ΤΟ THE RIGHT REVEREND Edmund Law, D.D. LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE. MY LORD, HAD the obligations which I owe to your Lordship's kindness been much less, or much fewer, than they are; had personal gratitude left any place in my mind for deliberation or for inquiry; in felecting a name which every reader might confefs to be prefixed with propriety to a work, that, in many of its parts, bears no obfcure relation to the general principles of natural and revealed religion, I fhould have found myself directed by many confiderations to that of the Bishop of Carlisle. A long life spent in the most interesting of all human pursuits, the investigation of moral and religious truth, in conftant and unwearied endeavours to advance the difcovery, communi cation and fuccefs of both; a life fo occupied, and arrived at that period which renders every life venerable, commands refpect by a title, which no virtuous mind will dispute, which no mind fenfible of the importance of these ftudies. to the fupreme concernments of mankind will not rejoice to fee acknowledged. Whatever difference, or whatever oppofition, some who peruse your Lordship's writings may perceive between your conclufions and their own, the good and wife of all perfuafions will revere that industry, which has for its object the illuftration or defence of our common Christianity. Your Lordship's researches have never loft fight of one purpose, namely, to recover the fimplicity of the gospel from beneath that load of unauthorized additions, which the ignorance of fome ages, and the learning of others, the superftition of weak, and the craft of designing men, have (unhappily for its intereft) heaped upon it. And this purpose, I am convinced, was dictated by the pureft motive; by a firm, and I think a juft opinion, that whatever renders religion more rational, renders it more credible; that he who, by a diligent and faithful examination of the original records, difmiffes from the fyftem one article which contradicts the appre henfion, the experience, or the reasoning of mankind, does more towards recommending the belief, and, with the belief, the influence of Christianity, to the understandings and consciences of ferious inquirers, and through them to universal reception and authority, than can be effected by a thousand contenders for creeds and ordinances of human establishment. When the doctrine of transubstantiation had taken poffeffion of the Chriftian world, it was not without the industry of learned men that it came at length to be difcovered, that no fuch doctrine was contained in the New Teftament. But had thofe excellent perfons done nothing more by their difcovery, than abolished an innocent superstition, or changed fome directions in the ceremonial of public worship, they had merited little of that veneration, with which the gratitude of Proteftant churches remembers their fervices. What they did for mankind was this they exonerated Christianity of a weight which funk it. If indolence or timidity had checked thefe exertions, or fuppreffed the fruit and publication of these inquiries, is it too much to affirm, that infidelity would at this day have been universal ? I do not mean, my Lord, by the mention of this example, to infinuate, that any popular opinion which your Lordship may have encountered, ought to be compared with tranfubftantiation, or that the affurance with which we reject that extravagant abfurdity is attainable in the controverfies in which your Lordfhip has been engaged: but I mean, by calling to mind those great reformers of the public faith, to obferve, or rather to exprefs my own persuasion, that to restore the purity, is most effectually to promote the progrefs of Chriftianity; and that the fame virtuous motive which hath fanctified their labours, fuggefted yours, At a time when fome men appear not to perceive any good, and others to suspect an evil tendency, in that spirit of examination and refearch which is gone forth in Christian countries, this teftimony is become due not only to the probity of your Lordship's views, but to the general cause of intellectual and religious liberty, That your Lordship's life may be prolonged in health and honour, that it may continue to afford an inftructive proof how ferene and eafy old age can be made by the memory of important and well intended labours, by the poffeffion |