Joseph Butler, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The argument was never meant to carry Christianity further than that. Its design is to show that the parts of the moral and Christian dispensation principally objected against, its scheme, its publication, and the proof God has afforded of its truth, are analogous to what is experienced in the constitution and course of nature; that the chief objections alleged against the one may be alleged with like justness against the other, where they are found in fact to be inconclusive.1
It will undeniably show what too many want to have shown them, that the system of religion, natural and revealed, considered only as a system and prior to the proof of it, is not a subject of ridicule, unless that of nature be so too.2 To the second half of your question: yes, the same reasoning leaves natural religion exposed to the same difficulties, and I say so plainly.
It is a thing of consequence to show it. Objections against revelation which are of equal weight against natural religion are commonly urged as though they touched revelation only; those who press them, when they are really arguing against moral providence, deal unfairly with others unless they are confuted themselves.3 An objection that bears equally on both is properly answered by showing that it does, provided the former be admitted to be true.
The reasoning is addressed to one who grants an Author of nature, or natural Governor of the world; and Christianity is vindicated chiefly from its analogy to the experienced constitution of nature, not from its analogy to natural religion.3 To the man who grants nothing, I do not pretend to give demonstration. Take the common objection that the scheme is imperfectly made known and shows deficiencies and irregularities.
The appearance of these in nature is owing to its being a scheme but in part made known, and of a certain particular kind in other respects. We see no more reason why the frame of nature should be such a scheme than why Christianity should; and that the former is so renders it credible that the latter, upon supposition of its truth, may be so too.4
Indeed it is beforehand credible, I think probable, that Christianity would be liable to the like objections as the frame of nature, and those objections are answered by the like observations in both cases.4 Where the difficulty is the same, a man cannot make it a ground of rejecting the one while he lives by the other. I distinguish, too, between objections against what is said to be proved and objections against the proof.
The analogy answers the former in a considerable degree, the latter in a lesser, and I never claimed more.5 Once the objections against the scheme are seen to be frivolous, since they would equally condemn the constitution of nature, the question on which Christianity depends is scarcely at all what objections lie against its scheme, but what proof remains of it after due allowance for the objections against that proof.6
The conclusion is practical, as religion itself is. Religion consists in a determinate course of life, which there is reason to think is commanded by the Author of nature and will upon the whole be our happiness under his government. If men can be convinced that they have the like reason to believe this as to believe that taking care of their temporal affairs will be to their advantage, such conviction cannot but be an argument for the practice of religion.7
If there is any reason for endeavouring to preserve life and secure its necessaries, there is reason also for securing the interest religion proposes to us.7 A physician acts upon conjecture where life is concerned; his skill is a poor thing, but not compared with having none and acting wholly in the dark.7 So it is with us. Probability is not the light we might wish, but it is the guide we have, and it forbids us to dismiss what we cannot show to be nothing.
The deist grants that God is the author of nature. But nature shows the very difficulties he urges against revelation: things that seem unjust, ends we cannot see, a light given to some and not to others.8 If those difficulties are decisive against revelation, they are decisive against nature's author too, which he will not allow; if they are not decisive against nature, they are not against revelation.
We reason in religion as in everything else, from probability, and where the stakes are this great it is folly to neglect a case that is not clearly nothing. Our ignorance of the whole scheme is itself part of the answer to the objections drawn from its parts.91011
the particular parts principally objected against in this whole dispensation — are analogous to what is experienced in the constitution and course of nature, or providence: that the chief objections themselves, which are alleged against the former, are no other than what may be alleged with like justness against the latter, where they are found in fact to be inconclusiveThe Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
It will undeniably show, what too many want to have shown them, that the system of religion, both natural and revealed, considered only as a system, and prior to the proof of it, is not a subject of ridicule, unless that of nature be so too.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
it is as unreasonable as it is common to urge objections against revelation, which are of equal weight against natural religion... Christianity is vindicated, not from its analogy to natural religion, but chiefly from its analogy to the experienced constitution of nature.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
the appearance of deficiencies and irregularities in nature, is owing to its being a scheme but in part made known... Now we see no more reason why the frame and course of nature should be such a scheme, than why Christianity should.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
objections against a proof, and objections against what is said to be proved, the reader will observe, are different things.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
the question upon which the truth of Christianity depends, is scarce at all, what objections there are against its scheme... but what objections there are against its evidence?The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
Religion is a practical thing, and consists in such a determinate course of life, as being what, there is reason to think, is commanded by the Author of nature, and will, upon the whole, be our happiness under his government.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
And if it were to be considered as an objection against Christianity, or considering it as it is, an objection against the constitution of nature, it amounts to no more in conclusion than this, that a divine appointment cannot be necessary, or expedient, because the objector does not discern it to be so; though he must own that the nature of the case is such as renders him incapable of judging whether it be so or…The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
And whoever will seriously consider that part of the Christian scheme which is revealed in Scripture, will find so much more unrevealed, as will convince him, that, to all the purposes of judging and objecting, we know as little of it as of the constitution of nature. Our ignorance, therefore, is as much an answer to our objections against the perfection of one, as against the perfection of the other. Part i. chap.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
And supposing this to be the case, it is most evident, that we are not competent judges of this scheme, from the small parts of it which come within our view in the present life; and therefore no objections against any of these parts can be insisted upon by reason able men.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
And thus, as we fall into infinite follies and mistakes, whenever we pretend, otherwise than from experience and analogy, to judge of the constitution and course of nature, it is evidently supposable beforehand, that we should fall into as great, in pretending to judge, in like manner, concerning revelation.The Analogy of Religion, with the Dissertations Of Personal Identity and Of the Nature of Virtue
Required reading for every ordinand for a century, then the great unread classic; charged with answering doubt by spreading it, and defended as the most serious English apologetic before Newman.