it be, which is getting ground; and will not fail to carry it to the utmost length their occasions require. The general nature of the thing shews this; and history and fact confirm it. It is therefore wonderful, those people who seem to think there is but one evil in life, that of superstition, should not see that atheism and profaneness must be the introduction of it."*

He who can think and write in such a manner, can never be said to mistake the nature of real religion: and he, who, after such proofs to the contrary, can persist in asserting of so discreet and learned a person, that he was addicted to superstition, must himself be much a stranger both to truth and charity.

And here it may be worth our while to observe, that the same excellent prelate, who by one set of men was suspected of superstition, on account of his charge, has by another been represented as leaning to the opposite extreme of enthusiasm, on account of his two discour ses On the love of God. But both opinions are equally without foundation. He was neither superstitious nor an enthusiast. His mind was much too strong, and his habits of thinking and reasoning much too strict and severe, to suffer him to descend to the weaknesses of either character. His piety was at once fervent and rational. When, impressed with a generous concern for the declining cause of religion, he labored to revive its dying interests, nothing he judged would be more effectual to that end, among creatures so much engaged with bodily things, and so apt to be affected with whatever strongly solicits the senses as men are, than a religion of such a frame as should in its exercise require the joint exertions of the body and the mind. On the other hand, when penetrated with the dignity and importance of the first and great commandment,† Love to God, he set himself to inquire, what those movements of the heart are, which are due to him, the Author and Cause of all things; he found, in the coolest way of consideration, that God is the natural object of the same affections of gratitude, reverence, fear, desire of approbation, trust, and dependence; the same affections in kind, though doubtless in a very disproportionate degree, which any one would feel from contemplating a perfect character in a creature, in which goodness with wisdom and power are supposed to be the predominant qualities, with the further circumstance that this creature was also his governor and friend. This subject is manifestly a real one; there is nothing in it fanciful or unreasonable. This way of being affected towards God is piety, in the strictest sense; this is religion, considered as a habit of mind; a religion, suited to the nature and condition of man

II. From superstition to popery the transition is easy. No wonder then, that, in the progress of detraction, the simple imputation of the former of these, with which the attack on the character of our author was opened, should be followed by the more aggravated imputation of the latter. Nothing, I think, can fairly be gathered in support of such a suggestion from the charge, in which popery is barely mentioned, and occasionally only, and in a sentence or two; + See note [B],

Serm. XVI. p. 339, 340. Ed. 4th, 1749, Matth xxii. 38. at the end of this Preface.

yet even there, it should be remarked, the bishop takes care to describe the peculiar observances required by it, "some as in themselves wrong and superstitious, and others of them as being made subservient to the purposes of superstition." With respect to his other writings, any one at all conversant with them needs not to be told, that the matters treated of both in his Sermons and his Analogy did, none of them, directly lead him to consider and much less to combat, the opinions, whether relating to faith or worship, which are peculiar to the church of Rome: it might therefore have happened, yet without any just conclusion arising from thence, of being himself inclined to favor those opinions, that he had never mentioned, so much as incidentally, the subject of popery at all. But fortunately for the reputation of the bishop, and to the eternal disgrace of his calumniators, even this poor resource is wanting to support their malevolence. In his sermon at St. Bride's, before the Lord Mayor, in 1740, after having said that "our laws and whole constitution go more upon supposition of an equality amongst mankind, than the constitution and laws of other countries;" he goes on to observe, that "this plainly requires, that more particular regard should be had to the education of the lower people here, than in places where they are born slaves of power, and to be made slaves of superstition:"* meaning evidently in this piace by the general term superstition, the particular errors of the Romanists This is something; but we have a still plainer indication what his sentiments concerning po. pery really were, from another of his Additional Sermons, I mean that before the House of Lords, on June the 11th, 1747, the anniversary of his late Majesty's accession. The passage alluded to is as follows, and my readers will not be displeased that I give it them at length. "The value of our religious establishment ought to be very much heightened in our esteem, by considering what it is a security from; I mean that great corruption of Christianity, popery, which is ever hard at work to bring us again under its yoke. Whoever will consider the popish claims to the disposal of the whole earth, as of divine right, to dispense with the most sacred engagements, the claims to supreme absolute authority in religion; in short, the general claims which the Canonists express by the words, plenitude of power-whoever, I say, will consider popery as it is professed at Rome, may see, that it is manifest, open usurpation of all human and divine authority. But even in those Roman-catholic countries where these monstrous claims are not admitted; and the civil power, does, in many respects, restrain the papal; yet persecution is professed, as it is absolutely enjoined by what is acknowledged to be their highest authority, a general council, so called, with the pope at the head of it; and is practised in all of them, I think, without exception, where it can be done safely. Thus they go on to substitute force instead of argument, and external profession made by force instead of reasonable conviction. And thus corruptions of the grossest sort have been in vogue, for many generations, in many parts of Christendom; and are so still. even where popery obtains in its least absurd form; and their antiquity and wide extent are insisted upon as proofs of their truth; a kind of proof which at best can only be presumptive,

but which loses all its little weight, in proportion as the long and large prevalence of such corruptions have been obtained by force."* In another part of the same sermon, where he is again speaking of our ecclesiastical constitution, he reminds his audience that it is to be valued, "not because it leaves us at liberty to have as little religion as we please, without being accountable to human judicatories; but because it exhibits to our view, and enforces upon our consciences, genuine Christianity, free from the superstitions with which it is defiled in other countries;" which superstions, he observes, "naturally tend to abate its force."+ The date of this sermon should here be attended to. It was preached in June 1747; that is, four years before the delivery and publication of the charge, which was in the year 1751; and exactly five years before the author died, which was in June, 1752. We have then, in the passages now laid before the reader, a clear and unequivocal proof, brought down to within a few years of Bishop BUTLER'S death, that popery was held by him in the utmost abhorrence, and that he regarded it in no other light than as the great corruption of Christianity, and a manifest, open usurpation of all human and divine authority. The argument is decisive; nor will any thing be of force to invalidate it, unless from some afteract during the short remainder of the bishop's life, besides that of delivering and printing his Charge, (which, after what I have said here, and in the Notes added to this Preface and to the Charge, I must have leave to consider as affording no evidence at all of his inclination to papistical doctrines or ceremonies) the contrary shall incontrovertibly appear.

III. One such after-act, however, has been alleged, which would effectually demolish all that we have urged in behalf of our Prelate, were it true, as is pretended, that he died in the communion of the church of Rome. Had a story of this sort been invented and propagated by Papists, the wonder might have been less :

Hoc Ithacus velit, & magno mercentur Atridæ.

But to the reproach of protestantism, the fabrication of this calumny, for such we shall find it, originated from among ourselves. It is pretty remarkable, that a circumstance so extraordinary should never have been divulged till the year 1767, fifteen years after the Bishop's decease. At that time Dr. THOMAS SECKER was Archbishop of CANTERBURY; who of all others was the most likely to know the truth or falshood of the fact asserted, having been educated with our author in his early youth, and having lived in a constant habit of intimacy with him to the very time of his death. The good Archbishop was not silent on this occasion: with a virtuous indignation he stood forth to protect the posthumous character of his friend; and in a public newspaper, under the signature of Misopseudes, called upon his accuser to support what he had advanced, by whatever proofs he could. No proof, however, nor any thing like a proof, appeared in reply; and every man of sense and candor at that time was perfectly convinced the assertion was entirely groundless. As a further confirmation of the rectitude of this judgment, it may not be amiss to

* Serm XX. p. 440-442. † P. 449. + See note [C], at the end of this Pre

face.

mention, there is yet in existence a strong presumptive argumnent at least in its favor, drawn from the testimony of those who attended our author in the sickness of which he died. The last days of this excellent Prelate were passed at Bath; Dr. NATHANIEL FORSTER, his chaplain, being continually with him; and for one day, and at the very end of his illness, Dr. MARTIN BENSON also, the then Bishop of GLOUCESTER, who shortened his own life in his pious haste to visit his dying friend. Both these persons constantly wrote letters to Dr. SECKER, then Bishop of Oxford, containing accounts of Bishop BUTLER'S declining health, and of the symptoms and progress of his disorder, which, as was conjectured, soon terminated in his death. These letters, which are still preserved in the Lambeth library,* I have read; and not the slenderest argument can be collected from them in justification of the ridiculous slander we are here considering. If at that awful season the Bishop was not known to have expressed any opinion, tending to shew his dislike to popery; neither was he known to have said any thing that could at all be construed in approbation of it: and the natural presumption is, that whatever sentiments he had formerly entertained concerning that corrupt system of religion, he continued to entertain them to the last. The truth is, that neither the word nor the idea of popery seems once to have occurred either to the Bishop himself, or to those who watched his. parting moments: their thoughts were otherwise engaged. His dis order had reduced him to such debility, as to render him incapable of speaking much or long on any subject; the few bright intervals that occurred were passed in a state of the utmost tranquility and composure; and in that composure he expired. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace.f-Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!

Out of pure respect for the virtues of a man whom I had never the happiness of knowing, or even of seeing, but from whose writings I have received the greatest benefit and illumination, and which I have reason to be thankful to Providence for having early thrown in my way; I have adventured, in what I have now offered to the public, to step forth in his defence, ard to vindicate his honest fame from the attacks of those, who, with the vain hope of bringing down superior characters to their own level, are for ever at work in detracting from their just praise. For the literary reputation of Bishop BUTLER, it stands too high in the opinion of the world, to incur the danger of any diminution; but this in truth is the least of his excellencies. He was more than a good writer, he was a good man; and, what is an addition even to this eulogy, he was a sincere Christian. His whole study was directed to the knowledge and practice of sound morality and true religion: these he adorned by his life, and has recommended to future ages in his writings; in which, if my judgment be of any avail, he has done essential service to both; as much, perhaps, as any single person, since the extraordinary gifts of the word of wisdom and the word of knowledges have been withdrawn.

10.

See note [D], at the end of this Preface. †Ps. xxxvii. 37. # Numb, xxiii, §1. Cor xii. 8,

IN what follows, I propose to give a short account of the Bishop's MORAL and RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS, as these are collected from his works.

I. His way of treating the subject of morals is to be gathered from the volume of his SERMONS, and particularly from the three first, and from the preface to that volume.

"There is," as our author with singular sagaeity has observed, "a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world, than we are apt to take notice of."* The inward frame of man answers to his outward condition. The several propensities, passions, and affections, implanted in our hearts by the Author of nature, are in a peculiar manner adapted to the circumstances of life in which he hath placed us. This general observation, properly pursued, leads to several important conclusions. The original internal constitution of man, compared with his external condition, enables us to discern what course of action and behavior that constitution leads to, what is our duty respecting that condition, and furnishes us besides with the most powerful arguments to the practiee of it.

What the inward frame and constitution of man is, is a question of fact, to be determined as other facts are, from experience, from our internal feelings and external senses, and from the testimony of others. Whether human nature, and the circumstances in which it is placed, might not have been ordered otherwise, is foreign to our inquiry, and none of our concern: our province is, taking both of these as they are, and viewing the connexion between them, from that connexion to discover, if we can, what course of action is fitted to that nature and those circumstances. From contemplating the bodily senses, and the organs or instruments adapted to them, we learn that the eye was given to see with, the ear to hear with. In like manner, from considering our inward perceptions and the final causes of them, we collect that the feeling of shame for instance, was given to prevent the doing of things shameful; compassion, to carry us to releive others in distress; anger, to resist sudden violence offered to ourselves. If, continuing our inquiries in this way, it should at length appear, that the whole nature of man, leads him to and is fit ted for that particular course of behavior, which we usually distinguish by the name of virtue; we are authorized to conclude, that virtue is the law we are born under, that it was so intended by the Author of our being; and we are bound by the most intimate of all obligations, a regard to our own highest interest and happiness, to conform to it in all situations and events.

Human nature is not simple and uniform, but made up of several parts; and we can have no just idea of it as a system or constitution, “ unless we take into our view the respects and relations which these parts have to each other. As the body is not one member, but many, so our inward structure consists of various instincts, appetites and propensions. Thus far there is no difference between human creatures and brutes. But besides these common passions and affec tions, there is another principle, peculiar to mankind, that of conscience, moral sense, reflection, call it what you please, by which they are enabled to review their whole conduct, to approve of some

* Serm. VI.