numberless other the like mathematical and most in- CONCL. fallible truths.

3. Yet the notices that God has been pleased to give us of himself are so many and so obvious,—in the constitution, order, beauty, and harmony of the several parts of the world,—in the frame and structure of our own bodies, and the wonderful powers and faculties of our souls,-in the unavoidable apprehensions of our own minds, and the common consent of all other men,-in every thing within us, and every thing without us; that no man of the meanest capacity and greatest disadvantages whatsoever, with the slightest and most superficial observation of the works of God, and the lowest and most obvious attendance to the reason of things, can be ignorant of Him, but he must be utterly without excuse. Possibly he may not, indeed, be able to understand or be affected by nice and metaphysical demonstrations of the being and attributes of God, but then for the same reason he is obliged also not to suffer himself to be shaken and unsettled by the subtile sophistries of sceptical and atheistical men, which he cannot perhaps answer, because he cannot understand; but he is bound to adhere to those things which he knows, and those reasonings he is capable to judge of, which are abundantly sufficient to determine and to guide the practice of sober and considering men.

4. But this is not all: God has, moreover, finally,-by a clear and express revelation of himself, brought down from heaven by his own Son, our blessed Lord and Redeemer, and suited to every capacity and understanding,-put to silence the ignorance of foolish, and the vanity of sceptical and profane men; and, by declaring to us himself, his own nature and attributes, he has effectually prevented all mistakes which the weakness of our reason, the negligence of our application, the corruption of our nature, or the false philosophy of wicked and profane men, might have led us into ;

CONCL. and so has infallibly furnished us with sufficient knowledge to enable us to perform our duty in this life, and to obtain our happiness in that which is to come. But this exceeds the bounds of my present subject, and deserves to be handled in a particular discourse.

DISCOURSE

CONCERNING

THE UNCHANGEABLE OBLIGATIONS OF

NATURAL RELIGION

AND THE

TRUTH AND CERTAINTY

OF THE

CHRISTIAN REVELATION.

BEING EIGHT SERMONS PREACHED AT THE CATHEDRAL
CHURCH OF ST. PAUL, IN THE YEAR 1705, AT THE

LECTURE FOUNDED BY THE HONOURABLE
ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.

BY SAMUEL CLARKE, DD.
LATE RECTOR OF ST. JAMES'S, WESTMINSTER.

TO THE

MOST REVEREND FATHER IN GOD

THOMAS,

LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND PRIMATE OF ALL

ENGLAND;

SIR HENRY ASHURST, BARONET;

SIR JOHN ROTHERAM, KNIGHT, SERGEANT AT LAW JOHN EVELIN, ESQ.

TRUSTEES APPOINTED BY THE HONOURABLE ROBERT BOYLE, ESQ.

THIS DISCOURSE

IS HUMBLY DEDICATED.