A Critical Examination of Butler's 'Analogy,' |
Common terms and phrases
action admitted affirms alleged analogical argument analogical probability analogy of nature answer appears ascer Author of nature bability behaviour body Book of Proverbs Butler causal causal relation cerning chapter Christianity conclusion consequence considered constitution and course constitution of nature course of nature credibility death degree deism deist dependent destruction discipline dissolution distributive justice Divine doctrine of habits evidence evidential existence expected experience favour federacies future happiness future judgment future world God's ground happiness and misery hereafter human kind living powers manifest mankind manner means ment mind miracle moral government natural religion necessitarian ness objections objector obligation observation ourselves persons position posteriori present conduct present virtue present world presumption principle of uniformity probation proof reason religious revelation rewards and punishments scheme Scripture Secondly seems sense suffering supernatural supposed supposition teaches tendency tion Torquay treatise truth virtue and vice virtuous whole world of natural
Popular passages
Page 273 - Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed ; and make you a new heart and a new spirit : for why will ye die, 0 house of Israel ? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD : wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
Page 243 - Indeed, the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence, with which we are obliged to take up, in the daily course of life, is scarce to be expressed.
Page 138 - SOME persons, upon pretence of the sufficiency of the of nature, avowedly reject all revelation, as in its very notion incredible, and what must be fictitious. And indeed it is certain, no revelation would have been given, had the light of nature been sufficient in such a sense, as to render one not wanted and useless.
Page 167 - Our existence is not only successive, as it must be of necessity, but one state of our life and being is appointed by God to be a preparation for another ; and that, to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one : Infancy to childhood ; childhood to youth ; youth to mature age. Men are impatient, and for precipitating things : but the Author of nature appears deliberate throughout his operations ; accomplishing his natural ends by slow successive steps.
Page 40 - Now, in the present state, all which we enjoy, and a great part of what we suffer, is put in our own power. For pleasure and pain are the consequences of our actions ; and we are endued by the Author of our Nature with capacities of foreseeing these consequences.
Page 157 - As we are in no sort judges beforehand, by what laws or rules, in what degree, or by what means, it were to have been expected that God would naturally instruct us ; so upon supposition of his affording us light and instruction by revelation, additional to what he has afforded us by reason and experience, we are hi no sort judges by what methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us.
Page 252 - Nor is it at all doubtful in the general, what course of action this faculty, or practical discerning power within us, approves, and what it disapproves. For, as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists, or whatever ground for doubt there may be about particulars, yet, in general, there is in reality a universally acknowledged standard of it.
Page 182 - And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, so, if it ever comes to be understood, before the
Page 37 - And from hence it must follow, that persons' notion of what is natural will be enlarged, in proportion to their greater knowledge of the works of God and the dispensations of his Providence. Nor is there any absurdity in. supposing, that there may be beings in the universe, whose capacities, and knowledge, and views, may be so extensive, as that the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural, ie analogous or conformable to God's dealings with other parts of his creation ; as natural...
Page 185 - For the world is a constitution or system, whose parts have a mutual reference to each other ; and there is a scheme of things gradually carrying on, called the course of Nature, to the carrying on of which God has appointed us in various ways to contribute. And when, in the daily course of natural providence, it is appointed that innocent people should suffer for the faults of the guilty, this is liable to the very same objection as the instance we are now considering.