BY VICESIMUS KNOX, D. D.

LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD;
AND NOW MASTER OF TUNBRIDGE SCHOOL.

Hoc PHILOSOPHIE genus in affectibus fitum eft, veriùs quam in
fyllogifmis; vita eft magis, quàm difputatio; AFFLATUS potiùs
quàm eruditis; transformatio magis, quam ratio. ERASMUS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR C, DILLY, IN THE POULTRY.

A3

PREFACE.

s every attempt to illuftrate and recommend opinions on RELIGION, which oppose prejudices, is peculiarly obnoxious to the misconceptions of the ignorant, the mifreprefentation of the malevolent, and the rafh censure of the thoughtless; (who rudely and haftily condemn, what they scarcely allow themselves. even time to understand;) I think it proper to entreat all who honour this book with any degree of their attention, duly to confider the AUTHORITIES, human as wellas fcriptural, on which it is founded; and: not to reject doctrines in which their own. happiness is moft deeply concerned, till they shall have invalidated those authorities, and proved themselves fuperior in fagacity, learning, and piety, to the great men whose sentiments I have cited in fup