Christian Sermons and Audio Books

The Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature – Joseph Butler (1692 – 1752)

1. Editor’s Introduction 00:00:00
2. Preface 00:33:54
3. Conspectus 1 36:43:00
4. Conspectus 2 01:40:50
5. Author’s Advertisement 02:34:11

PART I.

OF NATURAL RELIGION.

6.—A Future Life 02:53:29
7.—The Government of God by Rewards and Punishments 03:25:54
8.—The Moral Government of God 03:46:43
9.—Probation, as implying Trial, Difficulties, and Danger 04:31:46
10.—Probation, as intended for Moral Discipline and Improvement 04:47:14
11.—The Opinion of Necessity, considered as influencing Practice 05:31:44
12.—The Government of God, considered as a Scheme or Constitution, imperfectly comprehended 05:59:52

13. Conclusion 06:20:43

PART II.

OF REVEALED RELIGION.

14.—The Importance of Christianity 06:32:37
15.—The supposed Presumption against a Revelation, considered as miraculous 07:05:23
16.—Our Incapacity of judging, what were to be expected in a Revelation; and the Credibility, from Analogy, that it must contain things appearing liable to Objections 07:18:22
17.—Christianity, considered as a Scheme or Constitution, imperfectly comprehended 07:47:00
18.—The Particular System of Christianity; the Appointment of a Mediator, and the Redemption of the World by him 08:01:21

19.—Want of Universality in Revelation; and of the supposed Deficiency in the Proof of it 08:36:25

20.—The Particular Evidence for Christianity Part 1 09:12:30

21.The Particular Evidence for Christianity Part 2 09:37:57

22.—Objections against arguing from the Analogy of Nature to Religion 10:21:46

23. Conclusion 10:44:55

DISSERTATIONS.

24. Dissertation I.—Personal Identity 11:01:22
25. Dissertation II.—The Nature of Virtue 11:15:13

Joseph Butler (1692 – 1752)

Joseph Butler’s great work is the Analogy, published in 1736, and from that day read and admired by every highly-cultivated mind. He was induced to write by a state of things very remarkable in the history of religion. Debauchery and infidelity were almost universal, not in any one class of society but in all. England had reached the culminating point of irreligion, and the firm re-establishment of Episcopacy had as yet done nothing to mend the nation’s morals. Piety was deemed a mark of ignorance and vulgarity, and multitudes of those who professed it were persecuted to dungeons and death.

It was considered settled, especially in polite circles, that Christianity, after so long a prevalence, had been found out to be an imposture. The clergy, as a body, did nothing to dispel this moral gloom, but rather increased it by their violent and scandalous conduct. In the sad language of Bishop Warburton, “Religion had lost its hold on the minds of the people.”

To the Analogy no reply has ever been attempted. Extensive as is its diffusion, and great as is its acknowledged influence, infidelity has had the highest inducements to attempt to set it aside. Written for a present purpose, and most signally accomplishing it, it is yet so written as to endure, in full value, through all coming time. It is undoubtedly “the most original and the most profound work extant, in any language, on the philosophy of religion,” “the most argumentative and philosophical defence of Christianity ever submitted to the world.”

Joseph Butler (18 May 1692 – 16 June 1752) was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher, born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire (now in Oxfordshire). His principal works are the Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and The Analogy of Religion (1736).

He is known for critiques of Deism, Thomas Hobbes’s egoism, and John Locke’s theory of personal identity. The many philosophers and religious thinkers Butler influenced included David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Henry Sidgwick,[6] John Henry Newman, and C. D. Broad and is widely seen as “one of the pre-eminent English moralists.” He played a major, if underestimated role in developing 18th-century economic discourse, influencing the Dean of Gloucester and political economist Josiah Tucker.

Butler was born on 18 May 1692. The son of a Presbyterian linen draper, Butler was destined for the ministry of that church, and with the future archbishop Thomas Secker, entered Samuel Jones’s dissenting academy at Gloucester (later Tewkesbury) for the purpose. There he began a secret correspondence with the Anglican theologian and philosopher Samuel Clarke. In 1714, he decided to join the Church of England and entered Oriel College, Oxford, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1718 and named a Doctor of Civil Law on 8 December 1733.

Butler was ordained a deacon on 26 October 1718 by William Talbot, Bishop of Salisbury, in his Bishop’s Palace, Salisbury, his palace chapel and a priest on 21 December 1718 by Talbot at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. After holding various other high positions, he became rector of the rich living of Stanhope, County Durham.