PREFACE.

NOTWITHSTANDING the approbation with which this celebrated treatise of Bishop Butler has been received, his style has been frequently censured as intricate and obscure. A great portion of this obscurity should justly be attributed to the nature of the subject, and, perhaps, a greater degree of it to the comprehensive mind of the author, and the conciseness of expression characteristic of such minds. It can not be expected that difficulties of the former kind can be lessened by an analysis, or, indeed, by any thing else, without that serious attention in the reader which subjects of such importance demand—the removal of those of vi the latter class has here been attempted. For example, the scope and connection of the several parts not being sufficiently marked out; the length of elaborate sentences, where clauses are minutely opposed, or exceptions briefly adverted to; repetitions that separate, at great intervals, the parts of the reasoning; the introduction of digressionary remarks—all contribute to render it the more abstruse for ordinary perusal.

The summary at the head of each chapter in this Analysis shows, at once, its design and the connection of the steps of reasoning employed in it. For the most part, the precise language of the original has been adhered to, so far as it did not come within the preceding exceptions. Some notes have been occasionally introduced from the text containing remarks unconnected with the chapter in which they stand, while others have been added of an explanatory nature.

It is distinctly to be kept in view, that the evidence of analogy is applied, not to the proof of religion natural or revealed, but to the confirmation of that proof supposed to be known.

“I know no author,” says Dr. Reid, “who has made a more just and a more happy use of analogical reasoning than Bishop Butler, in his Analogy of Religion. In that excellent work, the author does not ground any of the truths of religion upon analogy as their proper evidence: he only makes use of analogy to answer objections against them. When objections are made against truths of religion, which may be made with equal strength against what we know to be true in the course of nature, such objections can have no weight.” To the same purpose, it is observed by Dr. Campbell, that, “analogical evidence is generally more successful in silencing objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely refutes, it frequently repels refutation; like those weapons which, though they can not kill the enemy, will ward his blows.”

It consequently follows, that if any point of the analogy appears weak, it is not to be concluded that the proper proofs of it are so. Some parts are more convincing than others; but the force of this treatise can only be estimated by viewing all its parts in connection. The books of Nature and of Revelation are viii compared together. An Author of Nature is the only point assumed; and, by a reference to the natural course of things—to indisputable facts—to man himself, according to his original constitution—to his daily habit of acting on evidence far inferior to that which accompanies revelation—all objections are answered, as applying with equal force against the constitution of nature, where they are found false in fact. The objector is answered according to principles which he can not deny. The part of his conduct which is natural convicts him of objecting to what is equally suited to his nature.

It is evident that the proper motives and principles of the Christian are not to be looked for in a work that descends so low; for example, the nature of human life is such as to encourage any kind of exertion on the lowest chance of obtaining the end in view; yet, although this may show the unreasonableness of neglect with regard to a future state, where the chance of its existence is acknowledged, this chance is not intended to be a substitute for that faith, which is “the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.” ix Yet it is not to be inferred that the believer can not be confirmed by arguments from analogy. He also may have doubts which they can immediately dispel; and to all, even the most steadfast disciples of the Lord Jesus, they must afford some degree, if not of profit, at least of pleasure. It might be added, if the work were written on any other subject, that it would serve as a useful exercise to our intellectual faculties in and for itself; but, in this case, the end so far exceeds the means, that we must altogether lose sight of them in the all-important object to which they are directed.¹¹I can not forbear adding a late encomium upon the works of the author of the Analogy:—“I am ready and anxious to acknowledge,” observes Dr. O’Brien, “that I trace so distinctly to his (Bishop Butler’s) writings the origin of the soundest and clearest views that I possess upon the nature of the human mind, that I could not write on this or any kindred subject, without a consciousness that I was, directly or indirectly, borrowing largely from him.”—Vide Two Sermons on the Human Nature of Christ.

But the chief design of this treatise undoubtedly is, to warn the unbeliever and careless professor of the danger to which they are exposed, and to extort from their own breasts a confession of their self-condemnation; to show them x that there is more even in natural religion, and much more in revealed religion, than they suppose; and to lead them to search the Scriptures of truth. It is humbly hoped that the present Analysis may prove useful with respect to such, persons where the abstruseness of the original work might render it less efficient, or even, in some degree, prevent its perusal.