Adams Papers

15 Sunday.
[from the Diary of John Adams]

15 Sunday.

Charming Weather. A.M. staid at home reading the Independent Whig.1 Very often Shepherds that are hired, to take care of their Masters sheep, go about their own Concern’s and leave the flock to the Care of their Dog. So Byshops, who are appointed to oversee the flock of Christ, take the Fees themslves, but leave the Drudgery to their Dogs, alias i.e. curates and understrappers.

1[Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard,] The Independent Whig, originally a periodical publication but issued as a volume, London, 1721. There were numerous later enlarged editions, some bearing the subtitle “A Defence of Primitive Christianity.” Gordon and Trenchard attacked the high-church party in England and became still more influential as anticlerical and whig propagandists through their Cato’s Letters (London, 1724; 4 vols.), which was a popular book in America. JA owned several of their works. (Article on Gordon in DNB description begins Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, eds., The Dictionary of National Biography, New York and London, 1885–1900; 63 vols. plus supplements. description ends ; BM, Catalogue description begins The British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books, 1881–1900, Ann Arbor, 1946; 58 vols. Supplement, 1900–1905, Ann Arbor, 1950; 10 vols. description ends ; Josiah Quincy, Josiah Quincy, Jr. description begins Josiah Quincy, Memoir of Josiah Quincy, Junior, of Massachusetts: 1744–1775, 2d edn., ed. Eliza Susan Quincy, Boston, 1874. description ends , p. 289; Catalogue of JA’s Library description begins Catalogue of the John Adams Library in the Public Library of the City of Boston, Boston, 1917. description ends , p. 106, 247.)

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