The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature To which are added two brief dissertations: I. On personal identity. II. On the nature of virtue.

THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, TO THE Constitution and Course of Nature.

TO WHICH ARE ADDED TWO BRIEF DISSERTATIONS: I. ON PERSONAL IDENTITY.--II. ON THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.

By Joseph Butler, D.C.L.

Ejus [Analogiæ] hæc vis est, ut id quod dubium est ad aliquid simile, de quo non quæritur referat ut incerta certis probet.--QUINTIL. l. i. c. 6.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, CONSPECTUS, AND AMPLE INDEX, BY HOWARD MALCOM, D.D. PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY, LEWISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.

Seventeenth Edition. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1873.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Contents.

Page

Editor’S Introduction 5

” Preface 19

” Conspectus 21

Author’S Advertisement 66

” Introduction 67

Part I.

Of Natural Religion.

CHAP. I.--A Future Life 77

CHAP. II.--The Government of God by Rewards and Punishments 95

CHAP. III.--The Moral Government of God 105

CHAP. IV.--Probation, as implying Trial, Difficulties, and Danger 128

CHAP. V.--Probation, as intended for Moral Discipline and Improvement 136

CHAP. VI.--The Opinion of Necessity, considered as influencing Practice 157

CHAP. VII.--The Government of God, considered as a Scheme or Constitution, imperfectly comprehended 171

Conclusion 180

Part II.

Of Revealed Religion.

CHAP. I.--The Importance of Christianity 186

CHAP. II.--The supposed Presumption against a Revelation, considered as miraculous 202

CHAP. III.--Our Incapacity of judging, what were to be expected in a Revelation; and the Credibility, from Analogy, that it must contain things appearing liable to Objections 209

CHAP. IV.--Christianity, considered as a Scheme or Constitution, imperfectly comprehended 223

CHAP. V.--The Particular System of Christianity; the Appointment of a Mediator, and the Redemption of the World by him 230

CHAP. VI.--Want of Universality in Revelation; and of the supposed Deficiency in the Proof of it 247

CHAP. VII.--The Particular Evidence for Christianity 263

CHAP. VIII.--Objections against arguing from the Analogy of Nature to Religion 296

Conclusion 306

Dissertations.

DISSERTATION I.--Personal Identity 317

DISSERTATION II.--The Nature of Virtue 324

Index To Part I 333

Index To Part II 343

Editor’s Introduction

JOSEPH BUTLER was born at Wantage, England, May 18th, 1692, the youngest of eight children. The biographies of that day were few and meagre; and in few cases is this so much to be regretted as in Butler’s. It would have been both interesting and profitable to trace the development and occupations of one of the mightiest of human minds. But no cotemporary gathered up the incidents of his life, and now all efforts to elicit them have been without success.

His father was a prosperous dry-goods merchant, who, at the time of his son’s birth, had retired from business with a competency, and resided in a suburban mansion called “The Priory,” still in existence.

Being a non-conformist, he educated Joseph at a “dissenting” academy at Gloucester, under SAMUEL JONES, a gentleman of great ability, and a skilful instructor, who raised up some of the greatest men of their day.[1]

It was while a member of this academy, and about the age of twenty-one, that Butler disclosed to the world his wonderful power of abstract reasoning, in his famous correspondence with Samuel Clarke, in relation to that eminent author’s “_Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God_.” This correspondence is now generally inserted at the end of that work.

Mr. Butler having deliberately adopted Episcopal views, and resolved to unite himself with the Established Church, his father, with praiseworthy liberality, sent him to Oxford, where he entered Oriel College, March, 1714. Of his college life there is no account; nor of the time and place of his ordination. He removed to London in 1718, on receiving the appointment of “Preacher at the Rolls.” His famous Fifteen Sermons were preached in that chapel, and published before resigning the place, with a dedication to Sir Joseph Jekyl, “as a parting mark of gratitude for the favors received during his connection with that learned society.”

One of Butler’s warmest college friends was Edward Talbot second son of a clergyman who afterwards became Bishop of Durham. This admirable young man died of smallpox; in his last hours recommending Butler to his father’s patronage; and scarcely had that gentleman attained the see of Durham, before he gave Mr. B. the living of Haughton, from whence he transferred him, in 1725, to the richer benefice of Stanhope.

On receiving this honorable and lucrative appointment, he resigned the Lectureship at the Rolls, and in the autumn of 1726 retired to his beautiful residence at Stanhope. Here, without a family to occupy his time, he devoted himself to his great work, the Analogy: using horseback exercise, seeing little company, living abstemiously and caring for his flock.

Seven years thus rolled away; when to draw him from what seemed to his friends too great retirement and application, Lord-Chancellor Talbot made him his chaplain, and afterwards, in 1736, gave him a prebend’s stall in Rochester. In 1736, Butler being now forty-four, Caroline, consort of George II., appointed him “Clerk of the Closet,” an office which merely required his attendance at the Queen’s apartments every evening, from seven to nine.

Being now in London, convenient to the press, and enjoying both leisure and competency, he published his immortal ANALOGY--the cherished work of his life. The Queen was delighted with the book, and made herself master of its glorious array of reasoning. But she died the same year, and he lost not only a patroness, but a friend. He returned to his benefice at Stanhope, the income of which had been held during his residence in London.

On her death-bed, the Queen had urged her husband to promote her honored chaplain to a bishopric; and next year, the see of Norwich becoming vacant, the Bishop of Bristol was translated to it, and the see of Bristol given to Butler. Bristol was the poorest bishopric in England, its emoluments being but $2,000 per annum; less than those of the rectorship of Stanhope. Butler distinctly disclosed his disappointment in his letter to the minister Walpole, accepting the position; and declared that he did not think it “very suitable to the condition of his fortune, nor answerable to the recommendation with which he was honored.” The king was not displeased at this candor, and in 1740 improved his income by giving him, in addition to his bishopric, the profitable and influential office of Dean of St. Paul’s. Butler, who had retained the living of Stanhope along with his bishopric, now resigned that rectorship. “The rich revenues,” says Professor Fitzgerald, “of the Deanery of St. Paul, enabled him to gratify his taste at Bristol.” He expended about $25,000 in improving and beautifying the episcopal residence and gardens. He fostered useful charities, and employed his wealth for others rather than for himself.

In 1750, upon the death of Dr. Edward Chandler, Bishop of Durham, Butler was promoted to that see, the most honorable and lucrative in England. He had before been offered the Primacy, on the death of Archbishop Potter, but declined it, with the remark that “it was too late for him to try to support a falling church.” On assuming his diocese at Durham, Butler delivered and published his famous Charge to the Clergy, upon “The Use and Importance of External Religion.” He was at once assailed vigorously, in pamphlets and papers, by Archdeacon Blackburn, the Rev. T. Lindsay, and others, on the charge of Popery; an imputation which is still sometimes cast upon him, and which finds some slender support in his setting up a marble cross over the communion-table at Bristol. That he never was a Papist, is now so evident, that we can account for the imputation only by the strong jealousy of the Romish Church then prevalent.

Butler now became still more munificent. His private charities were exceedingly generous, and his public ones seemed sometimes to border on extravagance. He gave $2,000 a year to the county hospital, and often gave away thousands of dollars at a time. But though quite lavish in buildings and ornaments, as well as in benevolence, he was remarkably frugal in his personal expenses. It is said of him, by Rev. John Newton, that on one occasion, when a distinguished visitor dined with him by appointment, the provision consisted of a single joint of meat, and a pudding. The bishop remarked to his guest on that occasion, that he “had long been disgusted with the fashionable expense of time and money in entertainments, and was determined that it should receive no countenance from his example.”

Of his amusements we know little except that he took much horseback exercise, and often employed his secretary, Mr. Emms, to play for him on the organ.

Butler held the see of Durham less than two years. Symptoms of general physical decay betrayed themselves about the time of his promotion, and in spite of all that skill and affection could prompt, he sunk to rest June 16th, 1752, aged sixty. He was never married.

A considerable number of his sermons and charges have been printed, but are too philosophical to be generally read. His great work is the Analogy, published in 1736, and from that day read and admired by every highly-cultivated mind. He was induced to write by a state of things very remarkable in the history of religion. Debauchery and infidelity were almost universal, not in any one class of society but in all. England had reached the culminating point of irreligion, and the firm re-establishment of Episcopacy had as yet done nothing to mend the nation’s morals. Piety was deemed a mark of ignorance and vulgarity, and multitudes of those who professed it were persecuted to dungeons and death.

Infidel writers, warmed into life by court corruption, became more numerous and audacious than ever before. Their methods of attacking Christianity were various; but the most successful then, as always, was to impugn certain doctrines and declarations of the Sacred Scriptures, as irrational, and hence reject the whole. They generally admitted the Being and perfection of God, and extolled the sufficiency of natural religion; but denied any revelation, or any necessity for one. The verdict of the world was that the Bible is not authentic, that man is not accountable, nor even probably immortal, that God neither rewards nor punishes, and that present indulgence, as far as our nature admits, is both wise and safe.

Bishop Downam,[2] one of the most learned of the clergy, in the early part of the seventeenth century writes thus: “In these times, if a man do but labor to keep a good conscience, though he meddle not with matters of state, if he make conscience of swearing, sanctify the Sabbath, frequent sermons, or abstain from the common corruptions of the times, he shall straightway be condemned for a puritan, and be less favored than either a carnal gospeller, or a close Papist.”

It was considered settled, especially in polite circles, that Christianity, after so long a prevalence, had been found out to be an imposture. The clergy, as a body, did nothing to dispel this moral gloom, but rather increased it by their violent and scandalous conduct. In the sad language of Bishop Warburton, “Religion had lost its hold on the minds of the people.” He adds with great point, “Though a _rule of right_ may direct the philosopher to a principle of action; and the _point of honor_ may keep up the thing called manners, among gentlemen: yet nothing but _religion_ can ever fix a sober standard of behavior among the common people.” Even the universities were on the side of irreligion; for professorships, as well as pulpits, were given to men, not for positive worth and fitness, but for possessing qualities then most in vogue with those who held the appointing power. Such were the trying times which had driven our pilgrim fathers to seek a home amid the wilds of an unexplored continent, and to face the dangers of sea and savage.

It must ever be regarded as among the highest instances of God’s bringing good out of evil, that this outrageous rampancy of infidelity brought out a host of champions for the truth of His word; who boldly met the odium of discipleship, and waged battle in such style that the Deistical controversy was settled forever. Never was a dispute more determined on both sides, and never was victory more complete. Literary infidelity not only recoiled, but was routed; and can never again prevail. Henceforth, no _scholar_ will ever treat the evidences of Christianity as a subject of ridicule or contempt.

When we contrast the stupendous learning, and powerful logic, of the Christian writers of that century, with the superficial and almost contemptible productions of the writers against whom they contended, we are tempted to wonder why such power should be requisite to overthrow such weakness. But we must remember, that frail logic and shallow considerations, will persuade men to indulge their vices; while the soundest reasonings and the most impressive inducements, with difficulty lead them to self-restraint and true holiness.

The infidel writers of that day have sunk into such oblivion that their works are now seldom found but in great libraries; and even well-educated persons scarcely know more of them than their names. Yet so perfectly did their principles accord with the temper of the times and the universal depravity of the carnal heart, that they enjoyed the highest popularity with all classes. Forever honored be the names of that noble band, who, in face of such odds, established the authority of the Bible, and left the advocates of atheism and immorality without a lurking-place.[3] In this noble cohort Butler stands conspicuous: and to him, I think, more than to all the others, is to be attributed the sudden and total overthrow of infidelity, when it was in its glory.

As a metaphysician, few have equalled him. What he added to the science, has ever since remained a part of it, which can be said of scarcely another. He advanced more that was new, fortified old positions more ably, and applied speculation to religion more usefully than any before him. Our language furnishes no profounder thinking. Merely to understand him is an honorable distinction, and requires no small previous training of the power of attention. As a polemic, he is keen, sagacious, candid, patient, persevering, calm, inventive, and profound: every page indicates that repose of mind, which belongs only to true greatness, combined with a full knowledge of the subject. So far as I am able to judge, he never presses a consideration beyond its just limits, and seldom introduces an illustration which has not the force of an argument. Fallacies he seems to abolish at a touch.

The Analogy employed much of his life. It was begun in his twentieth year, but was not published till he was forty-five. Such a mode of writing never makes large books, for the matter, constantly revised, becomes constantly condensed. The Analogy is so condensed, as that to make a satisfactory synopsis is scarcely practicable. Hence, though my Conspectus and notes have aided my pupils to understand and remember the argument, they do not in any measure obviate the necessity of studying the book itself. If they do not increase the number of those who shall studiously peruse the book itself, my aim and expectations will be disappointed.

To this work no reply has ever been attempted! Extensive as is its diffusion, and great as is its acknowledged influence, infidelity has had the highest inducements to attempt to set it aside. Written for a present purpose, and most signally accomplishing it, it is yet so written as to endure, in full value, through all coming time. It is undoubtedly “the most original and the most profound work extant, in any language, on the philosophy of religion,”[4] “the most argumentative and philosophical defence of Christianity ever submitted to the world.”[5]

Writers in defence of Christianity had, before Butler, amply discussed the several departments of evidences; but still there remained objections. The structure of the globe, the course of nature, the organization of animals, &c. were affirmed to contradict revelation. Its doctrines and duties, moreover, were pronounced inconsistent with sound reason. Butler repeats none of the old arguments, but confines himself to the showing that the declarations of revelation are in perfect harmony with facts seen daily in the world, and which all admit. That the world might not have been ordered and governed otherwise, he does not choose to dispute. Taking things as they are, and closely studying the connection between one thing and another, we ought to inquire what course of action on our part, will conform to the needs of such a nature and such circumstances. Our bodies are constructed of parts, all adapted to each other, and also to one general end. So too, our souls. And the two together have relations and adaptations, which may, to some extent at least, indicate what is designed to be the _general_ end of our existence. If Christianity befits these several parts of our mixed nature and their obvious uses, then there is nothing incongruous between the two; and no objections against Christianity can be drawn from the course of nature. On the contrary, all seems to be governed as the gospel declares it is, and shows that the Author of man and the Author of the Bible is the same. This is still more impressive when we consider that we have a _moral faculty_; for it is the very object and business of this faculty to deal with right and wrong, good and evil; the facts and magnitudes of which are obvious in the course of nature. If Christianity does, in an especial manner, _befit_ this faculty, if it is adapted to promote our general rectitude and happiness, and if it contains no principle which is not discernible in the government of the visible world, then there is no discrepancy between Christianity and Providence.

This is Butler’s position. He confines himself to proving such an analogy between revelation and the daily course of things, as that nothing known in the universe can be offered in disproof of Christianity. The mode of warfare was new. Without professing to prove Christianity to be true, he demonstrates that it cannot be proved to be false; and that if it be even probable, the rejection of it is a gross folly and a tremendous hazard. Every objection against it he proves to be equally forcible against facts which constantly occur, and which all admit, though none profess to understand. Thus leaving the ramparts of the church to be guarded by the mighty men who had valiantly maintained its defence, he quietly walked out into the camp of the enemy, and spiked every gun!

It has been said that the whole argument of the “Analogy” seems to be built on Ecclesiasticus xlii. 24: “All things are double, one against the other, and God hath made nothing imperfect.” If it be so, it involves no disparagement to have received thus the seminal idea of this immortal work. Who else has so gloriously discerned and expanded the profound philosophy of the son of Sirac? Others have uttered sentiments which seem to involve the whole exposition of Butler. Origen affirms that “he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded from Him who is the Author of nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it, as are found in nature.” Shall we assign to Origen the whole credit of the “Analogy”? As well might we bestow all our admiration for the delightful papers of Addison, in the Spectator, to the classical authors from whom he selected appropriate mottoes! By such a rule, the entire merit of this most Christian work of Butler should be attributed to the pagan Quintilian, from whom he derives the motto which so appropriately graces his title-page.

A rapid sketch of the outline of the argument will aid the student at his outset. He begins by taking for granted the existence of an intelligent Author and Governor of the universe. Then, from the conditions and changes observed in the visible world, he argues the folly of objecting to revelation on account of doctrines which do but declare the same general laws and the same principles of government. That there is this harmony, he proves; and hence the probability that the same sort of government will prevail hereafter, which prevails now. He demonstrates that man is under exactly such a probation in this world, and as to this world, as revelation affirms him to be under, as to the next; and that embarrassments produced by the doctrine of necessity, involve nature no less than religion. He then evinces the need that man should be placed in a state of training and trial, if he is ever to be qualified for better conditions; and that this world, as now governed, is exactly adapted to give that training, and to produce such a character as will insure happiness under any possible contingencies. This is the argument of Part I.

Proceeding to examine Christianity, he discusses its importance, its proofs, the unavoidableness of its containing strange things, the absurdity of expecting fully to comprehend its statements, and the abundance of its evidence for candid minds, though they are not, and ought not to be, irresistible. He answers not only the objections to Christianity, but the objections against its proofs; which he shows are very different things. Though he keeps rigidly to the refutation of objections, and nowhere meddles with the direct evidence of Christianity, yet, by removing every objection, he does in fact confirm its claims. This clearing away of objections, _after_ the usual proofs are presented, crowns and completes the evidence. Thus the ultimate result of a study of his book is not only negative but positive; and such has been its effect on every candid and competent student.

We should remember that we have no right to require the removal of objections, and that therefore the whole of Butler’s work is in fact supererogatory; a concession and kindness to such as have doubts, either honest or captious. Our only rightful demand of Christianity is for _credentials_. It presents these in its nature, its miracles, its prophecies, its propagation, its influence, and its success. If these are competent, we should bow to its teachings. To suppose that we are capable of judging of the _propriety_ of all God’s law, or even to understand his reasons for it, if they were disclosed, is absurd.

It is true we naturally presume that a revelation in words, and a revelation by natural objects and the visible order of things, would coincide; but to find out the fact or the extent of such coincidence, is not our first business. We are to weigh the _testimony_ in favor of religion, embrace it, if sufficient, and attribute the obscurity of any part, to our present want of capacity. The solution of difficulties serves to _confirm_ our faith in Christianity, but has no place in our _ground of reception_: and we have no right to wait for such solution, however painful and embarrassing may be the difficulties.

Another, and perhaps even more important, use of the “Analogy,” is to dissipate the prejudices and objections to Christianity which prevent a candid study of its evidences. These prepossess and poison the mind, and obstruct or abate the force of the best arguments. Few, if any, after a careful examination of the positive evidences of Christianity, conclude them to be inadequate. But many are they, who having heard objections which their scanty learning does not enable them to answer, and their no less scanty interest in the subject does not induce them to examine, or which their inclinations lead them to cherish, cast it all aside. In this way they relieve themselves from the labor of investigation, as well as their compunctions of conscience; while they indulge both their love of sin and pride of singularity.

An instance of the use of this book to such a mind, we have in the case of Chalmers. He had read, when a young man, several infidel productions. Their semblance of logic and learning, and supercilious confidence of style, disposed him to regard all religion as mere superstition. His mind was poisoned. Accustomed as he had been to the positive and precise reasonings of mathematics, he could not find similar proofs for Christianity. But he was induced, by some friends, to study Butler’s Analogy. This, as he expresses it, took Christianity “out of the class of unlikelihoods.” It brought him to the investigation, as if the evidence was neither plus nor minus. He examined the evidences as he would have done a declaration that Cicero weighed just one hundred and fifty pounds; open to the smallest proof or presumption on the positive side of the question. Delivered from prejudice, not only against Christianity but against its proofs, he soon saw the madness of deism, and immovably accepted the word of God, though he did not, at that time, feel its transforming power on his own heart. Long afterwards he writes, “I cannot render sufficient homage to the argument, which first, addressing itself to the _subject-matter_ of Christianity, relieves it of all disproof, and pronounces it worthy of a trial; and then, addressing itself to the evidence of Christianity, relieves it of all objections, and makes good, to that evidence, all the entireness and efficiency which natively belong to it.” Years afterwards he said, “Butler made me a Christian.” That it did far more for him than to effect his change of sentiment, that it continued to be a light in his firmament, is touchingly told in the Preface of his Bridgewater Treatise, where he says, “I have derived greater aid from the views and reasonings of Butler, than I have been able to find, besides, in the whole range of our extant authorship.”

To the sincere believer in the word of God the study of Butler is of great use. Doubts are among Satan’s tried weapons, and often haunt the holiest, especially if of a contemplative turn. They see goodness oppressed, and vice rampant; the world ruled by wicked men, and truth making its way with difficulty. Their hearts are traitorous, their surroundings full of temptation, and the direct evidence of Christianity they may never have studied. To such the analogical argument comes with full power, meets a candid examination, and prevails.

To no Christian is this book so useful as the minister. He is constantly confronted by the difficulties which Butler so triumphantly handles. Here he is furnished, not only with a shield to protect his own mind from subtle darts, but a sword to demolish the cavil, and defend the system of which he is a public teacher.

To _all_ persons this book is of great value. We arrive at certainty in but few of our decisions, and are often obliged, even in matters of great moment, to act on probability. Thus we employ precautions when an evil is not certain to occur. If the evil would be very serious, we adopt the precaution, when there is but little probability, or perhaps a bare possibility, of its occurrence. Now, Butler has shown that if the proofs of revelation were weak, nay, if it had absolutely no proof, nay further, if on fair examination there appeared not even a probability of its truth, still there would remain a _possibility_, and this alone, considering the tremendous issues at stake, should make every man a Christian. This argument cannot be applied to Mahometanism or any other religion, because against those much may be advanced as _disproof_. Our author, having shown the utter absence of disproof, shuts us up to the reception of Christianity, were its truth barely possible.

There have not been wanting persons to disparage the “Analogy,” because it affords, as they say, no _direct_ proof of revelation. As well might we demand a discussion of chemistry in a work on astronomy. Scores of writers _prove_ Christianity, and here we have one to relieve us from the difficulties which beset it, and objections which still remain. There is an aspect in which the Analogy may be said to contribute the best of proof. What can go further towards establishing a point, than to demonstrate that there is no proof of the contrary? What can show the fallacy of a set of objections, more than to prove that they might be urged with no less force against the obvious course of nature? This use of analogy is conformable to the severest logic, and though offering no pretence of positive argument, goes far towards establishing full conviction. “The probabilities,” says STEWART, “resulting from a concurrence of different analogies, may rise so high as to produce an effect on the belief scarcely distinguishable from moral certainty.”

When it is considered that Butler’s argument is wholly in addition to the cumulative mass of direct and almost irresistible evidence, and removes even the objections which attend the subject, we see the rejection of Christianity to be inexpressibly rash and absurd. We see the skeptic condemned at his own bar, for acting in the most momentous of all possible concerns, in a manner the very opposite of that which he calls sensible and prudent in his ordinary affairs. The “Analogy” establishes, beyond cavil, strong _presumptions_ that Christianity is true, aside from all inspection of its proofs. The man, therefore, who really understands this book, and refuses to be a Christian, is led by his lusts and not his reason.

Some admirers of this book have lamented as a defect, its want of evangelical tincture, and its exclusive reference to natural things. To me, this is a prime recommendation. Were it otherwise, the reasoning would be in a circle. The very structure of the argument demands that it should avoid quotations from the Bible.

It must be admitted, however, that some expressions, taken just as they stand, without qualification by the current of the argument, tend to lead astray. For instance, “There is nothing in the human mind contrary to virtue.” “Men’s happiness and virtue are left to themselves.” “Religion requires nothing which we are not well able to perform.” “Our repentance is accepted, to eternal life.” “Our relations to God are made known by reason.” Such expressions are not to be taken alone, but as explained by the general drift of sentiment and doctrine. No one can be familiar with his works, without finding the fullest evidence that Christianity was to Butler infinitely more than a creed or a ritual. Nor should we forget that such expressions are not to be interpreted by the tenor of the “Analogy” only, but by that of his whole ‘Works.’

Even if it be judged that he everywhere fails to express himself in such phrase as we usually call evangelical, it should be remembered that he was a Church-of-England man, at a time when there was a powerful reaction against the evangelism of the Puritans, and when a real lack of emotional piety was general in his church.

That he did not enjoy in his last illness, which extended over a long period, that sustaining sense of the love of Christ which hearty Christians generally feel, is certain. A friend, trying to relieve his depression, reminded him of his excellent life, and especially his wide liberalities. He immediately replied, “l am but a steward! All is His, intrusted to me, to promote his glory and the good of mankind; how can I know that I have not abused the trust? I reflect on all these things, and they fill my soul with terror by the feeling of responsibility they awaken.”

On another occasion, his chaplain sought to soothe his troubled spirit by referring to the extensive influence of his _Analogy_ in reclaiming skeptics. His reply was, “I _began_ the Analogy with a view to the glory of God; but as I proceeded, visions of the fame it might bring me mingled themselves with my motives, and all was polluted and made sinful! The book may be a blessing to others, but it weighs like lead on my soul.” “Admit all this,” tenderly replied the chaplain; “yet has not Jesus said, ‘Whosoever cometh unto me shall in no wise be cast out’?” Instantly the Bishop raised himself in the bed, exclaiming, “How wonderful that the force of this passage never struck me before! ‘Whosoever,’--_all_, ALL! ‘In no wise,’--no amount of sin can prevent acceptance! Christ’s righteousness will hide the iniquities of _all_ who accept his offer of mercy!”

From that time, for weeks, Butler spoke to all who approached him, of a _full_ and _free_ salvation. He died triumphantly repeating this passage.

If all that is said of the lack of evangelical sentiment in Butler or his book be conceded, it certainly cannot impair either the value of the analogical argument, or the force of our author’s use of it.

Various circumstances conspire to make the study of “The Analogy” difficult. The nature of the reasoning--the conciseness, and often obscurity of the style--the dislocation of parts by frequent digressions--the arrest of a close course of reasoning to answer objections--and the abstruseness of the subject itself--combine to make the full comprehension of its import difficult. Mackintosh says, “No thinker so great, was ever so bad a writer.” But this, like some other objections of Sir James, is stated too strongly. The language is good, sinewy Saxon, and will endure when much that is now called fine writing, will seem grotesque. Still it is possible to write philosophy in better phrase, as has been shown by at least two great men, Berkeley and Stewart. Had Butler but possessed the glowing style of Berkeley, or the smooth, graceful, and transparent diction of Dugald Stewart, his work, instead of serving only for close thinkers, or a college text-book, would have been read by all classes, and banished that vulgar infidelity which flippant writers still disseminate. That it is thus restricted in its influence is a misfortune to the world. But he wrote for a class, and did his work completely. Literary infidelity was conquered. Vulgar, ignorant, licentious infidelity, will always exist, and is even now deplorably prevalent. Both Europe and America contain conceited and malignant ignoramuses, who by their sneers, their cavils, and their audacity, make havoc of souls. Of these, Tom Paine is a type, whose book, the contempt of cultivated minds, continues to be sold and read. For this class of persons, “Baxter’s Call,” or “Alleine’s Alarm,” are far more suitable than treatises on the evidences of Christianity, or even Butler’s Analogy.

Editor’s Preface.

The text is the result of a careful collation of the various principal editions. Occasionally solecisms are corrected, and a word transposed or put in italics, when a sentence could thus be made perspicuous. The author had a fashion of beginning a large proportion of his sentences with “and,” “but,” “now,” “indeed,” “however,” &c., which often served to perplex, and in such cases they have been omitted. Long paragraphs, comprehending different topics, have been so divided as to correspond with the true analysis; which will greatly assist the student in detecting the successive stages of the argument. Special pains has been taken to correct and improve the punctuation. Hundreds of sentences have thus been rendered more perspicuous, and many which were obscure, have been made lucid. In no respect was Butler’s style, as printed, so defective.

The Conspectus is made much ampler than any other, for this reason: that students are apt to content themselves with such help instead of mastering the full discussion by the author. In the present case they cannot so do, for such is the fulness of the Conspectus, that if they master this, they have mastered the subject itself in full.

Notes by the present editor are distinguished from those of the author by being enclosed in brackets. They are designed to open out further views, to elucidate the text, to facilitate extended researches, and to suggest topics for conversation in the class-room.

The Index has cost far more labor than would be supposed, and may not be of much benefit to the undergraduate. Its advantages will not be small to him in after life when he desires to recur to particular topics. The general scholar will find it enables him to make use of the book for occasional reference. Without it the work is not complete for the class-room, still less for the library.

That students of the Analogy need help, is confessed; and all attempts to furnish it have been kindly received. As is remarked by Bishop Wilson, “His argument, clear and convincing as it is to a prepared mind, is not obvious to the young reader, whose experience of life being small, and his habits of reflection feeble, has not the furniture necessary for comprehending, at first, the thoughts and conclusions of such a mind. The style is too close, too negligent, too obscure, to be suitable for the young.”

If it be asked why, with several existing helps to the study of the Analogy, I offer another, I frankly reply, because I have found none of them satisfactory, either to the public or to myself.

* * * * *

Some teachers prefer their text-books to be accompanied by a set of questions. Such will find in this edition all they desire. They have only to enunciate each sentence of the Conspectus in the interrogative form, and they will have every possible question prepared to their hand.

Conspectus of the Author’s Introduction.

I. _What is probable evidence?_

=1.= It differs from demonstration in that it admits of degrees; of _all_ degrees.

1.) One probability does not beget assurance.

2.) But the slightest presumption makes a probability.

3.) The repetition of it may make certainty.

=2.= What constitutes probability is _likeness_; in regard to the event itself, or its kind of evidences, or its circumstances.

1.) This daily affords presumptions, evidence, or conviction: according as it is occasional, common, or constant.

2.) Measures our hopes and fears.

3.) Regulates our expectations as to men’s conduct.

4.) Enables us to judge of character from conduct.

=3.= It is an imperfect mode of judging, and adapted to beings of limited capacities.

=4.= Where better evidence cannot be had, it constitutes moral obligation, even though great doubts remain.

1.) We are as much bound to do what, on the whole, _appears_ to be best, as if we _knew_ it to be so.

2.) In questions of great moment, it is reasonable to act when the favorable chances are no greater than the unfavorable.

3.) There are numberless cases in which a man would be thought distracted if he did not act, and that earnestly, where the chances of success were _greatly against_ him.

II. _The use and application of probabilities_.

Shall not go further into the _nature_ of probable evidence, nor inquire _why_ likeness begets presumption and conviction; nor how far analogical reasoning can be reduced to a _system_; but shall only show how just and conclusive this mode of reasoning is.

=1.= In determining our judgments and practice.

1.) There may be cases in which its value is doubtful.

2.) There may be seeming analogies, which are not really such.

3.) But as a mode of argument, it is perfectly just and conclusive.

=2.= In noting correspondencies between the different parts of God’s government.

1.) We may expect to find the same sort of difficulties in the Bible, as we do in Nature.

2.) To deny the Bible to be of God, because of these difficulties, requires us to deny that the world was made by him.

3.) If there be a likeness between revelation and the system of nature, it affords a presumption that both have the same author.

4.) To reason on the construction and government of the world, without settling foundation-principles, is mere hypothesis.

5.) To apply principles which are certain, to cases which are not applicable, is no better.

6.) But to join abstract reasonings to the observation of facts, and argue, from known present things, to what is likely or credible, must be right.

7.) We cannot avoid acting thus, if we act at all.

=3.= In its application to religion, revealed, as well as natural. This is the use which will be made of analogy in the following work. In so using it,

1.) It will be taken for proved that there is an intelligent Creator and Ruler.

--There are no presumptions _against_ this, prior to proof.

--There are proofs:--from analogy, reason, tradition, &c.

--The fact is not denied by the generality of skeptics.

2.) No regard will be paid to those who idly speculate as to how the world _might_ have been made and governed.

--Such prating would amount to this:

· All creatures should have been made at first as happy as they could be.

· Nothing of hazard should be put upon them.

· Should have been _secured_ in their happiness.

· All punishments avoided.

--It is a sufficient reply to such talk that mankind have not faculties for such speculations.

3.) We are, to some extent, judges as to _ends_; and may conclude that Nature and Providence are designed to produce virtue and happiness; but of the _means_ of producing these in the highest degree, we are not competent judges.

--We know not the extent of the universe;

--Nor even how one person can best be brought to perfection.

--We are not often competent to judge of the conduct of each other.

--As to God, we may presume that order will prevail in his universe; but are no judges of his modes for accomplishing this end.

4.) Instead of vainly, and perhaps sinfully, imagining schemes for God’s conduct, we must _study what is_.

--Discovering general laws.

--Comparing the known course of things with what revelation teaches us to expect.

III. _The force of this use of Analogy._

=1.= Sometimes is practically equivalent to proof.

=2.= Confirms what is otherwise proved.

=3.= Shows that the system of revelation is no more open to ridicule, than the system of nature.

=4.= Answers almost all objections against religion.

=5.= To a great extent answers objections against the _proofs_ of religion.

IV. _General scope of the book._

=1.= The divine government is considered, as containing in it,

Chap. 1. Man’s future existence.

” 2. In a state of reward or punishment.

” 3. This according to our behavior.

” 4. Our present life probationary.

” 5. And also disciplinary.

” 6. Notwithstanding the doctrine of necessity.

” 7. Or any apparent want of wisdom or goodness.

=2.= Revealed religion is considered,

Chap. 1. As important.

” 2. As proved by miracles.

” 3. As containing strange things.

” 4. As a scheme imperfectly comprehended.

” 5. As carried on by a mediator.

” 6. As having such an amount of evidence as God saw fit to give.

” 7. As having sufficient and full evidence.

Conspectus of the Analogy.

Part I.

Chapter I.

A Future Life.

Will not discuss the subject of identity; but will consider what analogy suggests from changes which do not destroy; and thus see whether it is not _probable_ that we shall live hereafter.

I. _The probabilities that we shall survive death._

=1.= It is a law of nature that creatures should exist in different stages, and in various degrees of perfection.

--Worms turn into flies.

--Eggs are hatched into birds.

--Our own present state is as different from our state in the womb, as two states of the same being can be.

--That we shall hereafter exist in a state as different from the present as the present is from our state in the womb, is according to analogy.

=2.= We now have capacities for happiness, action, misery, &c., and there is always a probability that things will continue as they are, except when experience gives us reason to think they will be altered. This is a general law; and is our _only_ natural reason for expecting the continuance of any thing.

=3.= There is no reason to apprehend that death will destroy us. If there was, it would arise from the nature of death; or from the analogy of nature.

1.) Not from the nature of death.

--We know not what death is.

--But only _some_ of its _effects_.

--These effects do not imply the destruction of the living agent.

--We know little of what the _exercise_ of our powers depends upon; and nothing of what _the powers_ themselves depend on.

--We may be unable to _exercise_ our powers, and yet not lose them--_e.g._ sleep, swoon.

2.) Not from analogy.

--Reason shows no connection between death and our destruction.

--We have no faculties by which to trace any being beyond it.

--The possession of living powers, up to the very moment when our faculties cease to be able to trace them, is a probability of their continuing.

--We have already survived wonderful changes.

--To live after death is analogous to the course of nature.

II. _Presumptions against a future life._

=1.= That death _destroys_ us.

_Ans._ 1. This is an assumption that we are compound and material beings, and hence discerptible; which is not true.

1.) Consciousness is a single, indivisible power, and of course the subject of it must be.

2.) The material body is not ourself.

3.) We can easily conceive of our having more limbs, or of a different kind, or of having more or fewer senses, or of having no bodies at all, or of hereafter animating these same bodies, remodelled.

4.) The dissolution of a succession of new and strange bodies, would have no tendency to destroy _us_.

_Ans._ 2. Though the absolute simplicity of the living being cannot be proved by _experiment_, yet facts lead us so to conclude. We lose limbs, &c. Our bodies were once _very_ small, but we might, then, have lost part of them. There is a constant destruction and renewal going on.

1.) Thus we see that no certain _bulk_ is necessary to our existence, and unless it were proved that there is, and that it is larger than an indissoluble atom, there is no reason to presume that death destroys us, even if we are discerptible.

2.) The living agent is not an _internal material organism_, which dies with the body. Because

--Our only ground for this presumption is our relation to other systems of matter. But we see these are not necessary to us.

--It will not do to say that lost portions of the body were not _essential_--who is to determine?

--The relation between the living agent, and the most essential parts of the body, is only one by which they mutually affect each other.

3.) If we regard our body as made up of organs of sense, we come to the same result.

--We see with the eyes, just as we do with glasses. The eye is not a _recipient_, any more than a telescope.

--It is not pretended that vision, hearing, &c. can be traced clear up to the percipient; but so far as we can trace perceptions, the _organ_ does not perceive.

--In dreams we perceive without organs.

--When we lose a limb we do not lose the _directing power_; we could move a new one, if it could be made, or a wooden one. But the limb cut off has no power of moving.

--Thus, our loss of the _organs_ of perception and motion, not being the destruction of the power, there is no ground to think that the destruction of other organs or instruments would destroy _us_.

_Objection._ These observations apply equally to brutes.

_Ans._ 1. Be it so. Perhaps they are immortal:--may hereafter improve: we know not what latent powers they may have.

1.) The human being at one period looks as little likely to make great intellectual attainments; for a long time he has capacities for virtue and religion, but cannot use them.

2.) Many persons go out of the world who never became able to exercise these capacities; _e.g._ infants.

_Ans._ 2. If brutes were immortal, it does not prove them to be _moral agents_.

1.) It may be necessary, for aught we know, that there should be living creatures not moral agents, nor rational.

2.) All difficulties as to what would become of them, are founded in our ignorance.

=2.= That our souls, though not material, so depend upon the bodily structure, that we cannot survive its destruction.

_Ans._ 1. Reason, memory, &c. _do not_ depend on the body, as perceptions by the senses do. Death may destroy those _instruments_, and yet not destroy the _powers_ of reflection.

_Ans._ 2. Human beings exist, here, in two very different states, each having its own laws: sensation and reflection. By the first we feel; by the second we reason and will.

1.) Nothing which we know to be destroyed at death, is necessary to reflecting on ideas formerly received.

2.) Though the senses act like scaffolds, or levers, to _bring in_ ideas, yet when once in, we can reflect, &c. without their aid.

_Ans._ 3. There are diseases which prove fatal, &c., yet do not, in any part of their course, _impair_ the intellect; and this indicates that they do not _destroy_ it.

1.) In the diseases alluded to, persons have their reflective power, in full, the very moment before death.

2.) Now, why should a disease, at a certain degree, utterly destroy powers which were not even affected by it, up to that point?

=3.= That death at least _suspends_ our reflective powers, or interrupts our continuing to exist in the like state of reflection which we do now.

_Ans._ There appears so little connection between our powers of sensation and our powers of reflection that we cannot presume that what might _destroy the former_, could even _suspend the latter_.

1.) We daily see reason, memory, &c. exercised without any assistance, that we know of, from our bodies.

2.) Seeing them in lively exercise to the last, we must infer that death is not a discontinuance of their exercise, nor of the enjoyments and sufferings of such exercise.

3.) Our posthumous life may be but a going on, with additions. Like the change at our birth--which produced not a suspension of the faculties we had before, nor a _total_ change in our state of life; but a continuance of both, with great alterations.

4.) Death may but at once put us into a _higher_ state of life, as our birth did; our relation to bodily organs may be the only hinderance to our entering a higher condition of the reflective powers.

5.) Were we even sure that death would suspend our intellectual powers, it would not furnish even the lowest probability that it would destroy them.

_Objec._ From the analogy of plants.

_Ans._ This furnishes poets with apt illustrations of our frailty, but affords no proper analogy. Plants are destitute of perception and action, and this is the very matter in question.

Remarks.

=1.= It has been shown, that confining ourselves to what we know, we see no probability of ever ceasing to be:--it cannot be concluded from the reason of the thing:--nor from the analogy of nature.

=2.= We are therefore to go upon the belief of a future existence.

=3.= Our going into _new scenes_ and conditions, is just as natural as our coming into the world.

=4.= Our condition may naturally be a social one.

=5.= The advantages of it may naturally be bestowed, according to some fixed law, in proportion to one’s degrees in virtue.

1.) Perhaps not so much as now _by society_; but by God’s more immediate action.

2.) Yet this will be no less _natural_, _i.e._ stated, fixed, or settled.

3.) Our notions of what is natural, are enlarged by greater knowledge of God and his works.

4.) There may be some beings in the world, to whom the whole of Christianity is as natural as the visible course of nature seems to us.

=6.= These probabilities of a future life, though they do not satisfy curiosity, answer all the purposes of religion, as well as demonstration.

1.) Even a demonstration of a future state, would not demonstrate religion, but would be reconcilable with atheism.

2.) But as religion implies a future state, any presumption against such a state, would be a presumption against religion.

3.) The foregoing observations remove all presumptions of that sort, and prove to a great probability, a fundamental doctrine of religion.

Chapter II.

The Government Of God By Rewards And Punishments.

The question of a future life is rendered momentous by our capacity for happiness and misery.

Especially if that happiness or misery depends on our present conduct.

We should feel the deepest solicitude on this subject.

And that if there were no proof of a future life and interest, other than the probabilities just discussed.

I. _In the present world our pleasures and pains are, to a great extent, in our own power._

=1.= We see them to be consequences of our actions.

=2.= And we can _foresee_ these consequences.

=3.= Our desires are not gratified, without the right kind of exertion.

=4.= By prudence we may enjoy life; rashness, or even neglect may make us miserable.

=5.= Why this is so is another matter.

1.) It may be impossible to be otherwise.

2.) Or it may be best on the whole.

3.) Or God’s plan may be to make only the good happy.

4.) Or the whole plan may be incomprehensible to us.

_Objec._ It may be said “this is only the course of nature.”

_Ans._ It is granted: but

1. The course of nature is but the will of God. We admit that God is the natural governor of the world: and must not turn round and deny it because his government is _uniform_.

2. Our natural foresight of the consequences of actions, is his appointment.

3. The consequences themselves, are his appointment.

4. Our ability to foresee these consequences, is God’s _instruction_ how we are to act.

_Objec._ By this reasoning we are instructed to gratify our appetites, and such gratification is our reward for so doing.

_Ans._ Certainly not. Foreseen pleasures and pains are proper motives to action _in general_; but we may, in particular cases, damage ourselves by indulgence. Our eyes are made to see with, but not to look at every thing:--for instance the sun.

It follows, from what has been said, that

II. _We are, now, actually under God’s government, in the strictest sense._

=1.= Admitting that there is a God, it is not so much a matter of speculation, as of experience, that he governs us.

=2.= The annexing of pleasures and pains to certain actions, and giving notice them, is the very essence of government.

=3.= Whether by direct acts upon us, or by contriving a general plan, does not affect the argument.

1.) If magistrates could make laws which should _execute themselves_, their government would be far more perfect than it is.

2.) God’s making fire burn us, is as much an instance of government, as if he _directly inflicted_ the burn, whenever we touched fire.

=4.= Hence the analogy of nature shows nothing to render incredible the Bible doctrine of God’s rewarding or punishing according to our actions.

_Additional remarks on Punishment._

As men object chiefly to future punishment, it is proper to show further that the course of administration, as to _present_ punishment, is analogous to what religion teaches as to _the future_.

Indeed they add credibility to it.

And ought to raise the most serious apprehension.

I. _Circumstances to be observed touching present punishments._

=1.= They often follow acts which produce present pleasure or advantage.

=2.= The sufferings often far exceed the pleasure or advantage.

=3.= They often follow remotely.

=4.= After long delay they often come suddenly.

=5.= As those remote effects are not certainly foreseen, they may not be thought of at the time; or if so, there is a hope of escaping.

=6.= There are opportunities of advantage, which if neglected do not recur.

=7.= Though, in some cases, men who have sinned up to a certain point, may retrieve their affairs, yet in many cases, reformation is of no avail.

=8.= Inconsiderateness is often as disastrous as wilful wrong-doing.

=9.= As some punishments by civil government, are capital, so are some natural punishments.

1.) Seem intended to remove the offender out of the way.

2.) Or as an example to others.

II. _These things are not accidental, but proceed from fixed laws._

=1.= They are matters of daily experience.

=2.= Proceed from the general laws, by which the world is governed.

III. _They so closely resemble what religion teaches, as to future punishment, that both might be expressed in the same words._

_e.g._ Proverbs, ch. i.

The analogy sufficiently answers all objections against the Scripture doctrine of future punishment, such as

1.) That our frailty or temptations annihilate the guilt of vice.

2.) Or the objection from necessity.

3.) Or that the Almighty cannot be contradicted.

4.) Or that he cannot be offended.

Remarks.

=1.= Such reflections are terrific, but ought to be stated and considered.

=2.= Disregard of a hereafter cannot be justified by any thing short of a _demonstration_ of atheism. Even skeptical doctrines afford no justification.

=3.= There is no pretence of reason for presuming that the licentious will not find it better for them that they had never been born.

Chapter III.

Moral Government Of God.

As the structure of the world shows _intelligence_, so the mode of distributing pleasure and pain, shows government. That is, God’s _natural_ government, such as a king exercises over his subjects.

But this does not, at first sight, determine what is the _moral character_ of such government.

I. _What is a moral or righteous government?_

=1.= Not mere rewarding and punishing.

=2.= But doing this according to character.

=3.= The perfection of moral government is doing this _exactly_.

_Objec._ God is simply and absolutely benevolent.

_Ans._ Benevolence, infinite in degree, would dispose him to produce the greatest possible happiness, regardless of behaviour. This would rob God of other attributes; and should not be asserted unless it can be proved. And whether it can be proved is not the point now in hand.

The question is not whether there may not be, in the universe, beings to whom he manifests absolute benevolence, which might not be incompatible with justice; but whether he treats _us_ so.

=4.= It must be owned to be vastly difficult, in such a disordered world, to estimate with exactness the overplus of happiness on the side of virtue: and there may be exceptions to the rule. But it is far from being doubtful that _on the whole_, virtue is happier than vice, in this world.

II. _The beginnings of a righteous administration, are seen in nature._

=1.= It has been proved (ch. ii.) that God _governs_: and it is reasonable to suppose that he would govern _righteously_.

1.) Any other rule of government would be harder to account for.

2.) The Bible doctrine that hereafter the good shall be happy, and the wicked miserable, is no more than an expectation that a method of government, now begun, shall be carried on.

=2.= The opposite consequences of prudence and rashness, show a right constitution of nature; and our ability to foresee and control these consequences, shows that we are under moral law.

=3.= God has so constructed society that vice, to a great degree, is actually punished by it.

1.) Without this, society could not exist.

2.) This is God’s government, through society; and is as _natural_, as society.

3.) Since the course of things is God’s appointment, men are unavoidably accountable for their behaviour.

_Objec._ Society often punishes good actions, and rewards wickedness.

_Ans._ 1. This is not _necessary_, and consequently not natural.

2. Good actions are never punished by society as _good_, but because considered bad.

=4.= By the course of nature, virtue is rewarded, and vice punished, _as such_, which proves a moral government; as will be seen if we rightly distinguish between actions and their qualities.

1.) An action may produce present gratification though it be wrong: in which case the gratification is in the act, not the morality of it: in other cases the enjoyment consists wholly in the quality of virtuousness.

2.) Vice is naturally attended with uneasiness, apprehension, vexation, remorse, &c.

--This is a very different feeling from that produced by mere misfortune.

--Men comfort themselves under misfortune, that it was not their own fault.

3.) Honest and good men are befriended _as such_.

4.) Injuries are resented as implying fault; and good offices are regarded with gratitude on account of the _intention_, even when they fail to benefit us.

--This is seen in family government, where children are punished for falsehood, fretfulness, &c., though no one is hurt.

--And also in civil government, where the absence or presence of ill intention goes far in determining the penalty of wrong-doing.

5.) The whole course of the world, in all ages and relations, turns much upon approbation and disapprobation.

6.) The very fact of our having a moral nature, is a proof of our being under God’s moral government.

--We are placed in a condition which unavoidably operates on our moral nature.

--Hence it arises that reward to virtue and reprobation of vice, as such, is a _rule_, never inverted. If it be thought that there are instances to the contrary, (which is not so,) they are evidently monstrous.

--The _degree_ in which virtue and vice receive proper returns, is not the question now, but only the thing itself, in some degree.

7.) It is admitted that virtue sometimes suffers, and vice prospers; but this is _disorder_, and not the order of nature.

8.) It follows, that we have in the government of the world, a declaration from God, for virtue and against vice. So far as a man is true to virtue, is he on the side of the divine administration. Such a man must have a _sense of security_, and a hope of _something better_.

=5.= This hope is confirmed by observing that virtue has necessary tendencies beyond their present effects.

1.) These are very obvious with regard to individuals.

2.) Are as real, though not so patent, in regard to society.

--The power of a society under the direction of virtue, tends to prevail over power not so directed, just as power under direction of reason, tends to prevail over brute force.

--As this may not be conceded, we will notice how the case stands, as to reason:

· Length of time, and proper opportunity, are necessary for reason to triumph over brutes.

· Rational beings, disunited, envious, unjust, and treacherous, may be overcome by brutes, uniting themselves by instinct: but this would be an inverted order of things.

--A like tendency has virtue to produce superiority.

· By making the good of society, the object of every member of it.

· By making every one industrious in his own sphere.

· By uniting all in one bond of veracity and justice.

3.) If the part of God’s government which we see, and the part we do not see, make up one scheme, then we see a _tendency_ in virtue to superiority.

4.) But to _produce_ that superiority there must be

--A force proportioned to the obstacles.

--Sufficient lapse of time.

--A fair field of trial; such as extent of time, adequate occasions, and opportunities for the virtuous to unite.

5.) These things are denied to virtue in this life, so that its tendencies, though real, are _hindered_.

6.) But it may have all requisite advantages hereafter.

--Eternity will be lasting enough.

--Good men will unite; as they cannot do now, scattered over the earth, and ignorant of one another.

--Other orders of virtuous beings will join; for the very nature of virtue is a bond of union.

7.) The tendency of such an order of things, so far as seen by vicious beings in any part of the universe, would be to the amendment of all who were capable of it, and their recovery to virtue.

8.) All this goes to show that the hinderances to virtue are contingent, and that its beneficial tendencies are God’s declarations in its favor.

9.) If the preceding considerations are thought to be too speculative, we may easily come to the same result by reflecting on the supremacy which any earthly nation would attain, by entire virtue for many ages.

Remarks.

Consider now the general system of religion. The government of the world is one; it is moral; virtue shall in the end prevail over wickedness; and to see the importance and fitness of such an arrangement we have only to consider what would be the state of things, if vice had these advantages, or virtue the contrary.

_Objec._ Why may not things be now going on in other worlds, and continue always to go on in this world, in the same mixed and disordered state as at present?

_Ans._ We are not proving that God’s moral government is _perfect_, or the truth of religion, but only seeing what there is in the course of nature, to confirm it, supposing it to be known. Were there nothing to judge by, but the present distribution of pleasure and pain, we should have no ground to conclude that hereafter we should be rewarded or punished exactly according to our deserts. But even then there would be no indication that vice is better than virtue. Still the preceding observations _confirm_ the doctrine of future retribution; for,

1.) They show that the Author of nature is not indifferent to virtue and vice.

2.) That future distributive justice would differ not in _kind_, but in degree only, from God’s present government. It would be the _effect_, towards which we see the _tendency_.

3.) That higher rewards and punishments _may be_ hereafter.

4.) That we should _expect_ it to be so; because the tendencies of vice and virtue are immutable, while the hinderances are only artificial.

Summary.

[This enumerates the steps of the argument, in the foregoing chapter, in as condensed a form as possible.]

Chapter IV.

Of A State Of Probation.

The doctrine of probation comprehends several particulars. But the most common notion is that our future interests are _depending_; and depending on _ourselves_. And that we have _opportunities_ for both good and bad conduct, and _temptations_ to each.

This is not exactly the same as our being under moral government; for it implies allurement to evil, and difficulties in being good.

Hence needs to be considered by itself.

_Doctrine._ THE NATURAL GOVERNMENT OF GOD, IN THIS WORLD, PUTS US ON TRIAL AS TO THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD; AND SO IMPLIES, WHAT RELIGION TEACHES, THAT HIS MORAL GOVERNMENT PUTS US ON TRIAL AS TO A FUTURE WORLD.

I. _So far as we are tempted to do what will damage our future temporal interests, so far we are under probation as to those interests._

=1.= The annexing of pleasures and pains to actions, as good or bad, and enabling us to foresee their effect, implies that our interests, in part at least, depend on ourselves.

=2.= We often _blame_ ourselves and others for evils, as resulting from misconduct.

=3.= It is very certain that we often miss possible good, and incur evils, not for want of knowing better, but through our _fault_.

=4.= Every one speaks of the hazards of young persons, from other causes than ignorance.

II. _These natural or temporal trials are analogous to our moral and religious trial._

=1.= In both cases, what constitutes the trial, is either in our circumstances or in our nature.

1.) Some would do right but for violent or extraordinary temptations.

2.) Others will _seek_ evil, and go out of their way after wicked indulgence, when there are no external temptations.

3.) But even those who err through temptation, must have that within which makes them _susceptible_ of temptation.

4.) So that we are in a like state of probation with respect to both present and future interests.

=2.= If we proceed to observe how mankind behave in both capacities, we see the same analogy.

1.) Some scarcely look beyond the present gratification.

2.) Some are driven by their passions against their better judgment and feeble resolutions.

3.) Some shamelessly go on in open vice.

4.) Some persist in wrong-doing, even under strong apprehensions of future misery.

=3.= The analogy is no less plain in regard to the influence of others upon us.

1.) Bad example.

2.) Wrong education.

3.) Corruptions of religion.

4.) General prevalence of mistakes as to true happiness.

=4.= In both cases negligence and folly bring difficulty as well as vice.

III. _The disadvantages we labor under from our fallen and disordered state, are the same, in relation to both earthly and future interests._

This disadvantage affords no ground of complaint; for,

=1.= We _may_ manage to pass our days in comfort and peace.

=2.= And so may we obtain the security and comfort of religion.

=3.= We might as well complain that we are not a higher order of beings.

Remarks.

=1.= It is thus proved that the state of trial, which religion says we are in, is credible; for it exactly corresponds to what we see.

1.) If from birth till death we were in a constant security of enjoyment, without care or correctness, it would be a presumption against religion.

2.) It might, if we had no experience, be urged that an infinitely good Being would not expose us to the hazard of misery. This is indeed a difficulty, and must remain so; but still the course of nature is as it is.

3.) The miseries which we bring on ourselves are no more unavoidable than our deportment.

=2.= It has been proved that we are in danger of miscarrying as to our interests, both present and future.

=3.= The sum of the whole is, that as we do not have present enjoyments and honors forced upon us, in spite of misconduct, so this _may_ be the case, as to that chief and final good which religion proposes.

Chapter V.

Probation Intended For Moral Discipline And Improvement.

Why we should be placed in the condition spoken of in the last chapter, is a question which cannot be answered. It may be that we could not understand, if told. And if we could, it might injure us to know, just now. It certainly is consistent with God’s righteous government.

Religion tells us that we are so placed in order to become qualified for a better state.

This, though a very partial answer to the inquiry _why_ we are so placed, answers an infinitely more important question,--viz.: _What is our business here?_

I. _We are placed in this state of trial, for our improvement in virtue, as the requisite qualification for future security and happiness._

=1.= Every creature is designed for a particular way of life.

1.) Happiness depends on the congruity between a creature’s nature and its circumstances.

2.) Man’s character might be so changed as to make him _incapable_ of happiness on earth.

3.) Or he might be placed, without changing his nature, in a world where he must be wretched, for want of the proper objects to answer to his desires.

4.) So that without determining what is the future condition of good men, we know there must be necessary _qualifications_ to make us capable of enjoying it.

=2.= Human beings are so constituted as to become fit for new and different conditions.

1.) We not only acquire ideas, but store them up.

2.) We can become more expert in any kind of action.

3.) And can make settled alterations in our tempers.

4.) We can form _habits_--both bodily and mental.

As these operate in producing radical changes in human character, we will look for a moment at the process.

--Neither perceptions, nor knowledge, are habits; though necessary to _forming_ them.

--There are habits of perception, however, and habits of action: the former are passive, the latter active.

--Habits of body are produced by external acts, and habits of mind by the exertion of principles; _i.e._ carrying them out.

--Resolutions to do well are acts, and may _help_ towards forming good habits. But _mere_ theorizing, and forming pictures in the mind, not only do not help, but may harden the mind to a contrary course.

--Passive impressions, by repetition grow weaker. Thus familiarity with danger lessens fear.

--Hence active habits may be formed and strengthened, by acting according to certain motives or excitements, which grow less sensibly felt and less and less felt, as the habit strengthens.

· Thus the sight of distress excites the passive emotion of pity, and the active principle of benevolence. But inquiring out cases of distress in order to relieve them, causes diminished sensitiveness at the sight of misery, and stronger benevolence and aptitude in relieving it.

· So admonition, experience, and example, if acted upon, produce good; if not, harden.

5.) The formation of a habit may be imperceptible and even inexplicable, but the thing itself is matter of certain experience.

6.) A habit once formed, the action becomes easy and often pleasurable: opposite inclinations grow weaker: difficulties less: and occasions more frequent.

7.) Thus, a new character, in several respects, is formed.

=3.= We should not have these capacities for improvement and for the reconstruction of character, if it were not necessary.

1.) They are necessary, even as to this life.

--We are not qualified, at first, for mature life: understanding and strength come gradually.

--If we had them in full, at birth, we should at first be distracted and bewildered, and our faculties would be of no use previous to experience. Ignorant of any employment, we could not provide for ourselves.

--So that man is an unformed, unfinished creature, even as to this world, till he _acquire_ knowledge, experience, and habits.

2.) Provision is made for our acquiring, in youth, the requisite qualities for manhood.

--Children _learn_, from their very birth,

· The nature and use of objects.

· The subordinations of domestic life.

· The rules of life.

--Some of this learning is acquired so insensibly, as to seem like instinct, but some requires great care and labor, and the doing of things we are averse to.

--According as we act during this formative period, is our character formed; and our capacity for various stations in society determined.

--Early opportunities lost, cannot be recovered.

3.) Our state of discipline throughout this life, for another, is exactly of the same kind: and comprehended under one general law.

--If we could not see how the present discipline fitted us for a higher life, it would be no objection.

· We do not know how food, sleep, &c. enlarges the child’s body; nor would we expect such a result, prior to experience.

· Nor do children understand the need of exercise, temperance, restraint, &c.

--We thus see a general analogy of Providence indicating that the present life is preparatory.

=4.= If virtue is a necessary qualification for future happiness, then we see our need of the moral culture of our present state.

1.) Analogy indicates that our future state will be social.

--Nature furnishes no shadow of unreasonableness in the Scripture doctrine that this future community will be under the more immediate government of God.

--Nor the least proof that its members will not require the exercise of veracity, justice, &c. towards each other; and that character which _results_ from the practice of such virtues.

--Certainly the universe is under moral government; and a virtuous character must, in some way, be a condition of happiness in that state.

2.) We are deficient, and in danger of deviating from what is right.

--We have desires for outward objects.

--The times, degrees, &c. of gratifying these desires, are, of right, subject to the control of the moral principle.

--But that principle neither excites them, nor prevents their being excited.

--They may exist, when they cannot be lawfully gratified, or gratified at all.

--When the desire exists, and the gratification is unlawful, we are tempted.

3.) The only security is the principle within.

--The strengthening of this lessens the danger.

--It may be strengthened, by discipline and exercise.

· Noting examples.

· Attending to the right, and not to preference.

· Considering our true interests.

--When improved, it becomes, in proportion to its strength, our security from the dangers of natural propensions.

--Virtue, become habitual by discipline, is improved virtue; and improved virtue must produce increased happiness, if the government of the world is moral.

4.) Even creatures made upright may fall.

--The fall of an upright being, is not accounted for by the nature of liberty; for that would only be saying that an event happened because it might happen.

--But from the very nature of propensions.

--A finitely perfect being would have propensions corresponding to its surroundings; its understanding; and its moral sense; and all these in due proportions.

--Such a being would have propensions, though the object might not be present, or the indulgence might be contrary to its moral sense; and this would have some tendency, however small, to induce gratification.

--The tendency would be increased by the frequency of occasions; and yet more by the least indulgence, even in thought; till, under peculiar conjunctures, it would become effect.

--The first transgression might so utterly disorder the constitution, and change the proportions of forces, as to lead to a repetition of irregularities; and hence to the construction of bad habits, and a depraved character.

5.) On the contrary, a finitely perfect being may attain higher virtue, and more security, by obeying the moral principle.

--For the danger would lessen, by the increased submissiveness of propensions.

--The moral principle would gain force by exercise.

6.) Thus vice is not only criminal, but degrading; and virtue is not only right, but improving.

--The degree of improvement may be such that the danger of sinning may be almost infinitely lessened.

--Yet the security may always be the habits formed in a state of discipline; making such a state altogether fit and necessary.

7.) This course of reasoning is vastly stronger when applied to fallen and corrupt creatures.

--The upright need improvement; the fallen must be renewed.

--Discipline is expedient for the one; necessary for the other; and of a severer sort.

II. _The present world is peculiarly fit for such discipline as we need._

=1.= Surrounding evils tend to produce moderation, practical knowledge, &c. very different from a mere speculative knowledge of our liability to vice and misery.

=2.= Our experience in this world, with right views and practice, may leave eternal impressions for good.

=3.= Every act of self-government in the exercise of virtue, must, from the very make of our nature, form habits of virtue, and a more intense virtuous principle.

=4.= Resolute and persevering resistance to particular and violent temptations, is a _continued_ act of virtue, and that in a _higher degree_ than if the seduction were transient and weak.

=5.= Self-denial is not essential to virtue, but is almost essential to discipline and improvement.

1.) Because actions materially virtuous, which have no difficulty, but agree with our inclinations, may be done merely from inclination, and so not be _really_ virtuous.

2.) But when they are done in face of danger and difficulty, virtuousness is increased, and confirmed into a habit.

_Objec._ 1. As our intellectual or physical powers may be overtasked, so may our moral.

_Ans._ This may be so in exceptional cases, but it does not confute the argument. In general, it holds good. All that is intended to be proved is, that this world is _intended_ to be a state of improvement, and is _fitted_ for it.

1.) Some sciences which of themselves are highly improving, require a trying measure of attention, which some will not submit to.

2.) It is admitted that this world disciplines many to vice: but this viciousness of many is the very thing which makes the world a virtuous discipline to good men. The _whole end_ in placing mankind as they are we know not; but these things are evident--the virtues of some are exercised:--and so exercised as to be improved: and improved beyond what they would be in a perfectly virtuous community.

3.) That all, or even the generality, do not improve, is no proof that their improvement was not _intended_. Of seeds and animals not one in a million comes to perfection; yet such as do, evidently answer an end for which they were designed. The _appearance of waste_ in regard to seeds, &c. is just as unaccountable, as the ruin of moral agents.

_Objec._ 2. Rectitude arising from hope and fear, is only the discipline of self-love.

_Ans._ Obedience _is_ obedience, though prompted by hope or fear: and a _course_ of such obedience, forms a habit of it: and distinct habits of various virtues, by repressing inclination whenever justice, veracity, &c. require.

Beside, veracity, justice, regard to God’s authority, and self-interest, are coincident; and each, separately, a just principle. To begin a good life from either of them, and persist, produces that very character which corresponds to our relations to God, and secures happiness.

_Objec._ 3. The virtues requisite for a state of afflictions, and produced by it, are not wanted to qualify us for a state of happiness.

_Ans._ Such is not the verdict of experience. Passive submission is essential to right character. Prosperity itself begets extravagant desires; and imagination may produce as much discontent as actual condition. Hence, though we may not need _patience_ in heaven, we shall need that _temper_ which is formed by patience.

Self-love would always coincide with God’s commands, when our interest was rightly understood; but it is liable to error. Therefore, HABITS of resignation are necessary, for _all_ creatures; and the proper discipline for resignation is affliction.

_Objec._ 4. The trouble and danger of such discipline, might have been avoided by making us at once, what we are intended to become.

_Ans._ What we are to be, is the effect of what we are to do. God’s natural government is arranged not to save us from trouble or danger, but to enable and incline us to go through them. It is as natural for us to seek means to obtain things, as it is to seek the things; and in worldly things we are left to our choice, whether to improve our powers and so better our condition, or to neglect improvement and so go without the advantage.

Analogy, therefore, makes the same arrangement credible, as to a future state.

III. _This state of discipline may be necessary for the display of character._

=1.= Not to the all-knowing Being, but to his creation, or part of it, and in many ways which we know not.

=2.= It may be a _means_ in disposing of men according to character.

=3.= And of showing creation that they are so disposed of.

=4.= Such display of character certainly contributes, largely, to the general course of things considered in this chapter.

Chapter VI.

Of Necessity As Influencing Conduct.

Fatalists have no right to object to Christianity, for they of course hold the doctrine to be compatible with what they see in nature.

The question is, whether it be not equally compatible with what Christianity teaches.

To argue on the supposition of so great an absurdity as necessity, is puzzling; and the obscurity and puzzle of the argument must therefore be excused.

I. _Necessity does not destroy the proof of an intelligent Author and Governor of the world._

=1.= It does not exclude design and deliberation.

1.) This is matter of actual experience and consciousness.

--Necessity does not account for the _existence_ of any thing, but is only a _circumstance_ relating to its origin. Instance the case of a house: the fatalist admits that it had a builder, and the only question would be, was he obliged to build it as he did?

2.) It is the same as to the construction of the world. To say it exists by necessity must mean it had a maker, who _acted_ by necessity: for necessity is only an abstract notion, and can _do_ nothing.

3.) We say God exists by necessity, because we intuitively discern that there must be an infinite Being, prior to all causes; but we cannot say that _every thing_ so exists. The fact that many changes in nature are produced by man’s contrivance is a proof of this.

4.) Thus though the fatalist does not choose to mean by necessity _an agent acting necessarily_, he is obliged to mean this.

5.) And it also follows that a thing’s being done by necessity does not exclude _design_.

=2.= It does not exclude a belief that we are in a state of religion.

1.) Suppose a fatalist to educate a child on his own principles,--viz.: that he cannot do otherwise than he does; and is not subject to praise or blame.

(It might be asked, _would_ he, if possessed of common sense, so educate his child?)

--The child would be delighted with his freedom; but would soon prove a pest, and go to destruction.

--He would meet with checks and rebuffs, which would teach him that he _was_ accountable.

--He would, in the end, be convinced either that his doctrine was wrong, or that he had reasoned inconclusively upon it, and misapplied it.

2.) To apply fatalism to practice, in any other way, would be found equally fallacious: _e.g._ that he need not take care of his life.

3.) No such absurdity follows the doctrine of freedom.

--Reasoning on this ground is justified by all experience.

--The constitution of things is _as if_ we were free.

4.) If the doctrine of necessity be true, and yet, when we _apply it_ to life, always misleads us; how, then, can we be sure it would not mislead us with respect to future interests?

5.) It follows that if there are proofs of religion on the supposition of freedom, they are just as conclusive on the supposition of necessity.

=3.= It does not refute the notion that God has a will and a character.

1.) It does not hinder _us_ from having a will and a character; from being cruel, or benevolent, or just, &c.

2.) If necessity be plead as the excuse for crime, it equally excuses the _punishment_ of crime; for if it destroys the sin of the one, it destroys the sin of the other.

3.) The very assumption of injustice in punishing crime, shows that we cannot rid ourselves of the notion of justice and injustice.

_Objec._ If necessity be _reconcilable_ with the character of God, as portrayed in Christianity, does it not destroy _the proof_ that he has that character; and so destroy the proofs of religion?

_Ans._ No. Happiness and misery are not our fate, but the results of our conduct. God’s government is that of a father and a magistrate; and his natural rule of government must be veracity and justice. We shall proceed to show that,

II. _Necessity does not destroy the proofs of religion._

=1.= It is a plain fact that God rewards and punishes.

1.) He has given us a moral faculty, by which we discern between actions, and approve or disapprove, &c.

2.) This implies a _rule_, a peculiar _kind_ of rule; _i.e._ one from which we cannot depart without being self-condemned.

3.) The dictates of our moral faculty are God’s laws, with sanctions. It not only raises a sense of _duty_, but a sense of _security_ in obeying, and danger in disobeying; and this is an explicit sanction.

4.) God’s government must conform to the nature he has given us; and we must infer that in the upshot happiness will follow virtue, and misery vice.

5.) Hence religious worship is a duty, if only as a means of keeping up the sense of this government.

6.) No objection from necessity can lie against this course of proof.

--The conclusion is wholly and directly from facts; not from what might appear to us to be _fit_, but from what his actions tell us _he wills_.

=2.= Natural religion has external evidence which necessity, if true, does not affect.

1.) Suppose a person convinced of the truths of natural religion, but ignorant of history, and of the present state of mankind, he would inquire:

--How this religion came?

--How far the belief of it extended?

--If he found that some one had totally propounded it, as a deduction of reason, then, though its evidences from reason would not be impaired, its history would furnish no further proof.

2.) But such an one would find, on the contrary,

--That essentially it had been professed in all countries.

--And can be traced up through all ages.

--And was not _reasoned out_, but revealed.

3.) These things are of great weight.

--Showing natural religion to be conformed to the common sense of mankind.

--And either that it was revealed, or forces itself upon the mind.

--The rude state of the early ages leads to the belief of its being revealed, and such is the opinion of the learned.

=3.= Early pretences to revelation indicate some original real one from which they were copied.

--The history of revelation is as old as history itself.

--Such a fact is a proof of religion, against which there is no presumption.

--And indicates a revelation prior to the examination of the book said to contain it; and independent of all considerations of its being corrupted, or darkened by fables.

=4.= It is thus apparent that the _external_ evidence of religion is considerable; and is not affected by the doctrine of necessity.

Remarks.

1. The danger of taking custom, &c. for our moral rule.

1.) We are all liable to prejudice.

2.) Reason may be impaired, perverted, or disregarded.

3.) The matter in hand is of infinite moment.

2. The foregoing observations amount to practical proof.

_Objec._ Probabilities which cannot be confuted, may be overbalanced by greater probabilities: much more by demonstration. Now, as the doctrine of necessity must be true, it cannot be that God governs us as if we were free when he knows we are not.

_Ans._ This brings the matter to a point, and the answer is not to be evaded,--viz.: that the whole constitution and course of things shows this reasoning to be false, be the fallacy where it may.

The doctrine of freedom shows where,--viz.: in supposing ourselves necessary agents when in fact we are free.

Admitting the doctrine of necessity, the fallacy evidently lies in denying that necessary agents are accountable; for that they _are_ rewarded and punished is undeniable.

CONCLUSION.--It follows that necessity, if true, neither proves that God will not make his creatures happy or miserable according to their conduct, nor destroys the proofs that he will do so. That is, necessity, practically, is false.

Chapter VII.

Divine Government A Scheme Imperfectly Comprehended.

Moral government, _as a fact_, has now been considered; it remains for us to remove objections against its _wisdom and goodness_. A thing being true does not prove it to be good.

In arguing as to its truth, analogy could only show it to be credible. But, if a moral government be admitted as a fact, analogy makes it credible that it is a scheme or system, and that man’s comprehension of it is necessarily so limited, as to be inadequate to determine its injustice.

This we shall find to be the case.

_Doctrine._ ON THE SUPPOSITION THAT GOD EXERCISES MORAL GOVERNMENT, THE ANALOGY OF NATURE TEACHES THAT IT MUST BE A SCHEME, AND ONE QUITE BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION.

I. _The ordering of nature is a scheme; and makes it credible by analogy, that moral government is a scheme._

=1.= The parts curiously correspond to each other; individuals to individuals, species to species, events to events; and all these both immediate and remote.

=2.= This correspondence embraces all the past, and all the future; including all creatures, actions, and events.

1.) There is no event, which does not depend for its occurrence on some further thing, unknown to us; we cannot give the whole account of any one thing.

2.) Things apparently the most insignificant, seem to be necessary to others, of the greatest importance.

=3.= If such is God’s natural government, it is credible that such is his moral government.

1.) In fact they are so blended as to make one scheme.

--One is subservient to the other, just as the vegetable kingdom subserves the animal, and our animal organization subserves our mental.

--Every act of God seems to look beyond the occasion, and to have reference to a general plan.

--There is evidently a previous adjustment.

· The periods, &c. for trying men.

· The instruments of justice.

· The kinds of retribution.

2.) The whole comprises a system, a very small part of which is known to us: therefore no objections against any part can be insisted on.

3.) This ignorance is universally acknowledged, except in arguing against religion. That it ought to be a valid answer to objections against religion, we proceed to show.

--Suppose it to be asserted that all evils might have been prevented by repeated interpositions; or that more good might have been so produced; which would be the utmost that could be said: still,

--Our ignorance would vindicate religion from any objections arising from apparent disorders in the world.

--The government of the world might be _good_, even on those suppositions; for at most they could but suggest that it might be _better_.

--At any rate, they are mere assertions.

--Instances may be alleged, in things much less out of reach, of suppositions palpably impossible, which _all_ do not see to be so: nor _any, at first sight_.

4.) It follows that our ignorance is a satisfactory answer to all objections against the divine government.

--An objection against an act of Providence, no way connected with any other thing, as being unjust, could not be answered by our ignorance.

--But when the objection is made against an act related to other and unknown acts, then our ignorance is a full answer.

--Some unknown relation, or unknown impossibility, may render the act not only good, but good in the highest degree.

II. _Consider some particular things, in the natural government of God, the like of which we may infer, by analogy, to be contained in his moral government._

=1.= No ends are accomplished without means.

1.) Often, means very disagreeable bring the most desirable results.

2.) How means produce ends, is not learned by reason, but experience.

3.) In many cases, before experience, we should have expected contrary results.

4.) Hence we may infer that those things which are objected against God’s moral government, produce good.

5.) It is evident that our not seeing _how_ the means work good, or their seeming to have an opposite effect, offers no presumption against their fitness to work good.

6.) They may not only be fit, but the _only_ means of ultimate good.

_Objec._ Though our capacity of vice and misery may promote virtue, and _our_ suffering for sin be better than if we were restrained by force, yet it would have been better if evil had not entered the world.

_Ans._ It is granted that though sinful acts may produce benefits, to refrain from them would produce more. We have curative pains, yet pain is not better than health.

=2.= Natural government is carried on by general laws.

1.) Nature shows that this is best: all the good we enjoy is because there are general laws. They enable us to _forecast_ for the procurement of good.

2.) It may not be possible, by general laws, to prevent all irregularities, or remedy them.

3.) Direct interpositions might perhaps remedy many disorders arising under them, but this would have bad effects.

--Encouraging improvidence.

--Leaving us no rule of life.

--Every interposition would have _distant_ effects: so that we could not guess what would be the _whole_ result.

· If it be replied that those distant effects might also be corrected by direct interpositions--this is only talking at random.

_Objec._ If we are so ignorant as this whole argument supposes, we are too ignorant to understand the proofs of religion.

_Ans._ 1. Total ignorance of a subject precludes argument, but partial ignorance does not. We may, in various degrees, know a man’s character, and the way he is _likely_ to pursue certain ends; and yet not know how he _ought_ to act to gain those ends. In this case objections to his mode of pursuing ends may be answered by our ignorance, though that he _does_ act in a certain manner is capable of proof. So we may have evidence of God’s character and aims, and yet not be competent judges as to his measures. Our ignorance is a good answer to the difficulties of religion, but no objection to religion itself.

_Ans._ 2. If our ignorance did invalidate the proofs of religion, as well as the objections, yet is it undeniable that moral obligations remain unaffected by our ignorance of the consequences of obedience or violation. The consequences of vice and virtue may not be fully known, yet it is credible that they may be such as religion declares: and this credibility is an obligation, in point of prudence, to abstain from sin.

_Ans._ 3. Our answers to the objections against religion, are _not_ equally valid against the proofs of it.

[Answers rehearsed.]

_Ans._ 4. Our answers, though they may be said to be based on our ignorance, are really not so, but on what analogy teaches _concerning_ our ignorance,--viz.: that it renders us incompetent judges. They are based on experience, and what we _do know_; so that to credit religion is to trust to experience, and to disregard it is the contrary.

Conclusion.

=1.= The reasoning of the last chapter leads us to regard this life as part of a larger plan of things.

1.) Whether we are connected with the distant _parts_ of the universe, is uncertain; but it is very clear we are connected, more or less, with present, past, and future.

2.) We are evidently in the midst of a scheme, not fixed but progressive; and one equally incomprehensible, whether we regard the present, past, or future.

=2.= This scheme contains as much that is wonderful as religion does: for it certainly would be as wonderful that all nature came into existence without a Creator, as that there should be a Creator: and as wonderful that the Creator should act without any rule or scheme, as that he should act with one; or that he should act by a bad rule, rather than a righteous one.

=3.= Our very nature compels us to believe that the will and character of the Author of nature, is just and good.

=4.= Whatever be his character, he formed the world as it is, and controls it as he does, and has assigned us our part and lot.

=5.= Irrational creatures act their part, and receive their lot, without reflection, but creatures endued with reason, can hardly avoid reflecting whither we go, and what is the scheme, in the midst of which we find ourselves.

[Here follows a recapitulation of the book.]

Part II.

Chapter I.

Importance Of Christianity.

Every one must admit that we _need_ a revelation. Few, if any, could reason out a system, even of natural religion. If they could, there is no probability that they would. Such as might, would still feel the want of revelation. To say that Christianity is superfluous, is as wild as to say all are happy.

No exactness in attending to natural religion can make Christianity of small importance.

If Christianity be from God, we must obey, unless we know all his reasons for giving it: and also that those reasons no longer exist; at least in our case. This we cannot know.

The importance of Christianity appears if we regard it

I. _As a republication of natural religion._

=1.= It gives the moral system of the universe.

1.) Free from corruptions; teaching that

--Jehovah created all things.

-- ” governs all things.

--Virtue is his law.

--Mankind will be judged according to character.

2.) It publishes its facts authoritatively.

3.) With vastly more clearness; e.g. the doctrines of a future state: danger of sin: efficacy of repentance.

4.) With the advantage of a visible church, distinguished from the world by peculiar institutions.

_Objec._ The perversions of Christianity, and the little good it has done.

_Ans._ 1. Natural religion is no less perverted, and has done less good.

2. The benefits of Christianity are _not_ small.

3. The evils ascribed to it, are not _its_ effects. Things are to be judged by their genuine tendencies.

4. The light of reason, no more than revelation forces acquiescence.

5.) With the additional advantage that every Christian, is bound to instruct and persuade others.

II. _As containing truths not discoverable by natural reason._

=1.= A mode of salvation for the ruined.

=2.= Duties unknown before.

=3.= Our relations to the Son and Holy Ghost.

1.) Hence the form of baptism.

2.) Pious regards to Christ, and the Holy Ghost, based on our relations to them.

=4.= The manner of external worship.

III. _The fearful hazard of neglecting Christianity._

=1.= Those who think natural religion _sufficient_, must admit that Christianity is highly _important_.

=2.= Our relations to Christ being made known, our religious regard to him is an evident obligation.

=3.= These relations being real, there is no reason to think that our neglect of behaving suitably to them, will not be attended with the same kind of consequences as follow the neglect of duties made known by reason.

=4.= If we are corrupt and depraved, and so unfit for heaven, and if we need God’s Holy Spirit to renew our nature, how can it be a slight thing whether we make use of the means for obtaining such assistance?

=5.= Thus, if Christianity be either true, or merely credible, it is most rash and presumptuous to treat it lightly.

Remarks.

=1.= The distinction between positive and moral obligations.

1.) For moral precepts we can see _the reason_: for positive we cannot.

2.) Moral duties are such _prior_ to command; positive duties are such _because_ commanded.

3.) The manner in which a duty is made known, does not make it moral or positive.

=2.= The ground of regarding moral duties as superior to positive.

1.) Both have the nature of moral commands.

2.) If the two conflict, we must obey the moral.

--Positive institutions are _means_ to moral ends.

--Ends are more excellent than means.

--Obedience to positive institutions, has no value but as proceeding from moral principle.

3.) Both moral and positive duties are _revealed_, and so are on a level; but the moral law is _also_ interwoven with our very nature, and so its precepts must prevail when the two interfere.

=3.= There is less necessity for determining their relative authority, than some suppose.

1.) Though man is disposed to outward and ritual religion, nothing can give us acceptance with God, without moral virtue.

2.) Scripture always lays stress on moral duties.

3.) It is a great weakness, though very common, to make light of positive institutions, because less important than moral.

--We are bound to obey _all_ God’s commands.

--A precept, merely positive, admitted to be from God, creates moral obligation, in the strictest sense.

Conclusion.

This account of Christianity shows our great obligation to study the Scriptures.

Chapter II.

Presumptions Against A Revelation, Considered As Miraculous.

Having shown the need of revelation, we now examine the presumptions against it.

The analogy of nature is generally supposed to afford presumptions against miracles.

They are deemed to require stronger evidence than other events.

I. _Analogy furnishes no presumptions against the general scheme of Christianity._

=1.= It is no presumption against Christianity, that it is not the discovery of reason, or of experience.

=2.= Nor is it a presumption against Christianity, that it contains things _unlike_ the apparent course of nature.

1.) We cannot suppose every thing, in the vast universe, to be just like what is the course of nature in this little world.

2.) Even within the present compass of our knowledge, we see many things greatly unlike.

=3.= If we choose to call what is unlike our known course of things, _miraculous_, still that does not make it _improbable_.

II. _There is no presumption against such a revelation, as we should now call miraculous, being made, at the beginning of the world._

=1.= There was then _no_ course of nature, as to this world.

=2.= Whether man _then_ received a revelation involves a question not of miracles, but of _fact_.

=3.= Creation was a very different exertion of power from that which _rules_ the world, now it _is_ made.

=4.= Whether the power of forming _stopped_ when man was made; or went on, and formed a religion for him, is merely a question as to the _degree_ or _extent_, to which a power was exerted.

=5.= There is then no presumption from analogy against supposing man had a revelation when created.

=6.= All tradition and history teaches that he had, which amounts to a real and material proof.

III. _There is no presumption against miracles, or a miraculous revelation, after the course of nature was settled._

=1.= Such a presumption, requires the adduction of some _parallel_ case.

=2.= This would require us to know the history of some other world.

=3.= Even then, if drawn from only one other world, the presumption would be very precarious.

_To be more particular_,

=1.= There is a strong presumption against any truth till it is proved--which yet is overcome by almost any proof.

--Hence the question of a presumption against miracles, involves only the _degree_ of presumption, (not whether the presumption is _peculiar_ to miracles,) and whether that degree is such as to render them incredible.

=2.= If we _leave out religion_, we are in total darkness as to the cause or circumstances on which the course of nature depends.

--Five or six thousand years may have given occasion and reasons for miraculous interpositions of Providence.

=3.= _Taking in religion_, there are distinct reasons for miracles; to afford additional instruction; to attest the truth of instruction.

=4.= Miracles must not be compared with common events, but with uncommon; earthquakes, pestilence, &c.

Conclusion.

1. There are no analogies to render miracles incredible.

2. On the contrary, we see good reasons for them.

3. There are no presumptions against them, _peculiar_ to them, as distinguished from other unusual phenomena.

Chapter III.

Our Incapacity Of Judging What Should Be Expected In A Revelation From God.

Beside the objectors to the _evidences_ of Christianity, there are many who object to its _nature_. They say it is not full enough: has in it foolish things: gives rise to superstition: subserves tyranny: is not universally known: not well arranged: figurative language, &c.

It is granted that if it contained _immoralities_ or _contradictions_ they would show it to be false. But other objections against religion, aside from objections against its evidences, are frivolous: as will now be shown.

Let the student look to the _force_ of the proofs, rather than any _consequences_ which may be drawn from them.

I. _The Scripture informs us of a scheme of government, in addition to the material laws of the world._

=1.= If both these schemes, the physical and the moral, coincide and form one whole, then our inability to criticise the system of nature, renders it credible that we are incompetent to criticise the system of grace.

=2.= Nature shows many things we should not have expected, prior to experience.

=3.= Hence it is altogether likely it would be so in religion.

=4.= If a citizen is incompetent to judge of the propriety of the _general_ laws of his government, he is equally incompetent to judge when and how far those laws should be suspended, or deviated from.

II. _We are no better judges of how revelation should be imparted._

Whether to every man, or to some for others; or what mode or degree of proof should be given; or whether the knowledge should be given gradually or suddenly.

=1.= We are not able to judge how much new knowledge ought to be given by revelation.

=2.= Nor how far, nor in what way, God should qualify men to transmit any revelation he might make.

=3.= Nor whether the evidence should be certain, probable, or doubtful.

=4.= Nor whether all should have the same benefit from it.

=5.= Nor whether it should be in writing, or verbal. If it be said that if not in writing it would not have answered its purpose: I ask, what purpose? Who knows what purposes would best suit God’s _general_ government?

=6.= All which shows it to be absurd to object to particular things in revelation as unsuitable.

III. _Hence the only question, concerning the truth of revelation is, whether it is a revelation._

=1.= No obscurities, &c. could overthrow the authority of a revelation.

=2.= It can only be overthrown by nullifying the proofs.

=3.= Though the proofs could be shown to be less strong than is affirmed, it still should control our conduct.

IV. _Modes of arguing, which are perfectly just, in relation to other books, are not so as to the Bible._

=1.= We are competent judges of common books, but not of Scripture.

=2.= Our only inquiry should be to find out the sense.

=3.= In other books, internal improbabilities weaken external proof; but in regard to revelation, we scarcely know what are improbabilities.

1.) Those who judge the Scripture by preconceived expectations, will imagine they find improbabilities.

2.) And so they would by thus judging in natural things.

--It would seem very improbable, prior to experience, that man should be better able to determine the magnitudes and motions of heavenly bodies, than he is to determine the causes and cures of disease, which much more nearly concerns him.

--Or that we should sometimes hit upon a thing in an instant, even when thinking of something else, which we had been vainly trying to discover for years.

--Or that language should be so liable to abuse, that every man may be a deceiver.

--Or that brute instinct should ever be superior to reason.

V. _Such observations apply to almost all objections to Christianity, as distinguished from objections against its evidence._

For instance, the disorderly manner in which some, in the apostolic age used their miraculous gifts.

=1.= This does not prove the acts _not_ miraculous.

=2.= The person having any such gift, would have the same power over it which he would have over any other ability, and might pervert it.

=3.= To say why was he not also endued with prudence, to restrain its use, is but saying why did not God give a _higher degree_ of miraculous endowment? As to which we are not competent judges.

=4.= God does not confer his _natural_ gifts, (memory, eloquence, knowledge, &c.) only on those who are prudent and make the best use of them.

=5.= Nor is worldly instruction, by educators, commonly given in the happiest manner.

VI. _There is a resemblance between religion and nature in several other respects._

=1.= In both, common and necessary things, are plain; but to “go on to perfection” in either, requires exact and laborious study.

=2.= The hinderances to both religious and physical knowledge, are the same in kind. A more perfect knowledge may be brought about,

1.) By the progress of learning and liberty.

2.) By students attending to intimations overlooked by the generality.

=3.= It is not wonderful that our knowledge of Bible truth should be small; for the natural world has laid open to inspection, for thousands of years, and yet only lately are any great discoveries made.

=4.= Perhaps these scientific discoveries, are to be the means of opening and ascertaining Bible truth.

_Objec._ The cases are not parallel; for natural knowledge is of no consequence, compared to spiritual.

_Ans._ 1. The cases _are_ parallel; for natural knowledge is as important to our natural well-being, as spiritual knowledge is to our spiritual well-being.

_Ans._ 2. If the cases were not parallel, there are plenty of other analogies, which show that God does not dispense his gifts according to _our_ notions of their value.

_Objec._ 2. If Christianity be intended for the recovery of men, why not sooner introduced, and more widely diffused?

_Ans._ The objection is just as strong against the natural sciences. Nay, if the light of nature and of revelation are both from the same source, we might _expect_ that revelation would have been introduced and diffused just as it is.

1.) Remedies for disease are known but to a few, or not known at all, nor to any without care and study.

2.) When proposed by discoverers, they have been treated with derision, and the use rejected by thousands whom they might have cured.

3.) The best remedies have been used unskilfully, and so made to produce more disease.

4.) Their benefit may come very slowly.

5.) In some cases they may be wholly ineffectual.

6.) They maybe so disagreeable that many will not submit to use them, even with the prospect of a cure.

7.) Sometimes the remedy may be entirely out of reach if we were ready to take it.

All this reasoning may be applied to Christianity.

VII. _Having obviated all objections to Christianity, from its containing things we should not have expected, we will now consider the objections against its morality._

=1.= Reason may judge, as to whether revelation contains things contrary to justice, and wisdom, &c. as those attributes are taught by natural religion. But no such objections are advanced, except such as would equally condemn the constitution of nature.

=2.= There are indeed particular precepts, to particular persons, which _would_ be immoral, but for the precept. The precept changes the nature of the action.

=3.= None are contrary to immutable morality. We are never commanded to cultivate the principles of ingratitude, treachery, &c.

=4.= God may command the taking of life or property because these are _his_.

=5.= The only real difficulty is, that such commands are liable to be perverted by the wicked to their own horrid purposes; and to mislead the weak. But such objections do not lie against revelation, as such, but against the very notion of _religion as a trial_.

=6.= The sum of the whole is, objections against the _scheme_ of Christianity do not affect its truth; since there are no objections against its morality. Hence objections against it, aside from its evidences, are frivolous. Objections against the _evidence_, will be considered in a subsequent chapter, [_i.e._ ch. vii.]

Chapter IV.

Christianity A Scheme Imperfectly Understood.

In the last chapter it was shown that we might expect, beforehand, that a revelation would contain strange things, and things liable to great objections.

This abates the force of such objections, or rather precludes them.

But it may be said this does not show such objectionable things to be good, or credible.

It was a sufficient answer [ch. vii. part i.] to objections against the course of nature, that it was a _scheme_, imperfectly comprehended.

If Christianity be a scheme, the like objections admit of a like answer.

[In studying this chapter, let chap. vii. part i. be kept in view.]

I. _Christianity is a scheme, beyond our comprehension._

=1.= God’s _general_ plan is to conduct things _gradually_, so that, finally, every one shall receive what he deserves.

=2.= Christianity is a _particular_ arrangement, under this general plan: is a part of it, and conduces to its completion.

=3.= It is itself a complicated and mysterious economy.

1.) Its arrangements began from the fall of man.

2.) Various dispensations, patriarchal, prophetic, &c. were preparatory to it.

3.) At a certain juncture in the condition of the world Jesus Christ came.

4.) The mission of the Holy Ghost was part of this economy.

5.) Christ now presides over it, and will establish the church, judge the world, give up the kingdom, &c. &c.

=4.= Of course, we can comprehend but little of such a scheme.

=5.= We plainly see, from what is revealed, that there is very much unrevealed.

=6.= Thus it is evident that we are as little capable of judging as to the whole system of religion, as we are as to the whole system of nature.

II. _In both material and spiritual things, means are used to accomplish ends._

=1.= Hence a thing may seem foolish to us, because we do not know its object and end.

=2.= Its seeming foolish to us, is no proof that it is so.

III. _Christianity is carried on by general laws, no less than nature._

=1.= Why do we say there are _laws of nature_?

1.) We indeed know some such. But nothing of the laws of many things, _e.g._

· Pestilence. · Storms. · Earthquakes. · Diversities of human powers. · Association of ideas.

2.) Hence we call many things _accidental_, which we know are not matters of chance, but are subject to general laws.

3.) It is a very little way that we can trace things to their general laws.

4.) We attribute many things to such laws, only by analogy.

=2.= Just for the same reasons, we say that miracles comport with God’s _general laws of wisdom_. These laws may be unknown to us; but no more so than those by which some die as soon as born, or live to old age, or have superior understandings, &c.

=3.= We see no more reason to regard the frame and course of nature as a scheme, than we have to regard Christianity as such.

1.) If the first is a scheme, then Christianity, if true, would be _likely_ to be a scheme.

2.) As Christianity is revealed but in part, and is an arrangement to accomplish ends, there would of course seem to us, in it, irregularities; just as we see in nature.

3.) Therefore objections against the one, are answered in the same manner as objections against the other.

* * * * *

Having, in a previous chapter, [ch. iii.,] answered objections to Christianity _as a matter of fact_, and in this, as a general question of _wisdom and goodness_, the next thing is to discuss _objections in particular_.

As one of these is directed against _the scheme_, as just now described, it will be considered here.

_Objec._ Christianity is a roundabout, and perplexed contrivance; just such as men, for want of understanding or power, are obliged to adopt, in their designs.

_Ans._ 1.) God uses just such complex arrangements in the natural world. The mystery is quite as great in nature as in grace.

2.) We do not know what are means, and what are ends.

3.) The natural world, and its government, are not fixed, but progressive.

4.) Great length of time is required in some changes; _e.g._ animals, vegetables, geological periods, &c.

5.) One state of life is a preparation and means for attaining another.

6.) Man is impatient, but Jehovah deliberate.

Chapter V.

Of A Mediator, And Redemption By Him.

Nothing in Christianity is so much objected to as the position assigned to Christ; yet nothing is more unjust. The whole world exhibits mediation.

I. _Our existence, and all its satisfactions, are by the medium of others._

=1.= If so in the natural world, why not in the spiritual?

=2.= The objection therefore is not only against _Christ’s_ mediation, but _all_ mediation.

II. _We cannot know all the ends for which God punishes, nor by whom he should punish._

=1.= Future punishment may be as natural a sequence of sin, as a broken limb is of falling from a precipice.

=2.= This is not taking punishment out of the hands of God, and giving it to nature; it is only distinguishing ordinary events from miraculous.

III. _In natural providence, God has made provision that the bad consequences of actions do not always follow._

=1.= We may say God could have prevented all evil. But we see he permits it, and has provided relief, and even sometimes perfect remedies for it.

1.) Thus the bad consequences of trifling on a precipice may be prevented by a friend, if we do not reject his assistance.

2.) We may ourselves do much towards preventing the bad consequences of our misdeeds.

3.) Still more if assisted.

=2.= It might have been perfectly just if it were not so; but that it is so, shows compassion, as distinguished from goodness.

=3.= The course of nature affords many instances of such compassion.

=4.= Thus analogy sanctions an arrangement, by which the ruinous consequences of vice or folly may be averted, at least in some cases.

=5.= If the consequences of rash and inconsiderate acts, which we scarcely call vicious, are often so serious, we may apprehend that the bad consequences will be greater, in proportion as the irregularity is greater.

=6.= A dissolute disregard to all religion, if there be a religion, is incomparably more reprehensible than the mere neglects, imprudencies, &c. of this life.

=7.= As the effects of worldly imprudence and vice are often misery, ruin, and even death, no one can say what may be the consequences of blasphemy, contempt of God, and final impenitence.

=8.= Nor can any one tell, how far the consequences of such great wickedness can possibly be prevented, consistently with the eternal rule of right.

=9.= Still there would, from analogy, be some hope of room for pardon.

IV. _There is no probability that any thing we could do alone, would entirely prevent the effects of our irregularities._

=1.= We do not know all the reasons for punishment, nor why it should be fit to remit punishment.

=2.= Nor do we know all the consequences of vice, and so should not know how to prevent them.

=3.= Vice impairs men’s abilities for helping themselves.

=4.= Misconduct makes assistance necessary, which otherwise would not have been. Why should not the same things be so, as to our future interests?

=5.= In temporal things, behaving well in time to come, does not repair old errors, why should it as to future things?

=6.= Were it so in _all cases_ it would be contrary to all our notions of government.

=7.= It could not be determined in what degree, or in what cases, it would be so, even if we knew it might in _some_ cases.

=8.= The efficacy of repentance, as urged in opposition to atonement, is contrary to the general sense of mankind; as shown by the prevalence of propitiatory sacrifices.

V. _In this state of apprehension, awakened by the light of nature, revelation comes in, and teaches positively, the possibility of pardon and safety._

=1.= Confirms our fears as to the unprevented consequences of sin.

=2.= Declares the world to be in a state of ruin.

=3.= That repentance alone will not secure pardon.

=4.= That there is a mode of pardon, by interposition.

=5.= That God’s moral government is compassionate, as well as his natural government.

=6.= That he has provided, by the interposition of a mediator, to save men.

=7.= All this seems to put man in a strange state of helpless degradation. But it is not Christianity which puts him so. All philosophy and history show man to be degraded and corrupt.

VI. _Scripture, in addition to confirming the dim testimony of the light of nature, reveals a Christ, as mediator and propitiatory sacrifice._

=1.= He is “_that prophet_.”

1.) Declared the will of God.

2.) Published anew the law of nature.

3.) Taught with authority.

4.) Revealed the right manner of worship.

5.) Revealed the exact use of repentance.

6.) Revealed future rewards and punishments.

7.) Set us a perfect example.

=2.= He has a _kingdom_ which is not of this world.

1.) Founded a church.

2.) Governs it.

3.) Of it, all who obey him are members.

4.) Each of these shall live and reign with him forever.

=3.= He is a propitiatory _sacrifice_.

1.) How his sacrifice becomes efficacious, we are not exactly told.

2.) Conjectures may be absurd; at least cannot be certain.

3.) If any complain for want of further instruction, let him produce his claim to it.

4.) Some, because they cannot explain, leave it out of their creed; and regard Christ only as a teacher.

5.) We had better accept the benefit, without disputing about how it was procured.

VII. _We are not judges, antecedent to revelation, whether a mediator was necessary, nor what should be the whole nature of his office._

=1.= We know not how future punishment would have been inflicted.

=2.= Nor all the reasons why it would be necessary.

=3.= The satisfaction by Christ, does not represent God as indifferent whether he punishes the innocent or guilty.

1.) We see, in this world, the innocent _forced_ to suffer for the faults of the guilty.

2.) But Christ suffered _voluntarily_.

=4.= Though, finally, every one shall receive according to his own deserts; yet, during the progress of God’s scheme, _vicarious_ sufferings may be necessary.

1.) God commands us to assist others, though in many cases it costs us suffering and toil.

2.) One person’s sufferings often tend to relieve another.

=5.= Vicarious atonement for sinners, serves to vindicate the authority of God’s laws, and to deter men from sin.

=6.= Objections to vicarious suffering are obviously not objections to Christianity, but to the whole course of nature.

=7.= The objection, therefore, amounts to nothing more than saying that a divine arrangement is not necessary, or fit, because the objector does not see it to be so; though he must own he is no judge, and _could_ not understand why it should be necessary, if it were so!

VIII. _We have no reason to expect the same information touching God’s conduct, as we have in relation to our own duty._

=1.= God instructs us by experience.

=2.= This experience, though sufficient for our purposes, is an infinitely small part of his providence.

=3.= The things not understood involve God’s appointment, and Christ’s execution; but what _is required of us_, we are clearly informed.

=4.= Even the reasons for Christian precepts are made obvious.

Chapter VI.

Supposed Lack Of Proof Of Revelation, And Its Want Of Universality.

It has been thought to be a positive argument against revelation, that its evidences are not adequate, and that it is not universally known and believed.

But the argument amounts to just this, that God would not bestow on us any favor, except in such a mode and degree as we thought best, and did exactly the same for everybody else.

Such a notion, all analogy contradicts.

I. _Men act in their most important concerns on doubtful evidence._

=1.= It is often absolutely _impossible_ to say which of two modes of acting will give most pleasure or profit.

=2.= If it were possible, we cannot know what changes temper, satiety, ill health, &c. might produce, so as to destroy our pleasure.

=3.= We cannot foresee what accidents may cut it all off.

=4.= Strong objections and difficulties may attach to the course of action we adopt, which yet all would admit ought not to deter us.

=5.= We may, after all, be deceived by appearances, or by our passions, &c.

=6.= Men think it reasonable to engage in pursuit of advantage, even when the probabilities of success are against them.

II. _As to the light of Christianity not being universal._

=1.= Temporal good is enjoyed in very different degrees even among creatures of the same species.

=2.= Yet it is certain that God governs.

=3.= We may prudently or imprudently use our good things.

=4.= The Jewish religion was not universal.

=5.= If it be _intended_ that Christianity should be a small light, shining in a great and wide-spread darkness, it would be perfectly uniform with other parts of God’s providence.

=6.= If some have Christianity so corrupted, and interpolated, as to cause thoughtful persons to doubt it, as is the case in some countries; and if, where it is the purest, some learn much less from it than they might, there are manifest parallels in God’s natural dispensations.

=7.= No more is expected of any one, than is equitable under his circumstances.

=8.= Every one is bound to get rid of his ignorance, as far as he can, and to instruct his neighbor.

=9.= If revelation _were_ universal, in extent and degree, different understandings, educations, tempers, length of lives, and outward advantages, would soon make the knowledge of it as different as it is at present.

III. _Practical reflections._

_First._ That the evidence of religion is not such as unavoidably to convince all, may be part of our probation.

=1.= It gives scope for a wise or vicious use of our understanding. Just as is the case in common affairs.

=2.= Intellectual inattention to so serious a matter, is as immoral, as disobedience after conviction of the truth.

_Secondly._ If the evidence is really doubtful, it puts us on probation.

=1.= If a man were in doubt whether a certain person had done him the greatest favor, or whether his whole temporal interest depended on him, he ought not to regard that person as he would if there were _no_ reason to think so.

=2.= So if there is only reason to apprehend that Christianity _may_ be true, we are as much bound to _examine_, &c. as we would be bound to _obey_, if we _knew_ it was true.

=3.= Considering the infinite importance of religion, there is not much difference as to what ought to be the mode of life of those who are convinced and those who doubt its truth. Their hopes and fears are the same in kind, though not in degree; and so their obligations are much the same.

=4.= Doubts presuppose _some_ evidence, belief _more_, and certainty _more still_. Each state should influence our conduct, and does so, in common things.

=5.= It shows a mental defect not to see evidence unless it is glaring; and a corrupt heart not to be influenced by it unless overpowering.

_Thirdly._ Difficulties as to believing religion, are no more a ground of complaint, than difficulties in practising it.

=1.= They constitute a wholesome discipline.

1.) In allowing an unfair mind to deceive itself.

2.) In requiring belief and the practice of virtue under some uncertainties.

=2.= In the case of some minds, speculative difficulties as to the evidence of religion is the _principal_ trial. A full conviction of its truth would _constrain_ some to obedience.

_Fourthly._ The difficulties may be _in the objector_ rather than in the religion.

=1.= Not sufficiently in earnest to be informed.

=2.= Secretly _wishes_ religion not to be true.

=3.= Looks at objections rather than replies.

=4.= Treats the subject ludicrously.

_Fifthly._ The proof of Christianity is level to common men.

=1.= They are capable of being convinced of the existence of God, and of their moral accountability.

=2.= And they can understand the evidence of miracles, and the fulfilment of prophecy.

=3.= If they are capable of seeing the difficulty, they are capable of understanding the proof.

=4.= If they pick up objections from hearsay, and will not or cannot examine them thoroughly, they must remain ignorant, just as they do as to the sciences.

_Objec._ Our directions should be too plain to _admit_ of doubt; like those of an earthly master.

_Ans._ The earthly master only wants his work done, and is careless as to the state of the heart; but as the whole of morality consists in the state of the heart, the cases are not parallel.

_Finally._ The credibility of our being in a state of probation is just as great as the credibility of there being any religion. Our probation may be whether we choose to inform ourselves as to our duty, and then whether we choose to do it.

Such is exactly the case as to temporal matters. To discern what is best often requires difficult consideration, and yet leaves doubts: and not reflecting carefully, or not acting even when there may be doubt, is often fatal.

Chapter VII.

Positive Evidences Of Christianity.

Having considered the objections both to the general scheme of Christianity, and to particular doctrines in it, it only remains to consider the positive evidence of its truth; _i.e._ what analogy teaches with regard to that evidence.

There are many evidences of Christianity, beside those from miracles or prophecy, which are the principal; embracing a great variety of proofs, direct and collateral, and reaching through all past time. We shall now consider the proofs from MIRACLES and PROPHECY.

I. _Miracles._

=1.= Bible history gives the same evidence for the miracles described, as for common events.

1.) The miracles are evidently not put in for ornament, as speeches are by historians and poets put into the mouths of heroes.

2.) The accounts of them have been quoted as genuine, by various writers, from that day to this.

3.) These accounts are confirmed by subsequent events; and the miracles alone, can account for those events.

4.) The only fair way of accounting for these statements, and their reception in the world, is that the things really happened.

5.) The statements should be admitted till disproved, even if doubtful.

=2.= Paul’s Epistles have evidences of genuineness, beyond what can attach to mere history.

1.) _Additional._ His evidence is quite detached. He received the gospel not in common with the other apostles, but separately, and direct from Christ, _after_ his ascension.

2.) _Peculiar._ He speaks of Christ’s miracles and those of others _incidentally_, as familiar facts, fully believed by those to whom he wrote.

=3.= Christianity demands credence on the ground of its miracles, and was so received by great numbers, at the time and on the spot; which is the case with no other religion.

1.) Its first converts embraced it on this ground.

2.) It is not conceivable that they would have done so, at such fearful sacrifice, unless fully satisfied of the truth of these miracles.

3.) Such a profession and sacrifices furnish the same kind of evidence as if they had testified to the truth of the miracles in writing.

4.) It is real evidence, for they had full opportunity to inform themselves.

5.) It is a sort of evidence _distinct_ from direct history, though of the same nature.

6.) Men are suspicious as well as credulous, and slow to believe _against their interests_, as these did.

=4.= It lies upon unbelievers to show why all this array of proof is to be rejected; but in such an important concern we shall proceed to notice some possible objections.

_Objec._ 1. Enthusiasts make similar sacrifices for idle follies.

_Ans._ 1. This objection ignores the distinction between opinions and facts. Suffering for an opinion is no proof of its truth; but in attestation of observed facts, it is proof.

2. Enthusiasm _weakens_ testimony, it is true, even as to facts; and so does disease, _in particular instances_. But when great numbers, not weak, nor negligent, affirm that _they_ saw and heard certain things, it is the fullest evidence.

3. To reject testimony on the ground of enthusiasm, requires that the things testified be _incredible_; which has not been shown, as to religion, but the contrary.

4. Religion is not the only thing in regard to which witnesses are liable to enthusiasm. In common matters, we _get at the truth_ through witnesses, though influenced by party spirit, custom, humor, romance, &c. &c.

_Objec._ 2. Enthusiasm and knavery may have been combined in the apostles and first Christians.

_Ans._ Such a mixture is often seen, and is often reproved in Scripture; but not more in religious than in common affairs. Men in all matters deceive themselves and others, in every degree, yet human testimony is good ground of belief.

_Objec._ 3. Men have been deluded by false miracles.

_Ans._ Not oftener than by other pretences.

_Objec._ 4. Fabulous miracles have historical evidence.

_Ans._ 1. If this were equal to that for Scripture miracles, the evidence for the latter would not be _impaired_. The objection really amounts to this, that evidence proved not to be good, destroys evidence which is good and unconfuted! Or to this, that if two men, of equal reputation, testify, in _cases not related_ to each other, and one is proved false, the other must not be believed!

2. Nothing can rebut testimony, but proof that the witness is incompetent, or misled.

3. Against all such objections must be set the fact that Christianity was too serious a matter to allow the first converts to be careless as to its evidence; and also that their religion forbid them to deceive others.

II. _As to the evidence from prophecy._

=1.= Obscurity as to _part_ of a prophecy does not invalidate it, but is, as to us, as if that part were not written, or were lost. We may not see the whole prophecy fulfilled, and yet see enough fulfilled to perceive in it more than human foresight.

=2.= A _long series_ of prophecies, all applicable to certain events, is proof that such events were intended. This answers the objection that _particular_ prophecies were not intended to be applied as Christians apply them.

Mythological and satirical writings greatly resemble prophecy. Now we apply a parable, or fable, or satire, merely from seeing it _capable_ of such application.

So if a long series of prophecies be _applicable_ to the present state of the world, or to the coming of Christ, it is proof that they were so _intended_.

Besides, the ancient Jews, _before_ Christ, applied the prophecies to him, just as Christians do now.

=3.= If it could be shown that the prophets did not understand their own predictions, or that their prophecies are capable of being applied to other events than those to which Christians apply them, it would not abate the force of the argument from prophecy, even with regard to those instances. For,

1.) To know the whole meaning of an author we must know the whole meaning of his book, but knowing the meaning of a book is not knowing the whole mind of the author.

2.) If the book is a _compilation_, the authors may have meanings deeper than the compiler saw. If the prophets spoke by inspiration, they are not the authors, but the writers of prophecy, and may not have known all that the Divine Spirit intended. But the fulfilment of the prophecy shows a foresight more than human.

Remark.

This whole argument is just and real; but it is not expected that those will be satisfied who will not submit to the perplexity and labor of understanding it; or who have not modesty and fairness enough to allow an argument its due weight; or who wilfully discard the whole investigation.

The General Argument

We _now_ proceed to THE GENERAL ARGUMENT embracing both direct and circumstantial evidence. A full discussion would require a volume, and cannot be expected here; but _something_ should be said, especially as most questions of difficulty, in practical affairs, are settled by evidence arising from circumstances which confirm each other.

The thing asserted is that God has given us a revelation declaring himself to be a moral governor; stating his system of government; and disclosing a plan for the recovery of mankind out of sin, and raising them to perfect and final happiness.

I. _Consider this revelation as a history._

=1.= It furnishes an account of the world, as God’s world.

1.) God’s providence, commands, promises, and threatenings.

2.) Distinguishes God from idols.

3.) Describes the condition of religion and of its professors, in a world considered as apostate and wicked.

4.) Political events are related as affecting religion, and not for their importance as mere political events.

5.) The history is continued by prophecy, to the end of the world.

=2.= It embraces a vast variety of other topics; natural and moral.

1.) Thus furnishing the largest scope for criticism.

2.) So that _doubts_ of its truth confirm that truth, for in this enlightened age the claims of a book of such a nature could be easily and finally shown to be false, if they were so.

3.) None who believe in natural religion, hold that Christianity has been thus confuted.

=3.= It contains a minute account of God’s selecting one nation for his peculiar people, and of his dealings with them.

1.) Interpositions in their behalf.

2.) Threats of dispersion, &c. if they rebelled.

3.) Promises of a Messiah as their prince; so clearly as to raise a general expectation, &c.

4.) Foretelling his rejection by them, and that he should be the Savior of the Gentiles.

=4.= Describes minutely the arrival of the Messiah, and his life and labors; and the result, in the establishment of a new religion.

II. _As to the authenticity of this history._

Suppose a person ignorant of all history but the Bible, and not knowing even that to be true, were to inquire into its evidence of authenticity, he would find,

=1.= That natural religion owes its establishment to _the truths_ contained in this book. This no more _disproves_ natural religion, than our learning a proposition from Euclid, shows that the proposition was not true before Euclid.

=2.= The great antiquity of revelation.

=3.= That its chronology is not contradicted but confirmed by known facts.

=4.= That there is nothing in the history itself to awaken suspicion of its fidelity.

1.) Every thing said to be done in any age or country, is conformable to the manners of that age and country.

2.) The characters are all perfectly natural.

3.) All the domestic and political incidents are credible. Some of these, taken alone, seem strange to _some_, in _this_ day; but not more so than things now