Badcock, Samuel

Badcock, Samuel an English theologian, born at South Molton, Devonshire in 1747, died at London in 1788. He was first a dissenting minister, but in 1787 took orders in the Church of England. He was a contributor to the London Review, Monthly Review, and several other periodicals. His review of Priestley's History of the Corruptions of Christianity (in Monthly Review, June and August, 1783) was generally regarded as the best refutation of Priestley's views. Priestley answered immediately ("A Reply to the Animadversions, etc, in the Monthly Review for June, 1783,"), and Badcock again replied by another article in the Monthly Reviewer (Sept. 1783). He also published in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1785, some memoirs of the Wesleys, charging them with Jacobitism, which John Wesley refuted. — Allibone, Dictionary of Authors, 1:98; Jones, Christ. Biography, s.v.; Wesley, Works, N.Y. ed. 7:256, 414.