Reverend Sir,—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 is 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 inquiries answered. But since in some places, either through 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,
- ↑ The following correspondence may, with the utmost propriety, be introduced into this edition of Dr. Butler's works, as the letters to Clarke were written by Butler, then a student at a dissenting academy in Tewkesbury. Though not generally known, Butler was the person who signed himself, A Gentleman in Gloucestershire.
