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                                  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.