Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

KE 34 360 (1)

HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
OCT 22 1957

54X119

THE RIGHT REVEREND

EDMUND LAW, D. D.

LORD BISHOP OF CARLISLE.

T

MY LORD,

HAD the obligations which I owe

to your Lordship's kindness been much lefs, or much fewer, than they are; had perfonal gratitude left any place in my mind for deliberation or for inquiry; in selecting 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

[blocks in formation]

[vi]

revealed religion, I fhould have found myfelf directed by many confiderations to that of the Bishop of Carlifle. A long life, fpent in the most interesting of all human pursuits, the inveftigation of moral and religious truth, in conftant and unwearied endeavours to advance the discovery, communication, 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 difpute, which no mind fenfible of the importance of thefe ftudies to the fupreme concernments of mankind will not rejoice to fee acknowledged. Whatever difference, or whatever oppofition, fome, who perufe your Lordship's writings, may perceive between your con

clufions

clufions 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 fuperftition of weak, and the craft of defigning men, have (unhappily for its intereft) heaped upon it. And this purpose, I am convinced, was dictated by the purest 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

[blocks in formation]

original records, difmiffes from the fyf tem one article, which contradicts the apprehenfion, the experience, or the reasoning of mankind, does more towards recommending the belief, and, with the belief, the influence of Chriftianity, to the understandings and confciences of ferious inquirers, and through them to univerfal 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 Christian world, it was not without the induftry of learned men that it came at length to be discovered, that no fuch doctrine was contained in the New Teftament. But had thofe excellent per

fons

« AnteriorContinuar »