Upon his return from his travels he was admitted minister of Saltoun, in which station he served five years in the most exemplary manner. He drew up a memorial, in which he took notice of the principal errors in the conduct of the Scottish bishops, which he observed not to be conformable to the primitive institution, and he sent a copy of it to several of them. This exposed him to their resentment; but to show he was not actuated by a spirit of ambition, he led a retired course of life for two years, which so endangered his health that he was obliged to abate his excessive application to study. In the year 1668 he was appointed professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow; and, according to the usual practice, he read his lectures in the Latin language. It was apparently at this period that he laid the chief foundation of that theological learning for which he became so distinguished. In 1669 he published his Modest and Free Conference between a Conformist and Nonconformist. He became acquainted with the duchess of Hamilton, who communicated to him all the papers belonging to her father and her uncle; upon which he drew up the Memoirs of the Dulces of Hamilton, afterwards printed at London, in folio, in the year 1677. The duke of Lauderdale, hearing that he was engaged in this work, invited him to London, and introduced him to Charles II. He returned to Scotland, and married Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the earl of Cassillis, a lady of great knowledge, and highly esteemed by the Presbyterians, to whose sentiments she was strongly inclined. As there was some disparity in their ages, that it might be sufficiently evident that the match was wholly owing to inclination, and not to avarice or ambition, the day before their marriage he delivered to the lady a deed, by which he renounced all pretensions to her fortune, which was very considerable, and must otherwise have fallen into his hands, she herself having no intention to secure it. His Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland was printed at Glasgow, in 8vo, in the year 1673. This was considered so material a service to the Government, that he was offered a bishopric, with a promise of the next vacant archbishopric; but he did not accept of it, because he could not approve of the measures of the court, the great aim of which he perceived to be the advancement of popery. The publication itself was one of those which the author could not afterwards recollect with much satisfaction.

His intimacy with the dukes of Hamilton and Lauderdale procured 1 him frequent messages from the king and the duke of York, who had conversations with him in.private. But Lauderdale, who was the most unprincipled man of the age, conceiving a resentment against him on account of the freedom with which he spoke to him, represented at last to the king that Dr Burnet was engaged in an opposition to his measures; and on his return to London he perceived that these suggestions had entirely deprived him of the king’s favour, though the duke of York treated him with greater civility than ever, and dissuaded him from going to Scotland. He accordingly resigned his professorship at Glasgow, and settled in London. About this time the living of Cripplegate being vacant, the dean and chapter of St Paul’s (in whose gift it was), hearing of his circumstances, and the hardships which he had undergone, made him an offer of the benefice; but, as he had been informed of their first intention of conferring it on Dr Fowler, he generously declined it. In 1675, at the recommendation of Lord Hollis, whom he had known in France as ambassador at that court, he was appointed preacher at the Rolls chapel, by Sir Harbottle Grimstone, master of the rolls, notwithstanding the opposition of the court; and he was soon afterwards chosen lecturer at St Clement’s, and became one of the most popular preachers in town. The first volume of his History of the Reformation of the Church of England was published in folio in 1681, the second in 1683, and the third in 1715. For this great work he received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. Of the first two volumes he published an abridgment in the year 1683.

In 1682, when the administration was changed in favour of the duke of York, being much resorted to by persons of all ranks and parties, in order to avoid returning visits, he built a laboratory, and for above a year pursued a course of chemical experiments. Not long after he refused a country living of £300 a year offered him by the carl of Essex on condition that he should reside in London. When the inquiry concerning the popish plot was on foot he was frequently sent for and consulted by the king, who offered him the bishopric of Chichester, then vacant, if he would engage in his interests; but he refused to accept it on these terms. He preached at the Rolls till 1684, when he was dismissed by order of the court.

On the accession of James II. to the throne, having obtained leave tc quit the kingdom, he first went to Paris, and lived in great retirement, till, contracting an acquaintance with Brigadier Stouppe, a Protestant gentleman in the French service, he made a tour with him into Italy. He met with an agreeable reception at Rome. Pope Innocent XI. hearing of his arrival, sent the captain of the Swiss guard to acquaint him he would give him a private audience in bed, to avoid the ceremony of kissing his holiness’s slipper; but Dr Burnet excused himself as well as he could. Here, with more zeal than prudence, he engaged in some religious disputes; and, on receiving an intimation from Prince Borghese, he found it necessary to withdraw from this stronghold of priestcraft, and pursued his travels through Switzerland and Germany. He afterwards came to Utrecht, with an intention to settle in some of the seven provinces. There he received an invitation from the. prince and princess of Orange (to whom their party in England had recommended him) to come to the Hague, and accepted the invitation. He was soon made acquainted with the secret of their councils, and advised the preparation of a fleet in Holland sufficient to support their designs and encourage their friends. His known share in the councils of the Prince of Orange, and the pamphlets which he sent over to England, excited against him the intensest enmity of James. A prosecution for high treason was commenced against him both in England and Scotland; but having received the intelligence before it was announced to the States he avoided the storm by petitioning for, and obtaining without any difficulty, a bill of naturalization, in order to his intended marriage with Mary Scott, a Dutch lady of considerable fortune.

Being now legally under the protection of Holland, he omitted no opportunity of supporting and promoting the design which the prince of Orange had formed of delivering Great Britain; and, having accompanied him in the capacity of chaplain, he was in the year 1689 advanced to the see of Salisbury. He declared for moderate measures with regard to the clergy who scrupled to take the oaths, and many were displeased with him for advocating the toleration of Nonconformists. “As my lord of Salisbury,” says the earl of Shaftesbury, “has done more than any man living for the good and honour of the Church of England and the Reformed religion, so he now suffers more than any man from the tongues and slander of those ungrateful churchmen; who may well call themselves by that single term of distinction, having no claim to that of Christianity or Protestant, since they have thrown off all the temper of the former, and all concern or interest with the latter.” The same noble writer has elsewhere mentioned him in the following terms of commendation :—“The bishop of Salisbury’s Exposition of the Articles is, no doubt, highly worthy of your study. None can better explain the sense of the church than one who is the greatest pillar of it since the first founders,—one who best explained and asserted the Reformation itself, was chiefly instrumental in saving it from Popery before and at the Revolution, and is now the truest example of laborious, primitive, pious, and learned episcopacy.”

In 1693, after the publication and condemnation of Blount’s anonymous pamphlet, King William and Queen Mary Conqτιerors (see Blount), an opportunity was taken by Burnet’s enemies to bring a pastoral letter of his before the House of Commons. After a warm discussion the letter was condemned to be burned by the common hangman.

In 1698 he lost his wife by the small-pox; and as he was almost immediately after appointed preceptor to the duke of Gloucester, of whose education he took great care, this employment, and the tender age of his children, induced him the same year to supply her loss by a marriage with Mrs Berkeley, a widow, who was eldest daughter of Sir Richard Blake. In 1699 he published his Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, which occasioned a charge against him in the Lower House of Convocation in the year 1701, but he was vindicated in the Upper House. His speech in the House of Lords in 1704 against the Bill to prevent occasional conformity was severely attacked. He formed a scheme for augmenting the small livings, which he pressed forward with such success, that an Act of Parliament was passed in the second year of Queen Anne, for the augmentation of the livings of the poor clergy. He died in 1715, and was interred in the church of St James’s, Clerkenwell, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Bishop Burnet’s History of his Own Time, consisting of two large volumes in folio, was not published till several years after the author’s death; the first volume appeared in 1724, and the second in 1734. An account of his life was added by his youngest son Sir Thomas Burnet, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. The History itself was not printed without mutilations; but after an interval of nearly a century, an edition containing all the passages which had formerly been suppressed, was published under the superintendence of the learned Dr Routh. (Oxford, 1823, 6 vols. 8vo.) This is a work of great and intrinsic value; without it our knowledge of the times would be exceedingly imperfect. His materials are not always very carefully digested, and the style is sometimes supposed to be too familiar; but these defects are abundantly compensated for by the copiousness of his information, the benevolence of his sentiments, and the earnestness of his manner. In general Burnet’s statements may be accepted with great confidence, his judgment is always sound and sober, and he possesses considerable skill in the delineation of character. The best editions of his two great works are— History of his Own Time, 6 vols., Oxford, 1833; History of the Ref ormation, 7 vols., bv N. Pocock, 1865.

Besides the works mentioned above the following are worthy of notice :— Some Passages of the Life and Death of John Earl of Rochester, Lond. 1680, 8vo; The Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale, Kt., sometime Lord Chief-Justice of his Majestie's Court of Kings Bench, Lond. 1682, 8vo; The History of the Rights of Princes in disposing of Ecclesiastical Benefices and Church Lands, Lond. 1682, 8vo; The Life of William Bedell, D.D., Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland, Lond. 1685, 8vo; Reflections on Mr Varillas ’ s a History of the Revolutions that have happened in Europe in matters of Religion,” and more particularly on his Ninth Book, that relates to England, Amst. 1686, 12mo; A Defence of the Reflections on the Ninth Book of the first volume of Mr Varillas ’ s “History of Heresies]’ being a Reply to his Answer, Amst. 1687, 12mo; A Continuation of Reflections on Mr Varillas ’ s “History of Heresies," particularly on that which relates to English Affairs in his Third and Fourth tomes, Amst. 1687, 12mo. He took a very conspicuous part in the continued controversy which was in his time maintained against the papists; and a complete catalogue of his polemical works would occupy no small space. The following translations deserve to be mentioned :— Utopia, written in Latin by Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England: translated into English, Lond. 1685, 8vo; A Relation of the Death of the Primitive Persecutors, written originally in Latin, by L. C. F. Lactantius: Englished by Gilbert Burnet, D.D., to which he hath made a large preface concerning Persecution, Amst. 1687, 12mo.

BURNET, Thomas (1635-1715), best known as the author of The Sacred Theory of the Earth, was born at Croft in Yorkshire about the year 1635, but is supposed to have been descended of a Scottish family. He was educated at the free school of Northallerton, and in June 1651 was admitted a pensioner of Clare Hall at Cambridge, under the tuition of Tillotson, who continued to remember him with kindness. In the year 1654 he removed to Christ’s College, on the election of Dr Cudworth to the mastership, and there he obtained a fellowship in the year 1657. In 1661 he became senior proctor of the university. He was successively domestic tutor to Charles duke of Bolton, and to James earl of Ossory, afterwards duke of Ormond, grandson to the first duke; and by the interest of the latter nobleman he was chosen master of the Charterhouse in 1685. Among the electors some of the bishops opposed him on account of his wearing a lay habit; but the duke was satisfied that he possessed the more essential qualifications of a life and conversation suitable to his clerical character. After this appointment he took the degree of D.D. In his capacity of master he made a noble stand against the illegal attempts to admit Andrew Popham as a pensioner of the house, strenuously opposing an order of the 26th of December 1686, addressed by James II. to the governors dispensing with the statutes for the occasion.

Dr Burnet published his Telluris Theoria Sacra, or Sacred Theory of the Earth, at London in 1681. This work, containing a fanciful theory of the earth’s structure, attracted an unusual share of public attention, and he was afterwards encouraged to issue an English translation, which was printed in folio, 1684-1689. Addison commended the author in a Latin ode, but his theory was attacked by Dr Keill, Mr Whiston, and Mr Warren, to all of whom he returned answers. His reputation obtained for him an introduction at court by Archbishop Tillotson, whom he succeeded as clerk of the closet to King William. He seemed already to be on the direct road to much higher preferment, when he suddenly marred his prospects by the publication, in 1692, of a work entitled Archao- logioe Philosophicae : sive Doctrina antiqua de Rerum Originibus, in which lie treated the Mosaic account of the fall of man as an allegory. The method of treatment excited a great clamour against him; and the king was obliged to remove him from his office at court. Ot this book, an English translation was executed by Mr Foxton, Lond. 1729, 8vo. Dr Burnet published several other minor works before his death, which took place at the Charter-house on the 27tl∣ September 1715. Two posthumous works were published several years after his death— De Fide et Officiis Christianorum, 1723, anà De Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium Tractatus, 1723; in which he maintained the doctrine of a middle state, the millennium, and the limited duration of future punishment. A Life of Dr Burnet by Heathcote appeared in 1759.