Joseph Butler (1692–1752)

Vol. 1

Imagine the pleasure of finding Voltaire, Samuel Johnson, Rousseau and Gibbon between one set of covers! Each author is prefaced by a couple of paragraphs explaining the significance of the piece and then, they are given free rein.

If there is any man brave enough to give this collection of the World's great thinkers less than five stars, its not I! Superb reading of people just beginning to exercise their new found right to question everything.

The Sermons represent an important milestone in the development of ethics and apologetics (moral thought). But their very dated language and lack of style (even by eighteenth century standards) certainly removes them from light reading.

These sermons were originally published in 1726, and were historically recognized as powerful statements of the requirements of moral behavior. A short work, they were frequently republished, often with other selections from Butler’s works. Butler himself show more selected and edited them, adding an introduction and a few rather involved footnotes.

The power of the work is that it delivers an argument for morality largely based on reason and logic. Its weakness is in its stilted style and the complexity of that reasoning. While all the sermons are filled with scriptural references only two of them (13 and14 addressing Piety or love of God) actually require faith. The first three address human nature and the definition of conscience. The rest are addressed at various virtues or behaviors, and the reasoning in them provides a system or method of ethics.
At the time these were delivered, Butler had two roles: he was rector of Stanhope (a sinecure which provided him a living) and the chaplain at the Chancellery. The Rolls chapel was actually within the facilities of the ‘Master of the Rolls’, the rolls being the records of the Chancellery Court. This partly accounts for the complexity of some of the reasoning, since his audience was the lawyers working for or arguing before the courts in the surrounding complex known as the ‘Inns of Chancellery’.
This work, along with his “Analogy of Religion…” (1736) were also important as a refutation of the philosophy of ‘ethical egoism’ largely championed by Thomas Hobbes.

Butler went on to an illustrious career as an Anglican Devine, serving as chaplain to Queen Caroline (wife of George II) and Bishop of Bristol and later of Durham. He served in the House of Lords, and is recognized as a saint in the Anglican Church. The power of his apologetic methods and reasoning is still represented in such modern authors as C.S. Lewis. show less

http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/06/16.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3150
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Butler

Sermons upon the following subjects. Upon Humane Nature. Upon the Government of the Tongue. Upon Compassion. Upon the Character of Balaam. Upon Resentment. Upon Forgiveness of Injuries. Upon Self-Deceit. Upon the Love of our Neighbour. Upon the Love of God. Upon the Ignorance of Man. Calf (spine professionally rebound) with blind stamping on boards. Very good.

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