A

DEFENCE

OF

REVEALED RELIGION,

IN

TWO SERMONS,

PREACHED IN THE

CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF LANDAFF;

AND

A CHARGE,

DELIVERED TO

THE CLERGY OF THAT DIOCESE, IN JUNE, 1795.

Sixth Edition.

THE following Discourses are published, in compliance with the united request of the principal clergy and laity, before whom they were delivered. They assured me, that, at this conjuncture, a publication of them would be peculiarly useful in my diocese. If this their partiality of judgment (for such I must esteem it) should in fact be verified in any degree, I shall have no reason to regret my having yielded to a solicitation urged by such respectable authority, and in the most obliging manner. At all events, I intreat the inhabitants of my diocese to accept this publication, as a small proof of my sincere desire to promote, according to my poor ability, their spiritual welfare. I have no place of residence amongst them; but I have not, I trust, during any part of the thirteen years in which I have been connected with them, been unmindful of the duties of my station.

LANDAFF, July 2d, 1795.

R. L.

SERMON I.

COL. ii. 8.

BEWARE LEST ANY MAN SPOIL YOU THROUGH

PHILOSOPHY.

THIS apostolic admonition is peculiarly applicable to the age in which we live. It has been called-the age of philosophy-the age of reason: if by reason and philosophy, irreligion be understood, it undoubtedly merits the appellation; for there never was an age since the death of Christ, never one since the commencement of the history of the world, in which atheism and infidelity have been more generally professed. Nature and reason have been proclaimed as gods, festivals have been instituted in honour of abstract ideas, and all revealed religion has been scoffingly rejected as a system of statecraft and priestcraft, as a gross imposition on the understanding of mankind.

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