If one formed a judgment of the manner of Churchmen’s lives by their discourses, certainly one would take them for models of sobriety. But there is a great deal of difference between preaching and practising. This distinction is very solid, and daily experience confirms it. And if those gentlemen would do themselves justice, how many amongst them might say in particular,
Alas! how can I ever dare pretend,
From man this ancient error to remove,
Which they, ev’n to distraction, fondly love:
If I, who blame it, with such pain defend
Myself from this contagious malady,
This epidemic poison of the mind.
Weak reason, feeble thing, of which mankind
So boasts, this we can only build on thee,
Unjust continuing still, and false and vain,