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                                  THE
                         ANALOGY OF RELIGION,
                                TO THE
                  Constitution and Course of Nature.

                          TO WHICH ARE ADDED
                       TWO BRIEF DISSERTATIONS:
        I. ON PERSONAL IDENTITY.--II. ON THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.

                                  BY
                         JOSEPH BUTLER, D.C.L.

         Ejus [Analogiæ] hæc vis est, ut id quod dubium est ad
         aliquid simile, de quo non quæritur referat ut incerta
         certis probet.--QUINTIL. l. i. c. 6.

                                 WITH
         AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, CONSPECTUS, AND AMPLE INDEX,
                                  BY
                          HOWARD MALCOM, D.D.
         PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY, LEWISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.

                         SEVENTEENTH EDITION.
                             PHILADELPHIA:
                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
                                 1873.

      Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
       in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
        States in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE

  EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION                                                5

     ”     PREFACE                                                    19

     ”     CONSPECTUS                                                 21

  AUTHOR’S ADVERTISEMENT                                              66

     ”     INTRODUCTION                                               67

                                PART I.

                         OF NATURAL RELIGION.

     CHAP. I.--A Future Life                                          77

    CHAP. II.--The Government of God by Rewards and Punishments       95

   CHAP. III.--The Moral Government of God                           105

    CHAP. IV.--Probation, as implying Trial, Difficulties, and
               Danger                                                128

     CHAP. V.--Probation, as intended for Moral Discipline and
               Improvement                                           136

    CHAP. VI.--The Opinion of Necessity, considered as influencing
               Practice                                              157

   CHAP. VII.--The Government of God, considered as a Scheme or
               Constitution, imperfectly comprehended                171

  CONCLUSION                                                         180

                               PART II.

                         OF REVEALED RELIGION.

     CHAP. I.--The Importance of Christianity                        186

    CHAP. II.--The supposed Presumption against a Revelation,
               considered as miraculous                              202

   CHAP. III.--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                                            209

    CHAP. IV.--Christianity, considered as a Scheme or Constitution,
               imperfectly comprehended                              223

     CHAP. V.--The Particular System of Christianity; the
               Appointment of a Mediator, and the Redemption of
               the World by him                                      230

    CHAP. VI.--Want of Universality in Revelation; and of the
               supposed Deficiency in the Proof of it                247

   CHAP. VII.--The Particular Evidence for Christianity              263

  CHAP. VIII.--Objections against arguing from the Analogy of
               Nature to Religion                                    296

  CONCLUSION                                                         306

                            DISSERTATIONS.

  DISSERTATION I.--Personal Identity                                 317

  DISSERTATION II.--The Nature of Virtue                             324

  INDEX TO PART I                                                    333

  INDEX TO PART II                                                   343




Editor’s Introduction


JOSEPH BUTLER was born at Wantage, England, May 18th, 1692, the
youngest of eight children. The biographies of that day were few
and meagre; and in few cases is this so much to be regretted as in
Butler’s. It would have been both interesting and profitable to trace
the development and occupations of one of the mightiest of human minds.
But no cotemporary gathered up the incidents of his life, and now all
efforts to elicit them have been without success.

His father was a prosperous dry-goods merchant, who, at the time of his
son’s birth, had retired from business with a competency, and resided
in a suburban mansion called “The Priory,” still in existence.

Being a non-conformist, he educated Joseph at a “dissenting” academy
at Gloucester, under SAMUEL JONES, a gentleman of great ability, and
a skilful instructor, who raised up some of the greatest men of their
day.[1]

It was while a member of this academy, and about the age of twenty-one,
that Butler disclosed to the world his wonderful power of abstract
reasoning, in his famous correspondence with Samuel Clarke, in relation
to that eminent author’s “_Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of
God_.” This correspondence is now generally inserted at the end of that
work.

Mr. Butler having deliberately adopted Episcopal views, and resolved
to unite himself with the Established Church, his father, with
praiseworthy liberality, sent him to Oxford, where he entered Oriel
College, March, 1714. Of his college life there is no account; nor of
the time and place of his ordination. He removed to London in 1718,
on receiving the appointment of “Preacher at the Rolls.” His famous
Fifteen Sermons were preached in that chapel, and published before
resigning the place, with a dedication to Sir Joseph Jekyl, “as a
parting mark of gratitude for the favors received during his connection
with that learned society.”

One of Butler’s warmest college friends was Edward Talbot second son
of a clergyman who afterwards became Bishop of Durham. This admirable
young man died of smallpox; in his last hours recommending Butler to
his father’s patronage; and scarcely had that gentleman attained the
see of Durham, before he gave Mr. B. the living of Haughton, from
whence he transferred him, in 1725, to the richer benefice of Stanhope.

On receiving this honorable and lucrative appointment, he resigned
the Lectureship at the Rolls, and in the autumn of 1726 retired to
his beautiful residence at Stanhope. Here, without a family to occupy
his time, he devoted himself to his great work, the Analogy: using
horseback exercise, seeing little company, living abstemiously and
caring for his flock.

Seven years thus rolled away; when to draw him from what seemed to his
friends too great retirement and application, Lord-Chancellor Talbot
made him his chaplain, and afterwards, in 1736, gave him a prebend’s
stall in Rochester. In 1736, Butler being now forty-four, Caroline,
consort of George II., appointed him “Clerk of the Closet,” an office
which merely required his attendance at the Queen’s apartments every
evening, from seven to nine.

Being now in London, convenient to the press, and enjoying both leisure
and competency, he published his immortal ANALOGY--the cherished work
of his life. The Queen was delighted with the book, and made herself
master of its glorious array of reasoning. But she died the same year,
and he lost not only a patroness, but a friend. He returned to his
benefice at Stanhope, the income of which had been held during his
residence in London.

On her death-bed, the Queen had urged her husband to promote her
honored chaplain to a bishopric; and next year, the see of Norwich
becoming vacant, the Bishop of Bristol was translated to it, and the
see of Bristol given to Butler. Bristol was the poorest bishopric
in England, its emoluments being but $2,000 per annum; less than
those of the rectorship of Stanhope. Butler distinctly disclosed his
disappointment in his letter to the minister Walpole, accepting the
position; and declared that he did not think it “very suitable to the
condition of his fortune, nor answerable to the recommendation with
which he was honored.” The king was not displeased at this candor,
and in 1740 improved his income by giving him, in addition to his
bishopric, the profitable and influential office of Dean of St.
Paul’s. Butler, who had retained the living of Stanhope along with
his bishopric, now resigned that rectorship. “The rich revenues,” says
Professor Fitzgerald, “of the Deanery of St. Paul, enabled him to
gratify his taste at Bristol.” He expended about $25,000 in improving
and beautifying the episcopal residence and gardens. He fostered useful
charities, and employed his wealth for others rather than for himself.

In 1750, upon the death of Dr. Edward Chandler, Bishop of Durham,
Butler was promoted to that see, the most honorable and lucrative
in England. He had before been offered the Primacy, on the death of
Archbishop Potter, but declined it, with the remark that “it was too
late for him to try to support a falling church.” On assuming his
diocese at Durham, Butler delivered and published his famous Charge
to the Clergy, upon “The Use and Importance of External Religion.”
He was at once assailed vigorously, in pamphlets and papers, by
Archdeacon Blackburn, the Rev. T. Lindsay, and others, on the charge
of Popery; an imputation which is still sometimes cast upon him, and
which finds some slender support in his setting up a marble cross over
the communion-table at Bristol. That he never was a <DW7>, is now so
evident, that we can account for the imputation only by the strong
jealousy of the Romish Church then prevalent.

Butler now became still more munificent. His private charities were
exceedingly generous, and his public ones seemed sometimes to border on
extravagance. He gave $2,000 a year to the county hospital, and often
gave away thousands of dollars at a time. But though quite lavish in
buildings and ornaments, as well as in benevolence, he was remarkably
frugal in his personal expenses. It is said of him, by Rev. John
Newton, that on one occasion, when a distinguished visitor dined with
him by appointment, the provision consisted of a single joint of meat,
and a pudding. The bishop remarked to his guest on that occasion, that
he “had long been disgusted with the fashionable expense of time and
money in entertainments, and was determined that it should receive no
countenance from his example.”

Of his amusements we know little except that he took much horseback
exercise, and often employed his secretary, Mr. Emms, to play for him
on the organ.

Butler held the see of Durham less than two years. Symptoms of general
physical decay betrayed themselves about the time of his promotion, and
in spite of all that skill and affection could prompt, he sunk to rest
June 16th, 1752, aged sixty. He was never married.

A considerable number of his sermons and charges have been printed,
but are too philosophical to be generally read. His great work is the
Analogy, published in 1736, and from that day read and admired by every
highly-cultivated mind. He was induced to write by a state of things
very remarkable in the history of religion. Debauchery and infidelity
were almost universal, not in any one class of society but in all.
England had reached the culminating point of irreligion, and the firm
re-establishment of Episcopacy had as yet done nothing to mend the
nation’s morals. Piety was deemed a mark of ignorance and vulgarity,
and multitudes of those who professed it were persecuted to dungeons
and death.

Infidel writers, warmed into life by court corruption, became more
numerous and audacious than ever before. Their methods of attacking
Christianity were various; but the most successful then, as always, was
to impugn certain doctrines and declarations of the Sacred Scriptures,
as irrational, and hence reject the whole. They generally admitted the
Being and perfection of God, and extolled the sufficiency of natural
religion; but denied any revelation, or any necessity for one. The
verdict of the world was that the Bible is not authentic, that man is
not accountable, nor even probably immortal, that God neither rewards
nor punishes, and that present indulgence, as far as our nature admits,
is both wise and safe.

Bishop Downam,[2] one of the most learned of the clergy, in the early
part of the seventeenth century writes thus: “In these times, if a
man do but labor to keep a good conscience, though he meddle not with
matters of state, if he make conscience of swearing, sanctify the
Sabbath, frequent sermons, or abstain from the common corruptions of
the times, he shall straightway be condemned for a puritan, and be less
favored than either a carnal gospeller, or a close <DW7>.”

It was considered settled, especially in polite circles, that
Christianity, after so long a prevalence, had been found out to be an
imposture. The clergy, as a body, did nothing to dispel this moral
gloom, but rather increased it by their violent and scandal