SECT. I. A particular confutation of the religions that differ from Christianity.

THE fourth book (beginning with that pleasure men, for the most part, take at the sight of the other men’s danger, when they themselves are placed out of the reach of it) shews, that the principal aim of a Christian ought to be, not only a satisfaction upon his having found out the truth himself, but also an endeavour to assist others, who wander in various crooked paths of error, and to make them partakers of the same happiness. And this we have, in some measure, attempted to do in the foregoing books, because the demonstration of the truth contains in it the confutation of error. But, however, since the particular sorts of religion which are opposed to Christianity, as Paganism, Judaism, or Mahometanism, for instance, besides that which is common to all, have some particular errors, and some special arguments, which they use to oppose us with; I think it may not be foreign to our present purpose to attempt a particular examination of every one of them; in the mean 157time, beseeching our readers to free their judgment from all passion and prejudice, which clog the understanding; that they may the more impartially determine concerning what is to be said.