OR, AN ATTEMPT TO DISPLAY, BY INTERNAL TESTIMONY, THE EVIDENCE AND EXCELLENCE OF REVEALED RELIGION. BY VICESIMUS KNOX, D. D. LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND MASTER OF A NEW EDITION. HOC PHILOSOPHIE genus in affectibus situm est, veritus quam in syllogismis; LONDON: PRINTED FOR morrison aND WATT, FENCHURCH-STREET; AND SOLD BY EDINBURGH; CHALMERS AND COLLINS, GLASGOW; AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. As every attempt to illustrate and recommend such opinions on RELIGION, as oppose pride and prejudice, is peculiarly obnoxious to the misconceptions of the ignorant, the misrepresentation of the malevolent, and the rash censure of the thoughtless; (who rudely and hastily condemn what they scarcely allow themselves even time to understand;) I think it proper to entreat all who honour this book with any degree of their attention, duly to consider the AUTHORITIES, human as well as scriptural, on which it is founded, and not to reject doctrines in which their own happiness, is most deeply concerned, till they shall have invalidated those authorities, and proved themselves superior in sagacity, learning, and piety, to the great men whose sentiments I have cited in support of my own. Let the firm phalanx of surrounding authorities be first fairly routed, before the opponents level their arrows, even bitter words, at a book which enforces a doctrine, unfashion |