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.Butler, Joseph
Religion
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.
Butler, Joseph
Analogy (Religion); Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Eschatology; Natural theology; Revelation
Thus, though some perhaps may seriously think, that analogy, as here
urged, has too great stress laid upon it; and ridicule, unanswerable
ridicule, may be applied, to show the argument from it in a
disadvantageous light; yet there can be no question, but that it is
a real one. For religion, both natural and revealed, implying in it
numerous facts; analogy, being a _confirmation_ of all facts to which
it can be applied, and the _only proof_ of most, cannot but be admitted
by every one to be a material thing, and truly of weight on the side of
religion, both natural and revealed. And it ought to be particularly
regarded by such as profess to follow nature, and to be less satisfied
with abstract reasonings.
CONCLUSION.
Whatever account may be given of the strange inattention and disregard,
in some ages and countries, to a matter of such importance as religion;
it would, before experience, be incredible, that there should be the
like disregard in those, who have had the moral system of the world
laid before them, as it is by Christianity, and often inculcated upon
them: because this moral system carries in it a good degree of evidence
for its truth, upon its being barely proposed to our thoughts. There
is no need of abstruse reasonings and distinctions, to convince an
unprejudiced understanding, that there is a God who made and governs
the world, and will judge it in righteousness; though they may be
necessary to answer abstruse difficulties, when once such are raised:
when the very meaning of those words, which express most intelligibly
the general doctrine of religion, is pretended to be uncertain; and
the clear truth of the thing itself is obscured by the intricacies of
speculation. To an unprejudiced mind, ten thousand thousand instances
of design cannot but prove a designer. And it is intuitively manifest,
that _creatures_ ought to live under a dutiful sense of their Maker;
and that justice and charity must be his laws, to creatures whom he has
made social, and placed in society.
The truth of revealed religion, peculiarly so called, is not indeed
self-evident, but requires external proof, in order to its being
received. Yet inattention, among us, to revealed religion, will
be found to imply the same dissolute immoral temper of mind, as
inattention to natural religion: because, when both are laid before
us, in the manner they are in Christian countries of liberty, our
obligations to inquire into both, and to embrace both upon supposition
of their truth, are obligations of the same nature. Revelation claims
to be the voice of God: and our obligation to attend to his voice is
surely moral, in all cases. And as it is insisted, that its evidence
is conclusive, upon thorough consideration of it; so it offers itself
with obvious appearances of having something more than human in it,
and therefore in all reason requires to have its claims most seriously
examined into.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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