moralistn.

a1586 Sir P. Sidney Apol. Poetrie (1595) sig. D^v The Historian scarcely giueth leysure to the Moralist to say so much.

1612 R. Bolton Disc. State True Happinesse (ed. 2) 74 Those schooles of leaudnes and sinkes of all sinnes, as (to omit Diuines, Councels, Father, Moralists..) euen a Politician calls them.

a1639 H. Wotton Philos. Surv. Educ. in Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (1651) 321 Nature surely (if she be well studied) is the best Moralist.

1661 R. Boyle Some Considerations Style Script. 116 Too many of our Moralists write, as if they thought Virtue could be taught as easily..as Grammar.

1736 Bp. J. Butler Analogy of Relig. ii. v. 203 Heathen Moralists thought the present State to be a State of Punishment.

1770 O. Goldsmith Life Bolingbroke in Misc. Wks. (1895) 468/2 As a moralist..Lord Bolingbroke..seems to have done nothing; but as a political writer few can equal..him.

1821 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto III lxiv. 35 Soft Persian sentences, in lilac letters, From poets, or the moralists their betters.

1869 W. E. H. Lecky Hist. European Morals I. i. 2 The intuitive moralist..believes that the utilitarian theory is profoundly immoral.

1876 L. Stephen Hist. Eng. Thought 18th Cent. I. iii. iii. 125 Clarke, though an intuitive moralist, is by no means inclined to dispense with hell.

1876 L. Stephen Hist. Eng. Thought 18th Cent. II. ix. 2 Hobbes..represented the evil principle to moralists as well as to theologians.

1925 G. K. Chesterton Everlasting Man ii. ii. 216 The morality of most moralists, ancient and modern, has been one solid and polished cataract of platitudes flowing for ever and ever.

1993 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 12 Aug. 48/2 In early February 1964, Bernard Häring, the Redemptorist moralist, entered the refectory of the college of Sant' Alfonso on the via Merulana in Rome.

1594 J. Dickenson Arisbas Ep. Ded. sig. A ij^v To shield me..from the sowre censures of the ouer-curious Moralists of our age.

1745 H. Fielding True Patriot 26 Nov. 1/3 None but a musty Moralist..would have condemned it.

1801 J. Strutt Glig-gamena Angel-ðeod i. ii. 27 They [sc. the hunting clergy] were severely lashed by the poets and moralists.

1854 T. Woolner Let. 4 Oct. in G. S. Haight George Eliot Lett. (1954) II. 176 I will not..display the filthy contaminations of these hideous satyrs and smirking moralists—..stink pots of humanity.

1928 Observer 26 Feb. 17/2 Seventeen villagers of Lincolnshire have been fined for ‘rantanning’... Rantanning is the ‘rough music’ of kettle and pan, in which the rustic moralist conveys his sense of outraged propriety.

1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 31 Jan. 57/1 We resent, as the Victorians did not, being ‘got at’ by the social or religious moralist.

1992 J. Stern & M. Stern Encycl. Pop Culture 572/1 They form an easy, risk-free target whenever a sanctimonious moralist..or politician wants to vilify hedonism and greed.

1606 Bp. J. Hall Heauen vpon Earth iii. 21 The wisest & most resolute Moralist that euer was, lookt pale when he shold tast of his Hemlock.

1742 R. North & M. North Life F. North 292 Chief Justice Hales, a profound common Lawyer, and both Devotionair and Moralist.

1751 T. Gray Elegy xxi. 9 And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to dye.

1836 H. Smith Tin Trumpet I. 17 That man must be a sturdy moralist who does not love his own judgment better than the interest of his neighbours.

1874 H. R. Reynolds John the Baptist i. §6. 54 A certain man, good, virtuous..an uncompromising moralist, acquired great influence over the people.

1642 Sir T. Browne Religio Medici (new ed.) 114 Yet if we are directed only by our particular Natures, and regulate our inclinations by no higher rule than that of our reasons, we are but Moralists.

1649 H. Hammond Christians Obligations vi. 135 The Love (in the Moralist of vertue, but in the Christian) of God himself.

a1716 R. South Serm. Several Occasions (1744) VII. 286 How severely..do they judge of Men's Hearts? Such a Man is profane, another is carnal, and a meer Moralist.

1816 A. Stewart in Mem. (1822) 326 Moralists fear that salvation is degraded by connecting it with faith alone.

1866 Students' Guide Univ. Cambr. 177 (note) [He] obtained his Fellowship on the ground of his very high distinction as a Moralist, without having taken honours either in the Classical or Mathematical Tripos.