LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD; Hoc PHILOSOPHIE genus in affectibus fitum eft, veriùs quam in IN TWO VOLUME S. VOL. I. ERASMUS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR C. DILLY, IN THE POULTRY, 12 PREFACE. As every attempt to illustrate and re commend opinions on RELIGION, which oppofe prejudices, is peculiarly obnoxious to the mifconceptions of the ignorant, the misreprefentation of the malevolent, and the rafh cenfure of the thoughtless; (who rudely and haftily condemn, what they fcarcely allow themselves even time to underftand;) I think it proper to entreat all who honour this book with any degree of their attention, duly to confider the AUTHORITIES, human as well as fcriptural, on which it is founded; and. not to reject doctrines in which their own happiness is most deeply concerned, till they shall have invalidated those authorities, and proved themselves fuperior in fagacity, learning, and piety, to the greatmen whose sentiments I have cited in fup-. port A 2 port of my own. my own. Let the firm phalanx of furrounding authorities be firft fairly routed, before the opponents level their arrows, even bitter words, at him who, in the fe papers, ventures to enforce a doctrine, unfafhionable indeed, but certainly the doctrine of the Gofpel, There is no doubt but that my fubject is the most momentous which can fall under the contemplation of a human being; and I therefore claim for it, as the happiness of mankind is at ftake, a difpaffionate and unprejudiced attention. The moral world, as well as the political, appears, at prefent, to be greatly out of order. Moral confusion, indeed, naturally produces political. Let all who love their fpecies, or their country, calmly confider whether the neglect or rejectionof Christianity may not be the real caufeof both and let those who are thus per.. fuaded, co-operate with every ate tmpt to revive and diffufe the TRUE SPIRIT OF THE GOSPEL. "Let us meekly instruct sthofe |