The oath of allegiance, the Whigs said, was drawn in terms far too lax.

It might exclude from public employment a few honest Jacobites who were generally too dull to be mischievous; but it was altogether inefficient as a means of binding the supple and slippery consciences of cunning priests, who, while affecting to hold the Jesuits in abhorrence, were proficients in that immoral casuistry which was the worst part of Jesuitism.

Some grave divines had openly said, others had even dared to write, that they had sworn fealty to William in a sense altogether different from that in which they had sworn fealty to James.

To James they had plighted the entire faith which a loyal subject owes to a rightful sovereign; but, when they promised to bear true allegiance to William, they meant only that they would not, whilst he was able to hang them for rebelling or conspiring against him, run any risk of being hanged.

None could wonder that the precepts and example of the malecontent clergy should have corrupted the malecontent laity.