The following paper is evidently a draft of a preface, which, in the consciousness that some apology was called for in connexion with this subject, he intended to prefix to the second volume. He afterwards published a great part of the substance of it in a note towards the end of the volume: but there is sufficient difference in the contents of the two papers to make the following a distinct object of interest. PREFACE. It ought to be no matter of offence, that in this volume, as well as in the foregoing, the mischiefs which arise from the abuses of religion are so often mentioned, while so little in comparison is said of the salutary consequences which result from true and genuine piety. The proper office of religion is to reform men's lives, to purify their hearts, to enforce all moral duties, and to secure obedience to the laws and civil magistrate. While it pursues these useful purposes, its operations, though infinitely valuable, are secret and silent, and seldom come under the cognisance of history. That adulterate species of it alone, which inflames faction, animates sedition, and prompts rebellion, distinguishes itself in the open theatre of the world. Those, therefore, who attempt to draw inferences disadvantageous to religion from the abuses of it mentioned by historians, proceed upon a very gross, and a very obvious fallacy; for, besides that every thing is liable to abuse, and the best things the most so, the beneficent influence of religion is not to be sought for in history. That principle is always the more pure and genuine, the less figure it makes in the annals of war, politics, intrigues, and revolutions, quarrels, and convulsions; which it is the business of an historian to record and transmit to posterity.