The Epistle Dedicatory.
and so divided, that they cannot attend the desperate hazard, and will not join in a Common Defence. Among those generous Defendants I desire to pitch, and have undertaken to make good one of the Forts upon which the Enemy hath made impetuous Assaults, and I hope with no contemptible success.
For my part, my Lord, I am very little concerned for the small Pedlaries that some Mens fondness calls Religion, by which that sacred thing hath been exposed to a great deal of contempt and dishonour. But yet I think it my duty to have a zeal for those great and certain matters upon which our hopes in an other World are grounded: And that our expectations of a future Being are not imaginary and fantastick, we have reasonable evidence enough from the Attributes of God, the Phænomena of Providence, and the Nature of our Souls, to convince any, but those who will stupidly believe that they shall dye like Beasts, that they may live like them. I confess the Philosophick Arguments that are produced for the desirable Article, though very cogent, are many of them speculative and deep, requiring so great an attention and sagacity, that they take no hold upon the whistling Spirits, that are not used to consider; nor upon the common sort that cannot reach such heights of Argument: But they are both best convinced by the Proofs that come nearest the Sense, which indeed strike our Minds fullest, and leave the most lasting Impressions, whereas high Speculations being more thin and subtile, easily slide off, even from understandings that are most capable to receive them. For this reason, among some others, I appear thus much concerned
