PREFACE. Xlll 



right to claim from avowed adversaries; a fair hearing was all 

 I desired. To the latter a few words might be addressed 

 in the spirit of respectful kindness, as to those with whom I 

 generally agree. 



Whoever feels disposed to treat as impious any writer 

 that has the misfortune not to be among the great body of 

 believers, like the celebrated men above named, should bear 

 in mind that the author of these pages, while he does 

 justice to their great literary merits, has himself published, 

 whether anonymously or under his own name, nearly as 

 much in defence of religion as they did against it ; and if, 

 with powers so infinitely below theirs, he may hope to have 

 obtained some little success, and done some small service to 

 the cause of truth, he can only ascribe this fortune to the in- 

 trinsic merits of that cause which he has ever supported.* 

 He ventures thus to hope that no one will suspect him of 

 being the less a friend to religion, merely because he has 

 not permitted his sincere belief to make him blind regard- 

 ing the literary merit of men whose opinions are opposed 

 to his own. His censures of all indecorous, all unfair, all 

 ribald or declamatory attacks, however set off by wit or 

 graced by eloquence, he has never, on any occasion, been 

 slow to pronounce. 



BROUGHAM, 3d January, 1855. 



* It has given me a most heartfelt satisfaction to receive many com- 

 munications from persons both at home and abroad, which intimated their 

 having been converted from irreligious opinions by the ' Commentaries 

 and Illustrations of Paley,' published in 1835 and 1838. It must be 

 noted that the passage of the present work in which Dr. Lardner is men- 

 tioned as an orthodox writer, refers to the great question between 

 Christians and Infidels. He was an Unitarian, undoubtedly; but his 

 defence of Kevelation forms really the groundwork of Dr. Paley's 

 ' Evidences.' 



