Cornwall, the rectory of Shorbrook, Devon, and the offices of archdeacon and treasurer of Exeter. He was a diligent bishop in his diocese, and he was also instrumental in the institution of charity schools in Exeter. He lived to see the establishment of two such schools for boys and two for girls, of fifty pupils each. Blackall was consecrated a bishop at Lambeth on 8 February, 1708 by the Bishop of London. By a strange twist of fate, Sir William Dawes was on the same date consecrated a bishop at nearby Westminster by the Bishop of Winchester. Dawes later edited and published a posthumous two-volume edition of Blackall's sermons. Public life and works Blackall came to public prominence in 1699 when he engaged in a controversy with the Irish deist and pamphleteer John Toland. In his Life of John Milton (1699), Toland had disputed Charles I's authorship of Eikon Basilike. In a brief aside Toland remarked that if such a recent deception could remain undiscovered, it was not surprising that the dubious authorship of some ancient Christian writings had likewise gone undetected. Blackall understood that Toland had slyly insinuated that parts of the New Testament were forgeries. In a sermon before the House of Commons on 30 January 1699, Blackall called on the Commons to act against this denial of the authenticity of the revelation of God, which if left unchecked would undermine public morality as well as Christian doctrine. Toland replied with Amyntor, or, A Defence of Milton's Life (1699), which attacked Blackall in a highly personal manner and accused him of theological ignorance. Toland disingenuously claimed he had disputed the authenticity not of the New Testament, but of 'spurious' apocryphal Christian works, of which he provided an extensive catalogue. Blackall's response, Mr Blackall's Reasons for not Replying to a Book Lately Published Entitled Amyntor (1699), ably demonstrated that Toland's words should most naturally have been taken to have referred to the New Testament, but Blackall nevertheless acknowledged Toland's apparent retraction. Blackall's altercation with Toland had brought him to prominence as a defender of revealed religion against the attacks of the deists. Consequently, he was chosen to deliver the Boyle Lectures in 1700. These consisted of seven sermons, which he preached at St Paul's Cathedral, on the theme 'The sufficiency of a standing revelation'. Ten years after his exchange with Toland, Blackall found himself embroiled in controversy again, this