The Project Gutenberg eBook, Evidence of Christianity, by William Paley

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Title: Evidences of Christianity

Author: William Paley

Release Date: January 24, 2005 [eBook #14780]
[Date last updated: February 9, 2006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVIDENCE OF CHRISTIANITY***

E-text prepared by Michael Madden

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY

by

WILLIAM PALEY, D.D.

A New Edition

London: Printed by W. Clowes and Sons, Stamford Street

1851

THE HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND

JAMES YORK, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF ELY

My LORD,

When, five years ago, an important station in the University of
Cambridge awaited your Lordship's disposal, you were pleased to offer it
to me. The circumstances under which this offer was made demand a public
acknowledgment. I had never seen your Lordship; I possessed no
connection which could possibly recommend me to your favour; I was known
to you only by my endeavour, in common with many others, to discharge my
duty as a tutor in the University; and by some very imperfect, but
certainly well-intended, and, as you thought, useful publications since.
In an age by no means wanting in examples of honourable patronage,
although this deserve not to be mentioned in respect of the object of
your Lordship's choice, it is inferior to none in the purity and
disinterestedness of the motives which suggested it.

How the following work may be received, I pretend not to foretell. My
first prayer concerning it is, that it may do good to any: my second
hope, that it may assist, what it hath always been my earnest wish to
promote, the religious part of an academical education. If in this
latter view it might seem, in any degree, to excuse your Lordship's
judgment of its author, I shall be gratified by the reflection that, to
a kindness flowing from public principles, I have made the best public
return in my power.

In the mean time, and in every event, I rejoice in the opportunity here
afforded me of testifying the sense I entertain of your Lordship's
conduct, and of a notice which I regard as the most flattering
distinction of my life.