Chap. vii.

These facts demand attention.

Vice not

secure.

The

credibility
of God's
moral
government
makes virtue
the prudent
part,

and is

sufficient to control passion,

especially

as nature

requires such

control of us.

urged against the whole notion of moral government and a probation state, from the opinion of necessity: it has been shewn, that God has given us the evidence, as it were, of experience, that all objections against Religion, on this head, are vain and delusive. He has also, in His natural government, suggested an answer to all our shortsighted objections, against the equity and goodness of His moral government; and in general He has exemplified to us the latter by the former.

[2.] These things, which, it is to be remembered, are matters of fact, ought, in all common sense, to awaken mankind; to induce them to consider in earnest their condition, and what they have to do. It is absurd, absurd to the degree of being ridiculous, if the subject were not of so serious a kind, for men to think themselves secure in a vicious life; or even in that immoral thoughtlessness, which far the greatest part of them are fallen into. And the credibility of Religion, arising from experience and facts here considered, is fully sufficient, in reason, to engage them to live in the general practice of all virtue and piety; under the serious apprehension, though it should be mixed with some doubt, of a righteous administration established in Nature, and a future judgment in consequence of it: especially when we consider, how very questionable it is, whether anything at all can be gained by vice; 5 how unquestionably little, as well as precarious, the pleasures and profits of it are at the best; and how soon they must be parted with at the longest. For, in the deliberations of reason, concerning what we are to pursue and what to avoid, as temptations to anything from mere passion are supposed out of the case: so inducements to vice, from cool expectations of pleasure and interest so small and uncertain and short, are really so insignificant, as, in the view of reason, to be almost nothing in themselves; and in comparison with the importance of Religion, they quite disappear and are lost. Mere passion indeed may be alleged, though not as a reason, yet as an excuse, for a vicious course of life. And how sorry an excuse it is, will be manifest by observing, that we are placed in a condition, in which we are unavoidably inured to govern our passions, by being necessitated to govern them :

But

and to lay ourselves under the same kind of restraints, and
as great ones too, from temporal regards, as virtue and piety,
in the ordinary course of things, require. The plea of un-
governable passion then, on the side of vice, is the poorest
of all things; for it is no reason, and but a poor excuse.
the proper motives to Religion are the proper proofs of it,
from our moral nature, from the presages of conscience, and
our natural apprehension of God under the character of a
righteous Governor and Judge; a nature and conscience and
apprehension given us by Him; and from the confirmation
of the dictates of reason, by "life and immortality brought
to light by the Gospel; and the wrath of God revealed from
Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." 6

6[2 Tim. i. 10; Rom. i. 18.]

The proper

motives to

Religion.

THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION

TO THE

CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE.

PART II.

OF REVEALED RELIGION.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Importance of Christianity.

Some reject incredible in

revelation as

itself.

But, if

possible, it

not

[1.] SOME persons, upon pretence of the sufficiency of the light of Nature, avowedly reject all revelation, as, in its very notion, incredible, and what must be fictitious.1 And indeed it is certain, no revelation would have been given, had the light of Nature been sufficient in such a sense, as to render superfluous. one not wanting and useless. But no man, in seriousness and simplicity of mind, can possibly think it so, who considers the state of Religion in the heathen world before revelation, and a its present state in those places which have borrowed no light b from it particularly the doubtfulness of some of the greatest c men, concerning things of the utmost importance, as well as the natural inattention and ignorance of mankind in general. d

[The writers whom Butler had in view are generally known as the English Deists. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648) may be counted the founder of the school; but its two most influential members were John Toland (1670-1722), the title of whose work, Christianity not mysterious, sufficiently explains itself, and Matthew Tindal (1656

1733). It is against the work of the
last-named writer, Christianity as
old as the Creation (1730), that
Butler seems especially to have
directed his Analogy. Tindal main-
tained that the light of natural
reason was a sufficient guide to man,
and that the light of revelation was
but an ignis fatuus, whose leading
was hard to discern and always to

e

It is impossible to say, who would have been able to have reasoned out that whole system, which we call natural Religion, in its genuine simplicity, clear of superstition: but there is certainly no ground to affirm that the generality could. If f they could, there is no sort of probability that they would. g Admitting there were, they would highly want a standing admonition to remind them of it, and inculcate it upon them. And further still, were they as much disposed to attend to h Religion, as the better sort of men are; yet even upon this supposition, there would be various occasions for supernatural instruction and assistance, and the greatest advantages might be afforded by them. So that to say revelation is a thing superfluous, what there was no need of, and what can be of no service, is, I think, to talk quite wildly and at random.2 Nor would it be more extravagant to affirm, that mankind is so entirely at ease in the present state, and life so completely happy, that it is a contradiction to suppose our condition capable of being, in any respect, better.

Others allege it to be unimportant, provided that Natural Religion be observed.

[2.] There are other persons, not to be ranked with these, who seem to be getting into a way of neglecting, and, as it were, overlooking revelation, as of small importance, provided natural Religion be kept to. With little regard either to the evidence of the former, or to the objections against it, and even upon supposition of its truth; "the only design of it," say they, "must be, to establish a belief of the moral system

be distrusted. His views are ex-
pressed with sufficient accuracy in
§ 2 of the present chapter, although
Butler (as is his wont) has refrained
from mentioning the name of the
opponent whom he had in his mind.
Tindal's position (not unlike that
of Collins) was handled also by
Berkeley in Alciphron (vi. § 19),
which was published in 1732.
Clarke's Evidences of Natural and
Revealed Religion was directed
against similar opinions, and it
will be shewn by references as we
proceed that Butler was thoroughly
familiar with the arguments of that
work. With the present section
may be compared pp. 155, 274,
306, 308 ff, and 330 of Clarke (ed.
1738), who in particular lays
stress on the points marked b, c, d
in the margin above.]

2 [The same answer has been given by the most considerable thinkers of every age. The discovery of truth by unaided reason came to be despaired of in the later ages of Greek philosophy. Plato several times hints at this, in the Apology and in the Republic (Clarke, in his Evidences, p. 310, quotes from Plato's Alcibiades, II. 150). Cp. Cicero, de Nat. Deorum, 1. vi. 14. The remarkable words of Kant, the Father of Critical Philosophy, are worthy of record. "We may well concede," he says (Letter to Jacobi in Jacobi's Werke, iii. 523), "that if the Gospel had not previously taught the universal moral laws in their full purity, reason would not yet have attained so perfect an insight into them."]