OR, AN ATTEMPT TO DISPLAY,

BY INTERNAL TESTIMONY,

THE

EVIDENCE AND EXCELLENCE

OF

REVEALED RELIGION.

BY VICESIMUS KNOX, D.D.

LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, AND MASTER OF

TUNBRIDGE SCHOOL.

A NEW EDITION.

Hoc PHILOSOPHIE genus in affectibus situm est, veritus quam in syllogismis ;
vita est magis, quam disputatio; AFFLATUS potius quam eruditio; trans-
formatio magis, quam ratio.
ERASMUS.
Tantum esto docilis et multum in hac PHILOSOPHIA promovisti. Ipsa suppe-
ditat DOCTOREM SPIRITUM, qui nulli sese lubentius impertit, quam simpli-
cibus animis. At rursum ita non deost infirmis ut summis etiam sit admi-
rabilis. Quid artem aliud est CHRISTI PHILOSOPHIA, quam ipse RENASCEN-
TIAM vocat, quam instauratio bene conditæ naturæ.
ERASMUS.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR MORRISON AND WATT, FENCHURCH-STREET; AND SOLD BY
JAMES DUNCAN, PATERNOSTER-ROW; WAUGH AND INNES,

EDINBURGH; CHALMERS AND COLLINS, GLASGOW;

AND JOHN CUMMING, DUBLIN.

C1264.11.38

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

1870, Feb. 2. Gift of George Dexter, of Cambridge. (76.61858.)

34.391.

PREFACE

TO THE

FIRST EDITION.

As every attempt to illustrate and recommend such opinions on RELIGION, as oppose pride and prejudice, is peculiarly obnoxious to the misconceptions of the ignorant, the misrepresentation of the malevolent, and the rash censure of the thoughtless; (who rudely and hastily condemn what they scarcely allow themselves even time to understand;) I think it proper to entreat all who honour this book with any degree of their attention, duly to consider the AUTHORITIES, human as well as scriptural, 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 superior in sagacity, learning, and piety, to the great men whose sentiments I have cited in support of my own. Let the firm phalanx of surrounding authorities be first fairly routed, before the opponents level their arrows, even bitter words, at a book which enforces a doctrine, unfashion