Every such man, when he swears to be faithful and to bear true allegiance to King William, does, by necessary implication, abjure King James.

There may doubtless be among the servants of the State, and even among the ministers of the Church, some persons who have no sense of honour or religion, and who are ready to forswear themselves for lucre.

There may be others who have contracted the pernicious habit of quibbling away the most sacred obligations of morality, and who have convinced themselves that they can innocently make, with a mental reservation, a promise which it would be sinful to make without such a reservation.

Against these two classes of Jacobites it is true that the present test affords no security.

But will the new test, will any test, be more efficacious?
Will a person who has no conscience, or a person whose conscience can be set at rest by immoral sophistry, hesitate to repeat any phrase that you can dictate?
The former will kiss the book without any scruple at all.
The scruples of the latter will be very easily removed.