Part One - Correspondence with Samuel Clarke

Summary

The First Letter Reverend Sir,

[1] I suppose you will wonder at the present trouble from one who is a perfect stranger to you, though you are not so to him; but I hope the occasion will excuse my boldness. I have made it, sir, my business, ever since I thought myself capable of such sort of reasoning, to prove to myself the being and attributes of God. And being sensible that it's a matter of the last consequence, I endeavoured after a demonstrative proof; not only more fully to satisfy my own mind, but also in order to defend the great truths of natural religion, and those of the Christian revelation which follow from them, against all opposers: but must own with concern, that hitherto I have been unsuccessful; and though I have got very probable arguments, yet I can go but a very little way with demonstration in the proof of those things. When first your book on those subjects (which by all, whom I have discoursed with, is so justly esteemed,) was recommended to me, I was in great hopes of having all my enquiries answered: but since in some places, either thro’ my not understanding your meaning, or what else I know not, even that has failed me; I almost despair of ever arriving to such a satisfaction as I aim at, unless by the method I now use. You cannot but know, sir, that of two different expressions of the same thing, tho’ equally clear to some persons, yet, to others, one of them is sometimes very obscure, tho’ the other be perfectly intelligible. Perhaps this may be my case here; and could I see those of your arguments, of which I doubt, differently proposed, possibly I might yield a ready assent to them. This, sir, I can not but think a sufficient excuse for the present trouble; it being such a one as I hope may prevail for an answer, with one who seems to aim at nothing more than that good work of instructing others.