THE WISDOM OF BEING RELIGIOUS. BY JOHN TILLOTSON, D. D. ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, AND FOR WETTON AND JARVIS, 1819. DIVINTLY SCHOOL LIBRARY HARYARD UNIVERSITY. PREFACE. THE first of the following discourses originated in a sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral in March 1664, before the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, which at their desire was printed, having the Imprimatur of Dr. John Hall, (chaplain to Dr. Humphrey Henchman, Bishop of London,) as containing many things highly useful for supporting the main foundation of Religion, and confuting the prodigious vanity of the Atheists of that age. It was afterwards enlarged and improved by the Author as it now appears; and has received from his Biographer the high encomium of being "one of the most elegant, perspicuous, and convincing defences of Religion in our own or any other language." -The second discourse is added, as being essentially connected with the first. The republication of such treatises as the present can at no time, it is presumed, be unseasonable; but their appearance seems imperiously called for at this particular juncture, when attempts are making to disseminate Infidelity by the revival of works subversive of every principle of Religion and social order. In the present edition the train of argument is rendered, it is hoped, more distinct and intelligible, by classing it under appropriate chapters and sections, and by prefixing a copious analysis. ANALYSIS. The Knowledge proper to Man, the know- ledge of our Creator, and of the duty we owe to him the Wisdom of pleasing God by doing what he commands, and avoiding what he for- bids in other words, " to fear the Lord," and "to depart from evil," which are phrases used |