Note 95 — Chapter XVI · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
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Complaint to this effect was made by orthodox writers. The Scotch Professor Halyburton, for instance, complains that in many sermons in his day “Heathen Morality has been substituted in the room of Gospel Holiness. And Ethicks by some have been preached instead of the Gospels of Christ.” Natural Religion Insufficient (Edinburgh), 1714, p. 25. Cp. pp. 23, 26–27, 59, etc. Bishop Burnet, in the Conclusion to his History of his Own Time, declares, “I must own that the main body of our clergy has always seemed dead and lifeless to me,” and ascribes much more zeal to Catholics and dissenters. (Ed. 1838, pp. 907–910.) ↑