house, and educated and apprenticed the children of parishioners. He lived at Caversham, near Reading, where he had an estate.
The story goes that, after a humorous passage in a sermon by South before the king, Charles turned with a laugh to Rochester, saying, ‘Odd's fish, Lory, your chaplain must be a bishop; therefore put me in mind of him at the next death.’ The incident is usually connected with South's often quoted description of Cromwell's first appearance in parliament, ‘with a threadbare torn coat and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of them paid for).’ But this passage occurs in a sermon preached, after Charles's death, at Westminster Abbey on 22 Feb. 1684–5. South was chaplain in ordinary to Charles II, but had no other preferment from him than the Westminster prebend. In James II's reign Rochester, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, is said to have offered South an Irish archbishopric (Cashel was vacant, 1685–91). Rochester nominated South (November 1686) as one of two Anglican divines to discuss points of doctrine with two of the church of Rome; but James objected to South, and Simon Patrick (1626–1707) [q. v.] was substituted.
At the Revolution South hesitated for some time to transfer his allegiance, being, according to Kennett, under the influence of William Sherlock, D.D. [q. v.] He at length took the oath, adopting the parliamentary fiction that James's flight constituted an abdication. He is said to have declined a bishopric vacated by a nonjuror. He warmly opposed himself to the scheme for a comprehension of dissenters, but was not a member either of the royal commission (13 Sept. 1689) on the subject, or of the convocation of that year [cf. art. Pearse, Edward].
In 1693 South intervened anonymously in the Socinian controversy, with strong animus against Sherlock, his ‘Animadversions’ on Sherlock's ‘Vindication’ (1690) being ‘humbly offered to his admirers, and to himself the chief of them.’ He made galling references to Sherlock's career, ‘tainted with a conventicle’ at the outset; vehemently assailed his earlier writings as heterodox on the doctrine of atonement, and maintained his ‘new notion’ of the Trinity to be tritheistic; an opinion reiterated in his ‘Tritheism Charged’ (1695). The anonymity of these attacks was quite transparent. It is not so certain that South was the translator of ‘A Short History of Valentinus Gentilis the Tritheist’ (1696) from the Latin of Benedict Aretius; the dedication to the hierarchy is in his manner, and there is a reference to Gentilis in ‘Tritheism Charged.’ p. 47. South's position is in the main that of Wallis; but he chiefly devotes the brilliant resources of his learning and the amazing powers of his wit to the congenial task of demolishing Sherlock. At the same time, his ‘Tritheism Charged’ is worth reading for its philosophic acumen, apart from the immediate controversy. Public judgment on the controversy was not inaptly expressed in William Pittis's ballad, ‘The Battle Royal’ [cf. Burnet, Thomas, (1635?–1715)].
In later years South's health was much broken. Swift's correspondence with the Earl of Halifax shows that his death was counted on. He writes (13 Jan. 1709): ‘Pray, my lord, desire Dr. South to die about the fall of the leaf; for he has a prebend of Westminster … and a sinecure in the country … which my friends have often told me would fit me extremely.’ Halifax writes (6 Oct.): ‘Dr. South holds out still; but he cannot be immortal.’ He roused himself in 1710 to take part on the high church side in the affair of Henry Sacheverell [q. v.] On the death (20 May 1713) of Thomas Sprat [q. v.] the bishopric of Rochester and deanery of Westminster were offered to him. His refusal was graceful: ‘Such a chair would be too uneasy for an old infirm man to sit in.’ He died at Westminster on 8 July 1716, and was buried in the Abbey, near the grave of Busby, where he had wished to lie. His tomb bears his recumbent effigy, with an elaborate epitaph. An anonymous portrait of South belonged in 1866 to Henry Longueville Mansel [q. v.] Engravings by Vandergucht and R. White are prefixed to various editions of his ‘Sermons.’
South, a man of strong prejudices and warm attachments, was never a self-seeker, and, when he changed his attitude, followed what appeared to be the dictates of common-sense. His use of humour in the pulpit suggested to Tillotson a want of seriousness in his character. Yet no preacher was more direct in his dealing with the vices of the
