CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

  [ CHAPTER  1 ] - ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY ) - { PT.  7 } - Anthony Collins and Matthew Tindal denounced Christianity as priestcarft. William Whiston pronounced the miracles of the Bible to be big deceptions. Thomas woolston declared them to be allegories. Arianism and Socinianism were openly taught by Samuel Clarke and Joseph Priestly and became fashionable among the intellectual part of the community. Of the utter inability of the pulpit to stem the progress of all this flood of evil, one single fact will give us some idea. The celebrated lawyer William Blackstone had the curiosity early in the reign of George III to go from church to church and hear evry clergyman of note in London. He said that he did not hear a single sermon that had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero, and that it would have been impossible for him to know, based upon what he heard, whether the preacher were a follower of Confucius, of Mohammed, or of Christ! Sadly, e...

  [ CHAPTER  1 ] - ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY ) - { PT.  6 } - The curse of the Uniformity Act seemed to rest on the Church of England. The blight of ease and freedom from persecution seemed to rest upon the Dissenters. Natural theology, without a single distinctive doctrine of Christianity, cold morality, or barren orthodoxy, formed the regular teaching both in church and chapel. Sermons everywhere were little better than miserable moral essays utterly devoid of anything likely to awaken, convert, or save souls. Both groups seemed agreed on one point, and that was to let the devil alone and to do nothing for hearts and souls. The weighty truths for which John Hooper and Hugh Latimer had gone to the stake, and for which Richard Baxter and dozens of Puritans had gone to jail, seemed laid on the shelf and completely forgotten. When this was the state of things in churches and chapels, it can surprise no one to learn that the land was flooded which unbelief and ...