learer evidence, he would certainly have given
them;--and then what obstinate rogues must our Bishops be, to have
suffered these Hints to pass into a third edition, and yet not have
brought a bill into Parliament for a new set of Articles? I have not
heard that they have even the grace to intend it.

Ib. p. 88.

On this subject I will quote the just and striking observations of an
excellent modern writer. "In whatever village," says he, "the fanatics
get a footing, drunkenness and swearing,--sins which, being more
exposed to the eye of the world, would be ruinous to their great
pretensions to superior sanctity--will, perhaps, be found to decline;
but I am convinced, from personal observation, that every species of
fraud and falsehood--sins which are not so readily detected, but which
seem more closely connected with worldly advantage--will be found
invariably to increase." (Religion without Cant; by R. Fellowes, A.M.
of St. Mary's Hall, Oxford.)

In answer to this let me make a "very just observation," by some other
man of my opinion, to be hereafter quoted "from an excellent modern
writer;"--and it is this, that from the birth of Christ to the present
hour, no sect or body of men were zealous in the reformation of manners
in society, without having been charged with the same vices in the same
words. When I hate a man, and see nothing bad in him, what remains
possible but to accuse him of crimes which I cannot see, and which
cannot be disproved, because they cannot be proved? Surely, if Christian
charity did not preclude these charges, the shame of convicted parrotry
ought to prevent a man from repeating and republishing them. The very
same thoughts, almost the words, are to be found of the early
Christians; of the poor Quakers; of the Republicans; of the first
Reformers.--Why need I say this? Does not every one know, that a jovial
pot-companion can never believe a water-drinker not to be a sneaking
cheating knave who is afraid of his thoughts; that every libertine
swears that those who pretend to be chaste, either have their mistress
in secret, or far worse, and so on?

Ib. p. 89.

The same religious abstinence from all appearance of recreation on the
Lord's day; and the same neglect of the weightier matters of the moral
law, in the course of the week, &c.

This sentence thus smuggled in at the bottom of the chest ought not to
pass unnoticed; for the whole force of the former depend