THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION, NATURAL AND REVEALED, TO THE CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE. BY JOSEPH BUTLER, L. L. D., LATE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM. Ejus (Analogie) hæc vis est, ut id quod dubium est ad aliquid simile, de quo non WITH AN ANALYSIS OF THE WORK. BY REV. B. F. TEFFT, A. M., EDITOR. Cincinnati: PUBLISHED BY POE & HITCHCOCK, FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AT THE WESTERN BOOK CONCERN, R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER. 1863. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by L. SWORMSTEDT & J. T. MITCHELL, in the Clerk's Office for the District Court of Ohio. PREFACE. No eulogy need be written on BUTLER'S ANALOGY OF RELIGION. It is known to be the ablest production, of its class, extant in any language. It is the master-piece of one of England's greatest minds. It has ever been regarded, since its first publication, as a perfectly unanswerable defense of Christianity against the most plausible of all its opposers. Butler's Analogy should be read by all Christians, examined critically and repeatedly by every minister, and faithfully studied by the students of our schools and colleges. That family, which makes it a fireside reading-book, will scarcely be troubled with doubts in religious matters, or rear up skeptics from its circle. Those ministers of the Gospel, who most frequently consult its pages, will be best prepared to meet and master the subtil cavils of the wicked. The pupils of that seminary of learning, where this Analogy is made a prominent text-book, under whose influence all must pass prior to graduation, will receive a bias to religion, which subsequent years will serve only to strengthen. To these three classes of readers this edition has been carefully adapted. It is expressly intended for the use of families, ministers, and students; and under the latter class. are included young ministers during their course of preparatory study. The Analysis, prepared by the Editor expressly for this edition, is to be met with in no other. It contains the argument of every chapter, and furnishes, in every place, a key to the author's meaning. From the antiquity or obsoleteness of Bishop Butler's style, much perplexity often arises to the most patient reader. Sometimes he can scarcely tell what is the sense of a passage. In all such cases, the Analysis, it is hoped, will prove of service. It will, also, be very convenient to students in reviewing. Teachers, who wish to be complete and thorough in their instruction, will doubtless derive some aid by following the plan of it in their questions. In preparing it, the actual divisions and subdivisions of the author have been preserved in his own modes of marking them. The figures surrounded by parentheses indicate paragraphs, and were added by the Editor for the sake of reference and greater perspicuity. The Analysis, in a word, is nothing less, in design at least, than Bishop Butler's Analogy in miniature, which, though it might have been reduced to a mere table of contents, or swelled to a much larger compass, was intended to meet exactly the wants of students and of the general reader. The text is based on the last English edition, the American reprints being generally disfigured by numerous errors. Several typographical mistakes, detected even in the English standard, have been corrected. The punctuation has, also, been carefully revised and amended. This edition is sent out without note or comment. No preliminary essay has been prefixed, no elaborate annotations have been added, to give it a sectarian character. A work like this, as it is the common defense and boast, ought certainly to be the common property, of all Christendom. B. F. T. ANALYSIS OF BUTLER'S ANALOGY Page. 37. INTRODUCTION. PART I. OF NATURAL RELIGION. CHAPTER I. OF A FUTURE LIFE. PRELIMINARY REMARKS. A Future Life shown, 49. I. From the different states of the present life. 50.,II. From the fact that death is not known to be the destruction of our living powers, which neither the reason of the thing, nor the analogy of nature, indicates, but which is contradicted, 53. 55. 56. (1) By the oneness of our mental essence, as shown by our perception of identity; (2) By our mental integrity after the loss of every particle of our present bodies; (3) By several minor considerations: 1. If the soul be no larger than an atom of matter, it may not be capable of dissolution; 2. All our members are only instruments of the soul, and can be in part dispensed with, 3. And supplied again, without touching our sense of personal identity. 65. III. From our mental operations, especially reasoning and reflecting, being independent of the body, which can be carried on, not only as well, but even better, without than with the aid of the senses. The analogy, so often insisted on, between the decay of vegetables and the death of our living powers, does not exist, and, hence, no argument can be drawn from it against a future life. |