PART II. OF REVEALED RELIGION. CHAPTER I.-Page 157. Of the Importance of Christianity. CHAPTER II.-Page 178. Of the supposed Presumption against a Revelation, considered as miraculous. CHAPTER III.-Page 186. Of 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. CHAPTER IV.-Page 204. Of Christianity, considered as a Scheme or Constitution, imperfectly comprehended. CHAPTER V.-Page 214. Of the particular System of Christianity; the Appointment of a Mediator, and the Redemption of the World by him. CHAPTER VI.-Page 237. Of the Want of Universality in Revelation: and of the supposed Deficiency in the Proof of it. CHAPTER VII.-Page 260. Of the Particular Evidence for Christianity. CHAPTER VIII.-Page 303. Of the Objections which may be made against arguing from the Analogy of Nature to Religion. CONCLUSION.-Page 318. DISSERTATION I.-Page 331. Of Personal Identity. DISSERTATION II.-Page 340. Of the Nature of Virtue. THE AUTHOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. IF the reader should meet here with any thing which he had not before attended to, it will not be in the observations upon the constitution and course of nature, these being all obvious, but in the application of them; in which, though there is nothing but what appears to me of some 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 such a subject as religion. However, the proper force of the following treatise lies in the whole general analogy considered together. It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. And, accordingly, they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world. On the contrary, thus much, at least, will be here found, not B taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured as he is of his own being, that it is not however so clear a case that there is nothing in it. There is, I think, strong evidence of its truth; but it is certain no one can, upon principles of reason, be satisfied of the contrary. And the practical consequence to be drawn from this is not attended to by every one who is concerned in it. May, 1736. |