cation; 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.

Our modern sceptics and infidels are great pretenders to reason and philosophy, and are willing to have it thought that none who are really possessed of those talents can easily assent 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 confessed 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, modestly speaking, were as good thinkers and reasoners, 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 case as long as men are men; but the thing here insisted on is, that they were accurate reasoners, and at the same time firm believers.

Mr. BOYLE, the most exact searcher into the works of nature that any age has known, and who saw atheism and infidelity beginning to shew themselves in the loose and voluptuous reign of king Charles the Second, pursued his philosophical inquiries with religious views, to establish the minds of men in a firm belief and thorough sense of the infinite power and wisdom of the great Creator.

This account we have from aone who was intimately acquainted with him, and preached his funeral sermon: "bIt ap❝peared to those who conversed with him "in his inquiries into nature, that his main

Dr. Burnet.

Life, p. 22.

"design in that (on which as he had his own

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eye most constantly, so he took care to

put others often in mind of it) was to raise "in himself and others vaster thoughts "of the greatness and glory, and of the "wisdom and goodness of God. This was "so deep in his thoughts, that he con"cludes the article of his will, which re"lates to that illustrious body, the Royal "Society, in these words: wishing them a "happy success in their laudable attempts "to discover the true nature of the works "of God; and praying that they and all "other searchers into physical truths may

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cordially refer their attainments to the 66 glory of the great Author of nature, and "to the comfort of mankind." The same person also speaks thus of him: "He "had the profoundest veneration for the

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great God of heaven and earth, that ever

"I observed in any person. The very

“him without a pause and a visible stop "in his discourse."

And of the strictness and exemplariness of the whole course of his life, he says, “I might here challenge the whole tribe "of libertines, to come and view the use"fulness, as well as the excellence of the "Christian religion, in a life that was entirely dedicated to it.”

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Against the atheists he wrote his "Free

Inquiry into the received Notion of Na"ture;" (to confute the pernicious principle of ascribing effects to nature, which are only produced by the infinite power and wisdom of God;) and also his "Essay about "final Causes of Things natural," to shew that all things in nature were made and contrived with great order, and every thing for its proper end and use, by an allwise Creator.

Against the deists he wrote a treatise

"of Things above Reason;" in which he makes it appear, that several things, which we judge to be contrary to reason, because above the reach of our understanding, are not therefore to be thought unreasonable, because we cannot comprehend them, since they may be apparently reasonable to a greater and more comprehensive understanding. And he wrote another treatise, to shew the possibility of the "Resurrec❝tion of the same Body."

The veneration he had for the holy scriptures appears not only from his studying them with great exactness, and exhorting others to do the same; but more particularly from a distinct treatise which he wrote, on purpose to defend the scripture style, and to answer all the objections which profane and irreligious persons have made against it. And speaking of morality, considered as a rule of life, he says, "I have d Life, p. 17.