RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES Lord TALBOT Baron of HENSOL, Lord High Chancellor of GREAT BRItain, The following TREATISE is with all Respect, Inscribed, in Acknowledgment of the Highest Obligations to the late Lord Bifhop of DURHAM and to HIMSELF, By His LORDSHIP'S moft dutiful, moft devoted, and most humble Servant, JOSEPH BUTLER. ADVERTISEMENT. I F the Reader fhould meet here with any thing, which he had not before attended to, it will not be in the Obfervations upon the Conftitution and Courfe of Nature, these being all obvious; but in the Application of them: In which, though there is nothing but what appears to me of fome real Weight, and therefore of great Importance; yet he will observe several things, which will appear to him of very little, if he can think things to be of little Importance, which are of any real Weight at all, upon fuch a Subject as Religion. However, the pro(a) per per Force of the following Treatise, lies in the whole general Analogy confidered together. It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many Perfons, that Christianity is not so much as a Subject of Inquiry; but that it is, now at length, difcovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it, as if, in the prefent Age, this were an agreed Point, among all People of Difcernment; and nothing remained, but to fet it up as a principal Subject of Mirth and Ridicule, as it were by Way of Reprifals, for its having fo long interrupted the Pleafures of the World. On the contrary, thus much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable Man, who will thoroughly confider the Matter, may be as much affured, as he is of his own Being, that that it is not, however, fo clear a Cafe, that there is nothing in it. There is, I think, ftrong Evidence of its Truth; but it is certain no one can, upon Principles of Reason, be fatisfied of the contrary. And the practical Confequence to be drawn from this, is not attended to, by every one who is concerned in it. May 1736. (22) CON |