THE

EVIDENCES

OF THE

CHRISTIAN RELIGION,

By the Right Honourable

JOSEPH ADDISON, Esa.

To which are added,

SEVERAL DISCOURSES

AGAINST

ATHEISM AND INFIDELITY,

AND IN

DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION,
Occasionally published by him and others,

And now collected into one Body, and digested under
their proper Heads.

WITH A PREFACE,

Containing the Sentiments of Mr. BOYLE, Mr. LoCKE,
and Sir ISAAC NEWTON, Concerning the
GOSPEL REVELATION.

OXFORD,

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

MDCCCIX.

Clan. Press.

1.0.11.

PREFACE.

THE character of Mr. ADDISON and his Writings, for Juftness of Thought, Strength of Reasoning, 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 Difcourses upon those subjects lie dispersed among his other writings, and are by that means not fo 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 writ

ings would make their way to persons of a fuperior 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 confidered by young Gentlemen, as a proper Manual of Religion.

Our modern Sceptics and Infidels are great Pretenders to Reafon and Philofophy, and are willing to have it thought that none who are really poffeffed of those talents can easily affent to the truth of Christianity. But it falls out very unfortunately for them and their cause, that those persons within our own memory, who are confeffed to have been the most perfect Reasoners and Philosophers of their time, are also known to have been firm Believers, and they Laymen; I mean Mr. BOYLE, Mr. LocKE, Sir ISAAC NEWTON, and Mr. ADDISON: who, modeftly speaking, were as good Thinkers

and

and Reafoners, as the best among the Sceptics and Infidels at this day. Some of them might have their particular opinions about this or that point in Christianity, which will be the cafe as long as men are men; but the thing here infifted on is, that they were accurate Reafoners, and at the fame time firm Believers.

Mr. BOYLE, the most exact fearcher into the works of Nature that any age has known, and who faw Atheism and Infidelity beginning to fhew themselves in the loose and voluptuous reign of King Charles the Second, pursued his philofophical inquiries with religious views, to establish the minds of men in a firm belief and thorough fense of the infinite power and wisdom of the great Creator.

This account we have from a one who was intimately acquainted with him, and