eventually pronounced decisively against the oath itself, and indeed any form of asseveration or declaration on entering parliament (see his speeches in the House of Lords on 1 Aug. 1833, 26 June 1849, and 29 April 1853, Hansard, Parl. Debates, 3rd ser. xx. 226, cvi. 891, cxxvi. 772).
While deploring slavery, Whately thought gradual preferable to sudden emancipation. He discountenanced sabbatarianism (see his Thoughts on the Sabbath, London, 1830, 1832, 8vo), and approved of the legalisation of marriage with a deceased wife's sister and of the subsisting marriages of converted polygamists. From Dublin he watched with keen interest the course of events in Oxford. It was on his recommendation that Renn Dickson Hampden [q. v.] was appointed to the regius chair of divinity, and bitterly did he resent the part taken by Newman in the subsequent controversy. He did not decline to receive Newman on a flying visit to Oxford in September 1838; but the publication of ‘Tract xc’ completed the estrangement. It was not, however, until the appearance of Ward's ‘Ideal of a Christian Church’ that Whately took decisive action against the movement. He then in a strongly worded letter appealed to the vice-chancellor to vindicate the protestantism of the university (26 Oct. 1844). The form which the vindication assumed disappointed him, as he held that Ward's degradation was not, while his expulsion would have been, within the powers of convocation. He also regretted the defeat of the proposed censure of ‘Tract xc.’
The Gorham controversy elicited from Whately a charge, ‘Infant Baptism’ (London, 1850; 2nd ed. 1854, 8vo), in which he attempted to prove that the high view of baptism is unscriptural [see Gorham, George Cornelius].
On the part of Rome Whately dreaded overt action far less than secret propaganda. By the so-called papal aggression of 1850 he was almost unmoved. The Ecclesiastical Titles Act he deplored as an error of judgment, but deprecated the proposed exception of Ireland from its purview (see his charge, Protective Measures in behalf of the Established Church, London, 1851, 8vo). The Society for Protecting the Rights of Conscience which he founded in 1851 was merely intended to afford assistance to converts from catholicism to protestantism who were suffering under religious persecution. The support which in 1853 he gave to Lord Shaftesbury's petition for the registration and inspection of conventual establishments rested on broad grounds of public utility (see his speech in the House of Lords, 9 May 1853, Hansard, Parl. Debates, 3rd ser. cxxvi. 1286). On the definition of the Immaculate Conception he did indeed issue a charge, ‘Thoughts on the New Dogma of the Church of Rome’ (London, 1855, 8vo), but his main concern was to dissuade others from embarking in fruitless controversy. From the evangelical alliance he held aloof (see his Thoughts on the Evangelical Alliance, London, 1846, 12mo). To German rationalism he was as strongly opposed as to sacerdotalism and Calvinism (see Historic Certainties respecting the Early History of America, London, 1851, 8vo, an ingenious travesty of the higher criticism, in which he collaborated with William Fitzgerald [q. v.], and the Cautions for the Times, London, 1853, 8vo, for which, with Fitzgerald, he was also jointly responsible).
In 1854 Whately discharged a labour of love and piety by editing Copleston's ‘Remains’ (London, 8vo). In 1856 he concentrated the results of many years of study in an annotated edition of Bacon's ‘Essays’ (last ed. 1873). In 1859 he did a like office for Paley's ‘Moral Philosophy’ and ‘View of Christian Evidences’ (London, 8vo). His own ‘Lectures on some of the Scripture Parables’ also appeared in 1859 (London, 12mo). His ‘Miscellaneous Lectures and Reviews’ followed in 1861 (London, 8vo). A paralytic attack from which he suffered in 1856 proved to be symptomatic of a constitution thoroughly undermined. Gradual decay supervened, and, after a prolonged and painful illness, he died at the Palace, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin, on 1 Oct. 1863. His remains were interred in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
Whately married, on 18 July 1821, Elizabeth (d. 25 April 1860), third daughter of William Pope of Hillingdon Hall, Uxbridge, Middlesex, by whom he left (with female issue) a son, Edward William Whately, chancellor of St. Patrick's 1862–71, and rector of Staines, Middlesex, 1871–92.
Whately ignored metaphysics and minimised theology. In early life he was suspected of a leaning towards Sabellianism, but this was at most a fugitive phase. From the appendices to the ‘Discourse on Predestination’ it is plain that already in 1821 his views tended towards the agnosticism which was afterwards precisely formulated by Mansel. Transcendentalism and the higher criticism, which he did not understand, he was content to dismiss with a sneer. His cardinal principle was that of Chillingworth—‘the Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of protestants;’ and his exegesis was directed to determine the general tenor
