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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 place, 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 Popery 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

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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

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* Serm. XVII. p. 367.

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whoever, I say, will consider Popery as it is "professed at Rome, may see, that it is a mani"fest, 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 Ar

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gument, 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 in"sisted upon as Proofs of their Truth; a kind "of Proof, which at best can only be presump❝tive, but which loses all its little weight, in proportion as the long and large prevalence

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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

* Serm. XX. p. 440-442.

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view, and enforces upon our Conscience genuine Christianity, free from the Super"stitions with which it is defiled in other Coun"tries; which Superstitions, he observes, naturally tend to abate its Force*.” The date of this Sermon should be here 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 passage 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, Imust 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

*Serm. XX. p. 449.

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 falsehood 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 candour 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 mention, there is yet in existence a strong presumptive argument at least in its favour, drawn from the testimony of those who attended our Author in the sickness of which * See Note [C], at the end of this Preface.

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he died. The last days of this excellent Prelate were passed at Bath; Dr. NATHANAEL FORSTER, his Chaplain, being continually witn 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 show 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, 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 disorder 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

* See Note [D], at the end of this Preface.