Note 725 — Chapter VII

On the decline of ability in ecclesiastical literature, see note 38 in this chapter. In 1685, a complaint was made that secular professions were becoming more sought after than ecclesiastical ones. See England's Wants, sec. lvi. in Somers Tracts, vol. ix. p. 231, where the writer mournfully states, that in his time ‘physic and law, professions ever acknowledged in all nations to be inferior to divinity, are generally embraced by gentlemen, and sometimes by persons nobly descended, and preferred much above the divine's profession.’ This preference was, of course, most displayed by young men of intellect; and a large amount of energy being thus drawn off from the church, gave rise to that decay of spirit and of general power which has been already noticed; and which is also indicated by Coleridge, in his remarks on the ‘apologising theology’ which succeeded the Revolution. Coleridge's Lit. Remains, vol. iii. pp. 51, 52, 116, 117, 119. Compare Stephen's Essays on Ecclesiast. Biog. 2d edit. 1850, vol. ii. p. 66, on ‘this depression of theology;’ and Hare's Mission of the Comforter, 1850, p. 264, on the ‘intellectually feebler age.’ Evelyn, in 1691, laments the diminished energy then beginning to be observed among ‘young preachers.’ Evelyn's Diary, vol. iii. p. 309; and for another notice, in 1696, of this ‘dead and lifeless way of preaching,’ see Life of Cudworth, p. 35, in vol. i. of Cudworth's Intellect Syst.