THE EVIDENCES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOSEPH ADDISON, ESQ. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, SEVERAL DISCOURSES AND IN DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION, AND DIGESTED UNDER THEIR PROPER HEADS WITH A PREFACE, CONTAINING THE SENTIMENTS OF MR. BOYLE, MR. LOCKE, AND SIR ISAAC NEWTON, 1/730/ CHISWICK: PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM, COLLEGE HOUSE; FOR N. HAILES, PICCADILLY, LONDON; 1819.. LIBRARY. HARVARD UNIVERSITY 611 A225ev 1819 PREFACE. THE character of Mr. ADDISON and his writings, for justness of thought, strength of rea soning, and purity of style, is too well established to need a recommendation; but their greatest ornament, and that which gives a lustre to all the rest, is his appearing, throughout, a zealous advocate for Virtue and Religion against Profaneness and Infidelity. And because his excellent discourses upon those subjects lie dispersed among his other writings, and are by that means not so generally known and read as they deserve, it was judged to be no unseasonable service to religion, to publish them together in a distinct volume; in hopes, that the politeness and beauty peculiar to Mr. Addison's writings would make their way to persons of a superior character and a more liberal education; and that, as they come from the hands of a layman, they may be the more readily received and considered by young gentlemen as a proper manual of religion. |