Many cannot give even a tolerable account
of the Catechism itself, how short and plain soever. This does often
tear my heart. The case is not much better in many who, having got into
orders, come for institution, and cannot make it appear that they have
read the Scriptures, or any one good book since they were ordained; so
that the small measure of knowledge upon which they get into holy
orders, not being improved, is in a way to be quite lost; and they think
it a great hardship if told they must know the Scriptures and the body
of divinity better before they can be trusted with the care of
souls."[140]
Archbishop Secker, who wrote at a later period, testifies to the same
state of religious petrification: "In this we cannot be mistaken, that
an open and professed disregard is become, through a variety of unhappy
causes, the distinguishing character of the present age; that this evil
is grown to a great height in the metropolis of the nation; is daily
spreading through every part of it; and, bad in itself as any can be,
must of necessity bring in others after it.
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