XVII

morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables , even in imagination (though the attempt is often made in practice) without breaking and mutually destroying them both. > > “I said the attempt is often made; and so it is;⁠⸺⁠there being nothing more common than to see a man who has no sense at all of religion, and indeed has so much honesty as to pretend to none, who would take it as the bitterest affront, should you but hint at a suspicion of his moral character,⁠⸺⁠or imagine he was not conscientiously just and scrupulous to the uttermost mite. > > “When there is some appearance that it is so,⁠—though one is unwilling even to suspect the appearance of so amiable a virtue as moral honesty, yet were we to look into the grounds of it, in the present case, I am persuaded we should find little reason to envy such a one the honour of his motive. > > “Let him declaim as pompously as he chooses upon the subject, it will be found to rest upon no better foundation than either his interest, his pride, his ease, or some such little and changeable passion as will give us but small dependence upon his actions in matters of great distress. > > “I will illustrate this by an example. > > “I know the banker I deal with, or the physician I usually call in”⁠—[There is no need, cried Dr. Slop (waking), to call in any physician in this case]⁠⸺“to be neither of them men of much religion: I hear them make a jest of it every day, and treat all its sanctions with so much scorn,