the Printer for misplacing your Lordship's Numbers since so ranked as they are they do to me who am confounded by them lose all Order and Connection quite The next thing in the Defence which you go on with is an exception to my use of the word Certainty In the close of the Answer I had made in the Pages you pass over I add that Though the Laws of Disputation allow bare denial as a sufficient Answer to Sayings without any offer of a Proof yet my Lord to shew how willing I am to give your Lordship all Satisfaction in what you apprehend may be of dangerous Consequence in my Book as to that Article I shall not stand still sullenly and put your Lordship upon the difficulty of shewing wherein that Danger lies but shall on the other side endeavour to shew your Lordship That that Definition of mine whether True or False Right or Wrong can be of no dangerous Consequence to that Article of Faith The Reason which I shall offer for it is this because it can be of no Consequence to it at all And the Reason of it was clear from what I had said before That Knowing and Believing were Two different Acts of the Mind And that my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas i. e. that my Definition of Knowledge one of those Acts of the Mind would not at all alter or shake the Definition of Faith which was another Act of the Mind distinct from it And therefore I added That the Certainty of Faith if your Lordship thinks fit to call it so has nothing to do with the Certainty of Knowledge And to talk of the Certainty of Faith seems all one to me as to talk of the Knowledge of Believing a way of Speaking not easy to me to understand These and other Words to this purpose in the following Paragraphs your Lordship lays hold on and sets down as liable to no small exception Though as you tell me the main strength of my Defence lies in it Let what Strength you please lie in it my Defence was strong enough without it For to your bare Saying my method of Certainty might be of dangerous Consequence to any Article of the Christian Faith without proving it it was a defence strong enough barely to deny and put you upon shewing wherein that danger lies which therefore this main strength of my Defence as you call it apart I insist on But as to your exception to what I said on this occasion it consists in this that there is a Certainty of Faith and therefore you set down my saying That to talk of the Certainty of Faith seems all one as to talk of the Knowledge of believing As that which shews the inconsistency of my Notion of Ideas with the Articles of the Christian Faith These are your Words here and yet you tell me That it is not my way of Ideas but my way of Certainty by Ideas that your Lordship is unsatisfied about What must I do now in the Case when your Words are expresly that my Notion of Ideas have an inconsistency with the Articles of the Christian Faith Must I presume that your Lordship means my Notion of Certainty All that I can do is to search out your meaning the best I can and then shew where I apprehend it not conclusive But this uncertainty in most places what you mean makes me so much work that a great deal is omitted and yet my Answer is too long Your Lordship asks in the next Paragraph How comes the Certainty of Faith so hard a Point with me Answ. I suppose you ask this Question more to give others hard thoughts of my Opinion of Faith than to be informed your self For you cannot be ignorant that all along in my Essay I use Certainty for Knowledge so that for you to ask me How comes the Certainty of Faith to become so hard a Point with me is the same thing as for you to ask How comes the knowledge of Faith or if you please the knowledge of Believing to be so hard a Point with me A Question which I suppose you will think needs no Answer let your meaning in that doubtful Phrase be what it will I used in my Book the term Certainty for Knowledge so generally that no body that has read my Book though much less attentively than your Lordship can doubt of it That I used it in that sense there I shall refer my Reader but to two places amongst many to convince him This I am sure your Lordship could not be ignorant that by Certainty I mean Knowledge since I have so used it in my Letters to you Instances whereof are not a few some of them may be found in the places marked in the Margent And in my second Letter what I say in the leaf immediately preceding that which you quote upon this occasion would have put it past a possibility for any one to make shew of a doubt of it had not that been amongst those Pages of my Answer which for its being out of its proper place it seems you were resolved not to take notice of and therefore I hope it will not be besides my purpose here to mind you of it again After having said something to shew why I used Certainty and Knowledge for the same thing I added that Your Lordship could not but take notice of this in the 18th § of Ch. 4. of my 4th Book it being a Passage you had quoted and runs thus Where-ever we perceive the agreement or disagreement of any of our Idaas there is certain Knowledge And where-ever we are sure those Ideas agree with the reality of things there is certain real Knowledge of which having given the marks I think I have shewn wherein Certainty real Certainty consists And I farther add in the immediately following Words That my definition of Knowledge in the beginning of the 4th Book of my Essay stands thus Knowledge seems to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas Which is the very definition of Certainty that your Lordship is here contesting Since then you could not but know that in this discourse Certainty with me stood for or was the same thing with Knowledge may not one justly wonder how you come to ask me such a Question as this How comes the Knowledge of Believing to become so hard a Point with me For that was in effect the Question that you asked when you put in the term Certainty since you knew as undoubtedly that I meant Knowledge by Certainty as that I meant Believing by Faith i. e. you could doubt of neither And that you did not doubt of it is plain from what you say in the next Page where you endeavour to prove this an improper way of speaking Whether it be a proper way of speaking I allow to be a fair Question
this Proposition Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundament Article that there is a God And so of the immortality of the Soul because I say I know not but Matter may think Your Lordship would infer Ergo my definition of Certainty weakens the credibility of the Revelation of the Souls immortality Your Lordship is pleased here to call this Proposition That Knowledge or Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas My general grounds of Certainty as if I had some more particular grounds of Certainty Whereas I have no other Ground or Notion of Certainty but this one alone all my Notion of Certainty is contained in that one particular Proposition but perhaps your Lordship did it that you might make the Proposition above quoted viz. No Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self under the Title you give it of the way of Ideas pass for one of my particular Grounds of Certainty whereas it is no more any Ground of Certainty of mine or definition of Knowledge than any other Proposition in my Book Another thing very remarkable in what your Lordship here says is That you make the failing to attain Knowledge by any way of Certainty in some particular Instances to be the finding the uncertainty of the way it self which is all one as to say That if a Man misses by Algebra the certain Knowledge of some Propositions in Mathematicks therefore he finds the way or principles of Algebra to be uncertain or false This is your Lordship's way of reasoning here Your Lordship quotes out of me That I say no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self And that I say That one cannot be certain that Matter cannot think from whence your Lordship argues That he who says so cannot attain to Certainty that there is a God or that the Soul is immortal and thereupon your Lordship concludes he finds the uncertainty of the Principles he went upon in Point of Reason i. e. that he finds this Principle or Ground of Certainty he went upon in reasoning viz. That Certainty or Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to be uncertain For if your Lordship means here by Principles he went upon in Point of Reason any thing else but that definition of Knowledge which your Lordship calls my Way Method Grounds c. of Certainty which I and others to the endangering some Articles of Faith go upon I crave leave to say it concerns nothing at all the Argument your Lordship is upon which is to prove That the placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas may be of dangerous consequence to any Article of Faith Your Lordship in the next place says Before we can believe any thing upon the account of Revelation we must suppose there is a God What use does your Lordship make of this Your Lordship thus argues But by my way of Certainty a Man is made uncertain whether there be a God or no. For that to me is the meaning of those Words How can his Faith stand firm as to Divine Revelation when he is made uncertain by his own way whether there be a God or no Or they can to me mean nothing to the Question in hand What is the conclusion from hence This it must be or nothing to the purpose Ergo my defini-nition of Knowledge or which is the same thing my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas leaves not the Articles of Faith the same credibility they had before To excuse my dulness in not being able to comprehend this consequence pray my Lord consider that your Lordship says Before we can believe any thing upon the account of Revelation it must be supposed that there is a God But cannot he who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement and disagreement of Ideas supposes there is a God But your Lordship means by suppose that one must be certain that there is a God Let it be so and let it be your Lordship's priviledge in Controversie to use one word for another though of a different signification as I think to suppose and be certain are Cannot one that places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas be certain there is a God I can assure you my Lord I am certain there is a God and yet I own That I place Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas Nay I dare venture to say to your Lordship That I have proved there is a God and see no inconsistency at all between these two Propositions That Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement of disagreement of Ideas and that it is certain there is a God So that this my Notion of Certainty this definition of Knowledge for any thing your Lordship has said to the contrary leaves to this Fundamental Article the same Credibility and the same Certainty it had before Your Lordship says farther To suppose Divine Revelation we must be certain that there is a principle above Matter and Motion in the World Here again my Lord your way of writing makes work for my Ignorance and before I can either admit or deny this Proposition or judge what force it has to prove the Proposition in question I must distinguish it into these different Senses which I think your Lordship's way of speaking may comprehend For your Lordship may mean it thus To suppose Divine Revelation we must be certain i. e. we must believe that there is a principle above Matter and Motion in the World Or your Lordship may mean thus We must be certain i. e. we must know that there is something above Matter or Motion in the World In the next place your Lordship may mean by something above Matter and Motion either simply an intelligent Being for Knowledge without determining what Being it is in is a principle above Matter and Motion Or your Lordship may mean an immaterial intelligent Being so that this undetermined way of expressing includes at least four distinct Propositions whereof some are true and others not so For 1. My Lord if your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. must certainly know that there is an intelligent Being in the World and that that intelligent Being is immaterial from whence that Revelation comes I deny it For a Man may suppose Revelation upon the belief of an intelligent Being from whence it comes without being able to make out to himself by a Scientifical Reasoning that there is such a Being A proof whereof I humbly conceive are the Anthropomorphites among the Christians heretofore who nevertheless rejected not the Revelation of the New Testament and he that will talk with illiterate People in this Age will I doubt not find many who believe
the end of it is a pretty sort of Maxim That therefore which I desire to be informed here is how your Lordship knows these or any other Propositions to be Maxims and how Propositions that are Maxims are to be distinguished from Propositions that are not Maxims And the Reason why I insist upon it is this Because this and this only would shew whether what I have said in my Chapter about Maxims overthrows all that has been accounted Science and Demonstration and lays the Foundation of Scepticism But I fear my Request That you would be pleased to tell me what you mean by Maxims that I may know what Propositions according to your Lordship are and what are not Maxims will not easily be granted me Because it would presently put an end to all that you impute to me as said in that Chapter against Maxims in a Sense that I use not the Word there Your Lordship makes me out of my Book answer to the use you make of the Four above-mentioned Propositions which you call Maxims as if I were declared of an Opinion That Maxims could not be of any use in Arguing with others Which methinks you should not have done if you had considered my Chapter of Maxims which you so often quote For I there say Maxims are useful to stop the Mouths of Wranglers to shew That wrong Opinions lead to Absurdities c. Your Lordship nevertheless goes on to prove That without the help of these Principles or Maxims I cannot prove to any that doubt it that they are Men in my way of Ideas Answ. I beseech you my Lord to give me leave to mind you again that the Question is not what I can prove but whether in my way by Ideas I cannot without the help of these Principles know that I am a Man and be certain of the Truth of that and several other Propositions I say of several other Propositions For I do not think you in your way of Certainty by Reason pretend to be certain of all Truths or to be able to prove to those who doubt all Propositions or so much as be able to convince every one of the Truth of every Proposition that you your self are certain of There be many Propositions in Mr. Newton's excellent Book which there are Thousands of people and those a little more Rational than such as should deny themselves to be Men whom Mr. Newton himself would not be able with or without the use of Maxims used in Mathematicks to convince of the Truth of And yet this would be no Argument against his Method of Certainty whereby he came to the Knowledge that they are True What therefore you can conclude as to my way of Certainty from a Supposition of my not being able in my way by Ideas to convince those who doubt of it that they are Men I do not see But your Lordship is resolved to prove that I cannot and so you go on 1. Your Lordship says That I suppose that we must have a clear and distinct Idea of that we are certain of and this you prove out of my Chapter of Maxims where I say That every one knows the Ideas that he has and that distinctly and unconfusedly one from another Answ. I suspected all along that you mistook what I meant by confused Ideas If your Lordship pleases to turn to my Chapter of distinct and confused Ideas you will there find that an Idea which is distinguished in the Mind from all others may yet be confused The Confusion being made by a careless Application of distinct Names to Ideas that are not sufficiently distinct Which having explained at large in that Chapter I shall not need here again to repeat Only permit me to set down an Instance He that has the Idea of the Liquor that Circulating through the Heart of a Sheep keeps that Animal alive and he that has the Idea of the Liquor that Circulates through the Heart of a Lobster has two different Ideas as distinct as an Idea of an aqueous pellucid cold Liquor is from the Idea of a red opaque hot Liquor but yet these Two may be confounded by giving the Name Blood to this vital circulating Liquor of a Lobster This being considered will shew how what I have said there may consist with my saying That to Certainty Ideas are not required that are in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct Because Certainty being spoken there of the Knowledge of the Truth of any Proposition and Propositions being made in Words it may be true That notwithstanding all the Ideas we have in our Minds are as far as we have them there clear and distinct yet those which we would suppose the Terms in the Proposition to stand for may not be clear and distinct either 1. By making the Term stand for an uncertain Idea which we have not yet precisely determined in our Minds whereby it comes to stand sometimes for one Idea sometimes for another Which though when we reflect on them they are distinct in our Minds yet by this use of a Name undetermined in its Signification come to be confounded Or 2. By supposing the Name to stand for something more than really is in the Idea in our Minds which we make it a sign of v. g. let us suppose That a Man many Years since when he was Young Eat a Fruit whose shape size consistency and colour he has a perfect Remembrance of but the particular Tast he has forgot and only remembers that it very much delighted him This complex Idea as far as it is in his Mind 't is evident is there and as far as he perceives it when he reflects on it is in all its parts clear and distinct but when he calls it a Pine-Apple and will suppose that Name stands for the same precise complex Idea for which another Man who newly Eat of that Fruit and has the Idea of the Tast of it also fresh in his Mind uses it or for which he himself used it when he had the Tast fresh in his Memory 't is plain his complex Idea in that part which consists in the Tast is very obscure To apply this to what your Lordship here makes me suppose I Answer 1. I do not suppose That to Certainty it is requisite that an Idea should be in all its parts clear and distinct I can be certain that a Pine-Apple is not an Artichoak though my Idea which I suppose that Name to stand for be in me obscure and confused in regard of its Tast. 2. I do not deny but on the contrary I affirm That I can have a clear and distinct Idea of a Man i. e. the Idea I give the name Man to may be clear and distinct though it should be true That Men are not yet agreed on the determined Idea that the name Man shall stand for Whatever Confusion there may be in the Idea to which that Name is indeterminately apply'd I do allow
That he makes the Term Body to stand precisely for the simple Idea of pure Extension your Lordship or he can be in no doubt or uncertainty concerning this thing but whenever he uses the Word Body your Lordship must suppose in his Mind the simple Idea of Extension as the thing he means by Body If on the other side another of those Philosophical Rational Men shall tell your Lordship That he makes the Term Body to stand precisely for a Complex Idea made up of the simple Ideas of Extension and Solidity joyned together your Lordship or he can be in no doubt or uncertainty concerning this Thing But whenever he uses the word Body your Lordship must Think on and allow the Idea belonging to it to be that Complex one As your Lordship can allow this different use of the term Body in these different Men without changing any Idea or any thing in your own Mind but the application of the same Term to different Ideas which changes neither the Truth nor Certainty of any of your Lordship's Ideas from what it was before So those Two Philosophical rational Men may in Discourse one with another agree to use that term Body for either of those two Ideas which they please without at all making their Ideas on either side false or uncertain But if they will contest which of these Ideas the sound Body ought to stand for 't is visible their difference is not about any reality of Things but the propriety of Speech and their Dispute pute and doubt is only about the signification of a Word Your Lordship's second Question is Whether by this Idea of Solidity we may come to know what it is Answ. I must ask you here again what you mean by it If your Lordship by it means Solidity then your Question runs thus Whether by this i. e. my Idea of Solidity we may come to know what Solidity is Answ. Without doubt if your Lordship means by the term Solidity what I mean by the term Solidity for then I have told you what it is in the Chapter above cited by your Lordship If you mean any thing else by the term Solidity when your Lordship will please to tell me what you mean by it I will tell your Lordship what Solidity is This I humbly conceive you will find your self obliged to do if what I have said of Solidity does not satisfie you what it is For you will not think it reasonable I should tell your Lordship what a thing is when expressed by you in a Term which I do not know what your Lordship means by nor what you make it stand for But your Lordship asks wherein it consists if you mean wherein the Idea of it consists that I have already told your Lordship in the Chapter of my Essay above-mentioned If your Lordship means what is the real internal Constitution that physically makes Solidity in Things If I answer I do not know that will no more make my Idea of Solidity not to be true or certain if your Lordship thinks Certainty may be attributed to single Ideas than the not knowing the physical Constitution whereby the parts of Bodies are so framed as to cohere makes my Idea of Cohesion not true or certain To my saying in my Essay That if any one ask me what this Solidity is I send him to his Senses to inform him Your Lordship replies You thought the Design of my Book would have sent him to his Ideas for Certainty and are we says your Lordship sent back again from our Ideas to our Senses Answ. I cannot help it if your Lordship mistakes the Design of my Book For what concerns Certainty i. e. the Knowledge of the Truth of Propositions my Book sends every one to his Ideas But for the getting of simple Ideas of Sensation my Book sends him only to his Senses But your Lordship uses Certainty here in a Sense I never used it nor do understand it in for what the Certainty of any simple Idea is I confess I do not know and shall be glad you would tell me what you mean by it However in this Sense you ask me and that as if your Question carried a Demonstration of my Contradicting my self And are we sent back again from our Ideas to our Senses Answ. My Lord every one is sent to his Senses to get the simple Ideas of Sensation because they are no other way to be got Your Lordship presses on with this farther Question What do these Ideas signify then i. e. if a Man be sent to his Senses for the Idea of Solidity I Answer to shew him the Certainty of Propositions wherein the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas is perceived which is the Certainty I speak of and no other But what the Certainty is which your Lordship speaks of in this and the following Page I confess I do not understand For Your Lordship adds that I say farther That if this be not a sufficient Explication of Solidity I promise to tell any one what it is when he tells me what Thinking is or explains to me what Extension and Motion are Are we not now in the true way to Certainty when such Things as these are given over of which we have the clearest Evidence by Sensation and Reflection For here I make it as impossible to come to certain clear and distinct Notions of these Things as to discourse into a Blind Man the Ideas of Light and Colours Is not this a rare way of Certainty Answ. What Things my Lord I beseech you are those which you here tell me are given over of which we have the clearest Evidence by Sensation or Reflection 'T is likely you will tell me they are Extension and Motion But my Lord I crave the liberty to say That when you have consider'd again you will be satisfied there are no Things given over in the Case but only the Names Extension and Motion and concerning them too nothing is given over but a power of defining them When you will be pleased to lay by a little the Warmth of those Questions of Triumph which I meet with in this Passage and tell me what Things your Lordship makes these Names Extension and Motion to stand for you perhaps will not find that I make it impossible for those who have their Senses to get the simple Ideas signified by these Names very clear and distinct by their Senses Though I do say that these as well as all other Names of simple Ideas cannot be defined nor any simple Ideas be brought into our Minds by Words any more than the Ideas of Light and Colours can be discoursed into a Blind Man which is all I do say in those Words of mine which your Lordship quotes as such wherein I have given over Things whereof we have the clearest Evidence And so from my being of Opinion That the Names of simple Ideas cannot be defined nor those Ideas got by any Words
your Words which you did not intend me in them But on the other side I would not willingly neglect to acknowledge any Civility from your Lordship in the full extent of it The Business is a little nice because what is contain'd in those two Passages cannot by a less skilful Hand than yours be well put together though they immediately follow one another This I am sure falls out very untowardly that your Lordship should drive me who had much rather have been otherwise imployed to drive your Lordship to do that which you were unwilling to do The World sees how much I was driven For what Censures what Imputations must my Book have lain under if I had not cleared it from those Accusations your Lordship brought against it when I am charged now with Evasions for not clearing my self from an Accusation which you never brought against me But if it be an Evasion not to answer to an Objection that has not been made what is it I beseech you my Lord to make no reply to Objections that have been made Of which I promise to give your Lordship a List whenever you shall please to call for it I forbear it now for fear that if I should say all that I might upon this new Accusation it would be more than would suit with your Lordship's liking and you should complain again that you have opened a Passage which brings to your mind Ramazzini and his Springs of Modena But your Lordship need not be afraid of being overwhelmed with the Ebullition of my Thoughts nor much trouble your self to find a way to give check to it Meer Ebullition of Thoughts never overwhelms or sinks any one but the Author himself but if it carries Truth with it that I confess has force and it may be troublesome to those that stand in its way Your Lordship says You see how dangerous it is to give occasion to one of such a fruitful Invention as I am to write I am obliged to your Lordship that you think my Invention worth concerning your self about though it be so unlucky as to have your Lordship and me always differ about the measure of its Fertility In your first Answer you thought I too much extended the Fertility of my Invention and ascribed to it what it had no Title to And here I think you make the Fertility of my Invention greater than it is For in what I have answered to your Lordship there seems to me no need at all of a Fertil Invention 'T is true it has been hard for me to find out whom you writ against or what you meant in many places As soon as that was found the Answer lay always so obvious and so easie that there needed no labour of Invention to discover what one should reply The Things themselves where there were any strip'd of the Ornaments of Scholastick Language and the less obvious ways of learned Writings seemed to me to carry their Answers visibly with them This permit me my Lord to say That however fertil my Invention is it has not in all this Controversie produced one Fiction or wrong Quotation But before I leave the Answer you dictate permit me to observe that I am so unfortunate to be blamed for owning what I was not accused to disown and here for not owning what I was never charged to disown The like Misfortune have my poor Writings They offend your Lordship in some places because they are new and in others because they are not new Your next Words which are a new Charge I shall pass over till I come to your Proof of them and proceed to the next Paragraph Your Lordship tells me You shall wave all unnecessary Repetitions and come immediately to the matter of my Complaint as it is renewed in my Second Letter What your Lordship means by unnecessary Repetitions here seems to be of a piece with your blaming me in the foregoing Page for having said too much in my own defence and this taken altogether confirms my Opinion That in your Thoughts it would have been better I should have replyed nothing at all For you having set down here near twenty Lines as a necessary Repetition out of your former Letter your Lordship omits my answer to them as wholly unnecessary to be seen and consequently you must think was at first unnecessary to have been said For when the same Words are necessary to be repeated again if the same reply which was made to them be not thought fit to be repeated too it is plainly judged to be nothing to the purpose and should have been spared at first 'T is true your Lordship has set down some few Expressions taken out of several parts of my Reply but in what manner the Reader cannot clearly see without going back to the Original of this Matter He must therefore pardon me the trouble of a deduction which cannot be avoided where Controversie is managed at this rate which necessitates and so excuses length of the Answer My Book was brought into the Trinitarian Controversie by these steps Your Lordship says That 1. The Vnitarians have not explained the Nature and Bounds of Reason 2. The Author Of Christianity not Mysterious to make amends for this has offer'd an account of Reason 3. His Doctrin concerning Reason supposes that we must have clear and distinct Ideas of whatever we pretend to any Certainty of in our Mind 4. Your Lordship calls this a new way of Reasoning 5. This Gentleman of this new way of Reasoning in his First Chapter says something which has a conformity with some of the Notions in my Book But it is to be observed he speaks them as his own Thoughts and not upon my Authority nor with taking any notice of me 6. By vertue of this he is presently entituled to I know not how much of my Book and divers Passages of my Essay are quoted and attributed to him under the Title of The Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning for he is by this time turned into a Troop and certain unknown if they are not all contained in this one Author's Doublet They and These are made by your Lordship to lay about them shrewdly for several Pages together in your Lordship's Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity c. with Passages taken out of my Book which your Lordship was at the pains to quote as Theirs i. e. certain unknown Anti-trinitarians Of this your Lordship's way strange and new to me of dealing with my Book I took notice To which your Lordship tells me here you replyed in these following words which your Lordship has set down as no unnecessary Repetition Your Words are It was because the Person who opposed the Mysteries of Christianity went upon my Grounds and made use of my Words although your Lordship declared withal That they were used to other purposes than I intended them and your Lordship confessed that the Reason why you
quoted my Words so much was because your Lordship found my Notions as to Certainty by Ideas was the main Foundation on which the Author of Christianity not Mysterious went and that he had nothing that looked like Reason if that Principle were removed which made your Lordship so much endeavour to shew that it would not hold and so you supposed the Reason why your Lordship so often mentioned my Words was no longer a Riddle to me And to this Repetition your Lordship subjoins That I set down these Passages in my Second Letter but with these Words annexed That all this seems to me to do nothing to the clearing of this Matter Answer I say so indeed in the place quoted by your Lordship and if I had said no more your Lordship had done me Justice in setting down barely these Words as my Reply which being set down when your Lordship was in the way of Repeating your own Words with no sparing Hand as we shall see by and by these few of mine set down thus without the least intimation that I had said any thing more cannot but leave the Reader under an Opinion that this was my whole Reply But if your Lordship will please to turn to that place of my Second Letter out of which you take these Words I presume you will find that I not only said but proved That what you had said in the Words above repeated to clear the Riddle in your Lordship's way of writing did nothing towards it That which was the Riddle to me was That your Lordship writ against others and yet quoted only my Words and that you pinn'd my Words which you argued against upon a certain sort of These and Them that no where appeared or were to be found and by this way brought my Book into the Controversie To this your Lordship says You told me it was because the Person who opposed the Mysteries of Christianity went upon my Grounds and made use of my Words Answer He that will be at the pains to compare this which you call a Repetition here with the place you quote for it viz. 1. Answ. p. 46. will I humbly conceive find it a new sort of Repetition unless the setting down of Words and Expressions not to be found in it be the Repetition of any Passage But for a Repetition let us take it of what your Lordship had said before The Reason and the only Reason there given why you quoted my Words after the manner you did was Because you found my Notions as to Certainty by Ideas was the main Foundation which the Author of Christianity not Mysterious went upon These are the Words in your Lordship's first Letter and this the only Reason there given though it hath grown a little by Repetition And to this my Reply was That I thought your Lordship had found that that which the Author of Christianity not Mysterious went upon and for which he was made one of the Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning opposite to the Doctrin of the Trinity was that he made or supposed clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty But that was not my Notion as to Certainty by Ideas c. Which Reply my Lord did not barely say but shew'd the Reason why I said That what your Lordship had offered as the Reason of your manner of Proceeding did nothing towards the clearing of it Unless it could clear the Matter to say you joined me with the Author of Christianity not Mysterious who goes upon a different Notion of Certainty from mine because he goes upon the same with me For he as your Lordship supposes making Certainty to consist in the perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of clear and distinct Ideas and I on the contrary making it consist in the perception of the Agreement of Disagreement of such Ideas as we have whether they be perfectly in all their Parts clear and distinct or no. It is impossible he should go upon my Grounds whilst they are so different or that his going upon my Grounds should be the Reason of your Lordship's joining me with him And now I leave your Lordship to Judge how you had cleared this Matter and whether what I had answer'd did not prove that what you said did nothing towards the clearing of it This one Thing methinks your Lordship has made very clear that you Thought it necessary to find some way to bring in my Book where you were arguing against that Author that he might be the Person and mine the Words you would Argue against together But 't is as clear that the particular matter which your Lordship made use of to this purpose happen'd to be somewhat unluckily chosen For your Lordship having Accused him of supposing clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty which you declared to be the Opinion you opposed and for that Opinion having made him a Gentleman of a new way of Reasoning your Lordship imagined that was the Notion of Certainty I went on But it falling out otherwise and I denying it to be mine the imaginary tie between that Author and me was unexpectedly dissolved and there was no appearance of Reason for bringing Passages out of my Book and arguing against them as your Lordship did as if they were that Author 's To justifie this since my Notion of Certainty could not be brought to agree with what he was charged with as opposite to the Doctrin of the Trinity he at any rate must be brought to agree with me and to go upon my Notion of Certainty Pardon me my Lord that I say at any rate The Reason I have to think so is this Either that Author does make clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty and so does not go upon my Notion of Certainty And then your assigning his going upon my Notion of Certainty as the Reason for your joyning us as you did shews no more but a willingness in your Lordship to have us joyn'd Or he does not lay all Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas and so possibly for ought I know may go upon my Notion of Certainty But then my Lord the Reason of your first bringing him and me into this Dispute will appear to have been none All your arguing against the Gentlemen of this new way of Reasoning will be found to be against no Body since there is no Body to be found that lays all Foundation of Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas no Body to be found that holds the Opinion that your Lordship opposes Having thus given you an Account of some part of my Reply to what your Lordship really answer'd in that 46th Page of your first Letter to shew that my Reply contained something more than these Words here set down by your Lordship viz. That all this seems to me to do nothing to the clearing this Matter I come now to those parts of your Repetition as your Lordship is pleased to call it wherein there is
nothing Repeated Your Lordship says That you told me the Reason why I was brought into the Controversie after the manner I had complained of was because the Person who opposed the Mysteries of Christianity went upon my Grounds and for this you quote the 46th Page of your first Letter But having turned to that place and finding there these Words That you found my Notions as to Certainty by Ideas was the main Foundation which that Author went upon Which are far from being repeated in the Words set down here unless Grounds in general be the same with Notions as to Certainty by Ideas I beg leave to consider what you here say as new to me and not Repeated Your Lordship says That you brought me into the Controversie as you did because that Author went upon my Grounds 'T is possible he did or did not But it cannot appear that he did go upon my Grounds till those Grounds are assigned and the places both out of him and me produced to shew that we agree in the same Grounds and go both upon them when this is done there will be room to consider whether it be so or no. In the mean time you having brought me into the Controversie for his going upon this particular Ground supposed to be mine That clear and distinct Ideas are necessary to Certainty It can do nothing towards the clearing this to say in general as your Lordship does That he went upon my Grounds because though he should agree with me in several other Things but differ from me in this one Notion of Certainty there could be no reason for your dealing with me as you have done That Notion of Certainty being your very exception against his Account of Reason and the sole occasion you took of bringing in Passages out of my Book and the very Foundation of arguing against them Your Lordship farther says here in this Repetition which you did not say before in the place refer'd to as Repeated That he made use of my Words I think he did of Words something like mine But as I humbly conceive also he made use of them as his own and not as my Words for I do not remember that he quotes me for them This I am sure That in the Words quoted out of him by your Lordship upon which my Book is brought in there is not one Syllable of Certainty by Ideas No doubt whatever he or I or any one have said if your Lordship disapproves of it you have a right to Question him that said it But I do not see how this gives your Lordship any Right to entitle any Body to what he does not say whoever else says it The Author of Christianity not Mysterious says in his Book something suitable to what I had said in mine borrowed or not borrowed from mine I leave your Lordship to determine for him But I doe not see what ground that gives your Lordship to concern me in the Controversie you have with him for things I say which he does not and which I say to a different purpose from his Let that Author and I agree in this one Notion of Certainty as much as you please what Reason I beseech your Lordship could this be to quote my Words as his who never used them and to purposes as you say more than once to which I never intended them This was that which I complained was a Riddle to me And since your Lordship can give no other Reason for it than those we have hitherto seen I think it is sufficiently unridled and you are in the right when you say you think it is no longer a Riddle to me I easily grant my little Reading may not have instructed me what has been or what may be done in the several ways of writing and managing of Controversie which like War always produces new Stratagems Only I beg my Ignorance may be my Apology for saying that this appears a new way of writing to me and this is the first time I ever met with it But let the ten Lines which your Lordship has set down out of him be if you please supposed to be precisely my Words and that he quoted my Book for them I not see how even this entitles him to any more of my Book than he has quoted Or how any Words of mine in other parts of my Book can be ascribed to him or argued against as his or rather as I know not whose which was the Thing I complained of for the These and They those Passages of my Book were ascribed to could not be that Author for he used them not Nor the Author of The Essay of Humane Vnderstanding for he was not argued against but was discharged from the Controversie under Debate So that neither he nor I being the They and Those that so often occur and deserved so much Pains from your Lordship I could not but complain of this to me incomprehensible way of bringing my Book into that Controversie Another part of your Lordship's Repetition which I humbly conceive is no Repetition because this also I find not in that Passage quoted for it is this That your Lordship confessed that the Reason why you quoted my Words so much My Lord I do not remember any need your Lordship had to give a Reason why you quoted my Words so much because I do not remember that I made that the matter of my Complaint That which I complained of was not the quantity of what was quoted out of my Book but the manner of quoting it viz. That I was so every where joined with others under the comprehensive words They and Them though my Book alone were every where quoted that the World would be apt to think I was the Person who argued against the Trinity And again That which I complained of was That I was made one of the Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning without being guilty of what made them so and so was brought into a Chapter wherein I thought my self not concerned which was managed so that my Book was all along quoted and others argued against others were entitled to what I said and I to what others said without knowing why or how Nay I told your Lordship in that very Reply That if your Lordship had directly questioned any of my Opinions I should not have complained Thus your Lordship sees my Complaint was not of the largeness but of the manner of your Quotations But of that in all these many Pages imployed by your Lordship for my Satisfaction you as I remember have not been pleased to offer any reason nor can I hither to find it any way cleared When I do I shall readily acknowledge your great Mastery in this as in all other ways of writing I have in the foregoing Pages for the clearing this Matter been obliged to take notice of Them and Those as directly signifying no body Whether your Lordship will excuse me for so doing I know
needed no Words or Principles of mine to be produced unless your Lordship would prove that which was never denied But if it were to prove this viz. That it was a Supposition of mine That clear and distinct Ideas were necessary to Certainty and that to prove this to be a Supposition of mine My Words were produced and my Principles of Certainty laid down and none else I answer I do not remember any Words or Principles of mine produced to shew any ground for such a Supposition that I placed Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas and if there had been any such produced your Lordship would have done Me and the Reader a favour to have marked the Pages wherein one might have found them produced unless your Lordship thinks you make amends for quoting so many Pages of my second Letter which might have been spared by neglecting wholly to quote any of your own where it needed When your Lordship shall please to direct me to those places where such Words and Principles of mine were produced to prove such a Supposition I shall readily turn to them to see how far they do really give ground for it But my bad Memory not suggesting to me any thing like it your Lordship I hope will pardon me if I do not turn over your Defence of the Trinity and your First Letter to see whether you have any such Proofs which you your self seem so much to doubt or think so meanly of that you do not so much as point out the places where they are to be found though we have in this very Page so eminent an Example that you are not sparing of your Pains in this kind where you have the least thought that it might serve your Lordship to the meanest purpose But though you produced no Words or Principles of mine to prove this a Supposition of mine yet in your next Words here your Lordship produces a Reason why you your self supposed it For you say You could not imagine that I could place Certainty in the agreement or disagreement of Ideas and not suppose those Ideas to be clear and distinct so that at last the Satisfaction you give me why my Book was brought into a Controversie wherein it was not concerned is that your Lordship imagined I supposed in it what I did not suppose in it And here I crave leave to ask Whether the Reader may not well suppose that you had a great mind to bring my Book into that Controversie when the only handle you could find for it was an imagination of a Supposition to be in it which in truth was not there Your Lordship adds That I finding my self joined in such Company which I did not desire to be seen in I rather chose to distinguish my self from them by denying clear and distinct Ideas to be necessary to Certainty If it might be permitted to another to guess at your Thoughts as well as you do at mine he perhaps would turn it thus That your Lordship finding no readier way as you thought to set a mark upon my Book than by bringing several Passages of it into a Controversie concerning the Trinity wherein they had nothing to do and speaking of them under the name of Those and Them as if your Adversaries in that Dispute had made use of those Passages against the Trinity when no one Opposer of the Doctrin of the Trinity that I know or that you have produced ever made use of one of them you thought fit to jumble my Book with other Peoples Opinions after a new way never used by any other writer that I ever heard of If any one will consider what your Lordship has said for my Satisfaction wherein you have as I humbly conceive I have shewn produced nothing but Imaginations of Imaginations and Suppositions of Suppositions he will I conclude without straining of his Thoughts be carried to this Conjecture But Conjectures apart your Lordship says That I finding my self joined in such Company which I did not desire to be seen in I rather chose to distinguish my self If keeping to my Book can be called distinguishing my self You say I rather chose Rather than what my Lord I beseech you Your learned way of Writing I find is every where beyond my Capacity and unless I will guess at your meaning which is not very safe beyond what I can certainly understand by your Words I often know not what to answer to 'T is certain you mean here that I prefer'd distinguishing my self from them I found my self joined with to something but to what you do not say If you mean to owning that for my Notion of Certainty which is not my Notion of Certainty this is true I did and shall always rather choose to distinguish my self from any them than own that for my Notion which is not my Notion If you mean that I prefer'd my distinguishing my self from them to my being joined with them you make me choose where there neither is nor can be any Choice For what is wholly out of one's Power leaves no room for Choice And I think I should be laughed at if I should say I rather choose to distinguish my self from the Papists than that it should Rain For it is no more in my Choice not to be joined as your Lordship has been pleased to join me with the unknown They and Them than it is in my Power that it should not Rain 'T is like you will say here again this is a nice Criticism I grant my Lord it is about Words and Expressions But since I cannot know your meaning but by your Words and Expressions if this defect in my Understanding very frequently overtake me in your Writings to and concerning me 't is troublesome I confess but what must I do Must I play at blind Man's-buff Catch at what I do not see Answer to I know not what to no meaning i. e. to nothing Or must I presume to know your meaning when I do not For Example suppose I should presume it to be your meaning here That I found my self joined in Company by your Lordship with the Author of Christianity not Mysterious by your Lordship's imputing the same Notions of Certainty to us both That I did not desire to be seen in his Company i. e. to be thought to be of his Opinion in other things And therefore I choose rather to distinguish my self from him by denying clear and distinct Ideas to be necessary to Certainty than to be so joined with him If I should presume this to be the Sense of these your Words here and that by the doubtful signification of the Expression of being joined in Company and seen in Comany used equivocally your Lordship should mean that because I was said to be of his Opinion in one thing I was to be thought to be of his Opinion in all things and therefore disowned to be of his Opinion in that wherein I was of his Opinion because I would not
a Proof of my not misrepresenting since I find you use it your self as a sure Fence against any such Accusation where you tell me That you have set down my own Words at large that I may not complain that your Lordship misrepresents my Sense The same Answer I must desire my Reader to apply for me to your 73d and 90th Pages where your Lordship makes Complaints of the like kind with this here The Reasons you give for joining me with the Author of Christianity not Mysterious are put down verbatim as you gave them and if they did not give me that Satisfaction they were designed for am I to be blamed that I did not find them better than they were You joined me with that Author because he placed Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas I told your Lordship I did not do so and therefore that could be no reason for your joining me with him You answer 'T was possible he might mistake or misapply my Notions So that our agreeing in the Notion of Certainty the pretended Reason for which we were joined failing all the reason which is left and which you offer in this Answer for your joining of us is the possibility of his mistaking my Notions And I think it a very natural Inference that if the meer possibility of any ones mistaking me be a reason for my being joined with him Any ones actual mistaking me is a stronger reason why I should be joined with him But if such an Inference shews more than you would have it the satisfactoriness and force of your Answer I hope you will not be angry with me if I cannot change the Nature of things Your Lordship indeed adds in that place That there is too much reason to believe that the Author thought his Notions and mine the same Answ. When your Lordship shall produce that Reason it will be seen whether it were too much or too little Till it is produced there appears no Reason at all and such concealed Reason though it may be too much can be supposed I think to give very little Satisfaction to me or any body else in the Case But to make good what you have said in your Answer your Lordship here replies That you did not join us together because he had misunderstood and misapplied my Notions Answ. Neither did I say That therefore you did join us But this I crave leave to say That all the reason you there gave for your joining us together was the possibility of his mistaking and misapplying my Notions But your Lordship now tells me No Sir this was not the reason of your joining us but it was because he assigned no other Grounds but mine and in my own Words Answ. My Lord I do not remember that in that place you give this as a reason for your joining of us and I could not answer in that place to what you did not there say but to what you there did say Now your Lordship does say it it here here I shall take the liberty to answer it The Reason you now give for your joining me with that Author is because he assigned no other Grounds but mine which however tenderly expressed is to be understood I suppose that he did assign my Grounds Of what I beseech your Lordship did he assign my Grounds and in my Words If it were not my Grounds of Certainty it could be no manner of reason for your joining me with him because the only reason why at first you made him and me with him a Gentleman of the new way of Reasoning was his supposing clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty which was the Opinion that you declared you opposed Now my Lord if you can shew where that Author has in my Words assigned my Grounds of Certainty there will be some Grounds for what you say here But till your Lordship does that it will be pretty hard to believe that to be the ground of your joining us together which being no where to be found can scarce be thought the true reason of your doing it Your Lordship adds However now I would divert the meaning of Them i. e. those my Words an other way Answ. When ever you are pleased to set down those Words of mine wherein that Author assigns my Grounds of Certainty it will be seen how I now divert their meaning another way till then they must remain with several other of your Lordship's invisible Them which are no where to be found But to your asking me Whether I can think your Lordship a Man of that little Sense I crave leave to reply That I hope it must not be concluded that as often as in your way of writing I meet with any thing that does not seem to me satisfactory and I endeavour to shew that it does not prove what it is made use of for that I presently think your Lordship a Man of little Sense This would be a very hard Rule in defending ones self especially for me against so great and learned a Man whose reasons and meaning it is not I find always easie for so mean a Capacity as mine to reach and therefore I have taken great care to set down your Words in most places to secure my self from the imputation of misrepresenting your Sense and to leave it fairly before the Reader to judge whether I mistake it and how far I am to be blamed if I do And I would have set down your whole Letter page by page as I answered it would not that have made my Book too big If I must write under this fear that you apprehend I think meanly of you as often as I think any reason you make use of is not satisfactory in the Point it is brought for the causes of uneasiness would return too often and it would be better once for all to conclude your Lordship infallible and acquiesce in whatever you say than in every page to be so rude as to tell your Lordship I think you have little Sense if that be the interpretation of my endeavouring to shew that your reasons come short any where My Lord when you did me the honour to answer my first Letter which I thought might have passed for a submissive Complaint of what I did not well understand rather than a Dispute with your Lordship you were pleased to insert into it direct Accusations against my Book which looked as if you had a mind to enter into a direct Controversie with me This condescention in your Lordship has made me think my self under the protection of the Laws of Controversie which allow a free examining and shewing the weakness of the Reasons brought by the other side without any offence If this be not permitted me I must confess I have been mistaken and have been guilty in answering you any thing at all For how to answer without answering I confess I do not know I wish you had never writ any thing that I was particularly
new way of Construction unintelligible to me the word Them here shall be applied to any Passages of my Essay of Humane Vnderstanding I must humbly crave leave to observe this one Thing in the whole course of what your Lordship had designed for my Satisfaction That tho' my Complaint be of your Lordship's manner of applying what I had publish'd in my Essay so as to interest me in a Controversie wherein I medled not yet your Lordship all along tells me of others that have misapplied I know not what Words in my Book after I know not what manner Now as to this Matter I beseech your Lordship to believe that when any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them so as to make them opposite to the Doctrin of the Trinity and me a Party in that Controversie against the Trinity as your Lordship knows I complain your Lordship has done I shall complain of them too and consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it This Passage of mine your Lordship here represents thus viz. That I say That if by an unintelligible new way of Construction the word Them be applied to any Passages in my Book What then Why then whoever they are I intend to Complain of them too But says your Lordship the Words just before tell me who they are viz. The Enemies of the Christian Faith And then your Lordship Asks whether this be all that I intend viz. only to Complain of them for making me a Party in the Controversie against the Trinity My Lord were I given to Chicaning as you call my being stop'd by Faults of Grammar that disturb the Sense and make the Discourse incoherent and unintelligible if we are to take it from the Words as they are I should not want Matter enough for such an Exercise of my Pen As for Example here again where your Lordship makes me say That if the word Them be applied to any Passages in my Book then whoever They are I intend to Complain c. These being set down for my Words I would be very glad to be able to put them into a Grammatical construction and make to my self an intelligible Sense of them But They being not a Word that I have an absolute Power over to place where and for what I will I confess I cannot do it For the term They in the Words here as your Lordship has set them down having nothing that it can refer to but Passages or them which stands for Words it must be a very suddain metamorphosis that must change them into Persons for 't is for Persons that the word They stands here and yet I crave leave to say that as far as I understand English They is a Word cannot be used without reference to something mentioned before Your Lordship tells me the Words just before tell me who they are The Words just mentioned before are these if by an unintelligible new way of Construction the word Them be applied to any Passage of my Book for 't is to some words before indeed but before in the same contexture of Discourse that the word They must refer to make it any where intelligible But here are no Persons mentioned in the Words just before though your Lordship tells me the Words just before shew who they are but this just before where the Persons are mentioned whom your Lordship intends by They here is so far off that 16 Pages of your Lordships second Letter 174 Pages of my second Letter and above 100 Pages of your Lordships first Letter come between So that one must read above 280 Pages from the Enemies of the Christian Faith in the 37th Page of your first Letter before one can come to the They which refers to them here in the 17th Page of your Lordship's second Letter My Lord 't is my misfortune that I cannot pretend to any Figure amongst the Men of Learning but I would not for that reason be render'd so despicable that I could not write ordinary Sense in my own Language I must beg leave therefore to inform my Reader that what your Lordship has set down here as mine is neither my Words nor my Sense For 1. I say not if by any unintelligible new way of Construction But I say If by any new way of Construction unintelligible to me Which are far different Expressions For that may be very intelligible to others which may be unintelligible to me And indeed my Lord there are so many Passages in your Writings in this Controversie with me which for their Construction as well as otherwise are so unintelligible to me that if I should be so unmannerly as to measure your Understanding by mine I should not know what to think of them In those cases therefore I presume not to go beyond my own Capacity I tell your Lordship often which I hope Modesty will permit what my weak Understanding will not reach but I am far from saying it is therefore absolutely unintelligible I leave to others the benefit of their better Judgments to be enlightened by your Lordship where I am not 2. The use your Lordship here makes of these Words But if by any new way of Construction unintelligible to me the word Them be applied to any Passages in my Book Is not the principal nor the only as your Lordship makes it use for which I said them But this That if your Lordship by Them in that place were to be understood to mean that there were others that misapplied Passages of my Book this was no satisfaction for what your Lordship had done in that kind Though this I observed was your way of defence That when I complained of what your Lordship had done you told me that others had done so too As if that could be any manner of Satisfaction I added in the close That when any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them so as to make them opposite to the Doctrin of the Trinity and me a Party in that Controversie against the Trinity as your Lordship knows I complain your Lordship has done I shall complain of them too and consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it Of this any one of mine your Lordship makes your forementioned They whether with any advantage of Sense or clearness to my Words the Reader must judge However this latter part of that Passage with the particular turn your Lordship gives to it is what your Words would perswade your Reader is all that I say here Would not your Lordship upon such an occasion from me cry out again Is this fair and ingenuous Dealing And would not you think you had reason to do so But let us see what we must guess your Lordship makes me say and your exceptions to it Your Lordship makes me say whoever they are who misapply my Words as I complain your Lordship has done
concerned in But if instead of this your Lordship shall find no other way to subvert this Foundation of Certainty but by saying The Enemies of the Christian Faith build on it because you suppose one Author builds on it this I fear my Lords will very little advantage the Cause you defend whilst it so visibly strengthens and gives credit to your Adversaries rather than weakens any Foundation they go upon For the Vnitarians I imagine will be apt to smile at such a way of arguing viz. That they go on this Ground because the Author of Christianity not Mysterious goes upon it or is supposed by your Lordship to go upon it and By-standers will do little less than Smile to find my Book brought into the Socinian Controversie and the ground of Certainty laid down in my Essay condemned only because that Author is supposed by your Lordship to build upon it For this in short is the Case and this the way your Lordship has used in answering Objections against the Trinity in point of Reason I know your Lordship cannot be suspected of writing booty But I fear such a way of arguing in so great a Man as your Lordship will in an Age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are too much exposed give too just an occasion to the Enemies and also to the Friends of the Christian Faith to suspect that there is a great failure some where But to pass by that This I am sure is personal Matter which the World perhaps will think it need not have been troubled with Your Defence of your third Answer goes on and to prove that the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon my Foundation you tell me That my ground of Certainty is the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas as expressed in any Proposition Which are my own Words From hence you urged That let the Proposition come to us any way either by humane or divine Authority if our Certainty depend upon this we can be no more certain than we have clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas contained in it And from hence the Author of Christianity not Mysterious thought he had Reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon my grounds of Certainty Since this personal Matter appears of such weight to your Lordship that it needs to be farther Prosecuted and you think this your Argument to prove That that Author built upon my Foundation worth the repeating here again I am oblieged to enter again so far into this personal Matter as to examine this Passage which I formerly passed by as of no Moment For it is easy to shew that what you say visibly proves not that he built upon my Foundation and next 't is evident that if it were proved that he did so yet this is no Proof that my Method of Certainty is of dangerous Consequence which is what was to be defended As to the first of these your Lordship would prove that the Author of Christianity not Mysterious built upon my Ground and how do you prove it viz. because he thought he had Reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon my Ground How does it appear that he rejected them upon my Grounds Does he any where say so No! That is not offered there is no need of such an Evidence of matter of Fact in a case which is only of matter of Fact But he thought he had Reason to reject them upon my Grounds of Certainty How does it appear that he thought so Very plainly Because let the Proposition come to us by humane or Divine Authority if our Certainty depend upon the perception of the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas contained in it we can be no more certain than we have clear perception of that agreement The consequence I grant is good that if Certainty i. e. Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas then we can certainly know the Truth of no Proposition further than we perceive that agreement or disagreement But how does it follow from thence that he Thought he had Reason upon my Grounds to reject any Proposition that contained a Mystery of Faith Or as your Lordship expresses it all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions Whether your Lordship by the word Rejecting accuses him of not knowing or of not believing some Proposition that contains an Article of Faith or what he has done or not done I concern not my self that which I deny is the consequence above mentioned which I submit to your Lordship to be proved And when you have proved it and shewn your self to be so familiar with the Thoughts of that Author as to be able to be positive what he Thought without his telling you it will remain farther to be proved that because he thought so therefore he built right upon my Foundation for otherwise no prejudice will come to my Foundation by any ill use he made of it nor will it be made good that my method or way of Certainty is of dangerous Consequence which is what your Lordship is here to defend Methinks your Lordship's Argument here is all one with this Aristotle's ground of Certainty except of first Principles lies in this That those things which agree in a Third agree themselves We can be certain of no Proposition excepting first Principles coming to us either by divine or humane Authority if our Certainty depend upon this farther than there is such an agreement Therefore the Author of Christianity not Mysterious thought he had reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon Aristotle's Grounds This consequence as strange as it is is just the same with what is in your Lordship 's repeated Argument against me For let Aristotle's ground of Certainty be this that I have named or what it will How does it follow that because my ground of Certainty is placed in the agreement or disagreement of Ideas therefore the Author of Christianity not Mysterious rejected any Proposition more upon my Grounds than Aristotle's And will not Aristotle by your Lordship's way of Arguing here from the use any one may make or think he makes of it be guilty also of starting a method of Certainty of dangerous consequence whether his method be True or False if that or any other Author whose writings you dislike thought he built upon it or be supposed by your Lordship to think so But as I humbly conceive Propositions speculative Propositions such as mine is about which all this stir is made are to be judg'd of by their Truth or Falshood and not by the use any one shall make of them much less by the Persons who are supposed to build on them And therefore it may be justly wonder'd since you say it is dangerous why you never proved or attempted to prove it to be false But you complain here again that I answer'd not a Word to this in
another Language into which it was from thence transplanted But if you will give me leave to remind you of it I remember that you my Lord say in the same place That little weight is to be laid upon a bare Grammatical Etymology when a Word is used in another sense by the best Authors And I think you could not have brought a more proper instance to verifie that saying than that which you produce here But pray my Lord why so far about Why are we sent to the antient Romans Why must we consult which is no easie task all Mankind who have talked of Faith to know whether Certainty be properly used for Faith or no when to determine it between your Lordship and Me there is so sure a Remedy and so near at hand It is but for you to say wherein Certainty consists This when I gently offer'd to your Lordship in my first Letter you interpreted it to be a design to draw you out of your way I am sorry my Lord you should think it out of your way to put an end a short end to a Controversie which you think of such moment Methinks it should not be out of your way with one blow finally to overthrow an Assertion which you think to be of dangerous consequence to that Article of Faith which your Lordship has endeavoured to defend I proposed the same again where I say For this there is a very easie Remedy It is but for your Lordship to set aside this Definition of Knowledge by giving us a better and this danger is over But you choose rather to have a Controversie with my Book for having it in it and to put me upon the Defence of it This is so express that your taking no notice of it puts me at a loss what to think To say that a Man so great in Letters does not know wherein Certainty consists is a greater presumption than I will be guilty of and yet to think that you do know and will not tell is yet harder Who can think or will dare to say That your Lordship so much concerned for the Articles of Faith and engaged in this dispute with me by your duty for the preservation of them should choose to keep up a Controversie with me rather than remove that danger which my wrong Notion of Certainty threatens to the Articles of Faith For my Lord since the Question is moved and it is brought by your Lordship to a publick Dispute wherein Certainty consists a great many knowing no better may take up with what I have said and rather than have no Notion of Certainty at all will stick by mine till a better be shew'd them And if mine tends to Scepticism as you say and you will not furnish them with one that does not what is it but to give way to Scepticism and let it quietly prevail on Men as either having my Notion of Certainty or none at all Your Lordship indeed says something in excuse in your 75th Page which that my Answer may be in the proper place shall be consider'd when we come there Your Lordship declares That you are utterly against any private Mints of Words I know not what the Publick may do for your particular Satisfaction in the Case but till publick Mints of Words are erected I know no Remedy for it but that you must patiently suffer this matter to go on in the same course that I think it has gone in ever since Language has been in use Here in this Island as far as my knowledge reaches I do not find that ever since the Saxons time in all the alterations that have been made in our Language that any one Word or Phrase has had its Authority from the Great Seal or passed by Act of Parliament When the dazling Metaphor of the Mint and new mill'd Words c. which mightily as it seems delighted your Lordship when you were writing that Paragraph will give you leave to consider this matter plainly as it is you will find that the Coining of Mony in publickly authoriz'd Mints affords no manner of Argument against private Mens medling in the introducing new or changing the signification of old Words every one of which alterations always has its rise from some private Mint The Case in short is this Mony by vertue of the Stamp received in the publick Mint which vouches its intrinsick Worth has authority to pass This use of the publick Stamp would be lost if private Men were suffer'd to offer Mony stamp'd by themselves On the contrary Words are offer'd to the Publick by every private Man Coined in his private Mint as he pleases but 't is the receiving of them by others their very passing that gives them their Authority and Currancy and not the Mint they come out of Horace I think has given a true account of this matter in a Country very jealous of any Usurpation upon the publick Authority Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula si volet usus Quem penes arbitrium jus norma loquendi But yet whatever change is made in the signification or credit of any word by publick use this change has always its beginning in some private Mint so Horace tells us it was in the Roman Language quite down to his time Ego cur acquirere pauca Si possum invideor quum lingua Catonis Enni Sermonem patrium ditaverit nova rerum Nomina protulerit Licuit semperque licebit Signatum praesente nota procudere nomen Here we see Horace expresly says That private Mints of Words were always Licensed and with Horace I humbly conceive so they will always continue how utterly soever your Lordship may be against them And therefore he that offers to the Publick new mill'd Words from his own private Mint is not always in that so bold an Invader of the publick Authority as you would make him This I say not to excuse my self in the present Case for I deny that I have at all changed the signification of the word Certainty And therefore if you had pleased you might my Lord have spared your saying on this Occasion That it seems our old Words must not now pass in the current Sense And those Persons assume too much Authority to themselves who will not suffer common Words to pass in their general acceptation and other things to the same purpose in this Paragraph till you had proved that in strict propriety of speech it could be said That a Man was certain of that which he did not know but only believed If you had had time in the heat of Dispute to have made a little Reflection on the use of the English word Certainty in strict Speaking perhaps your Lordship would not have been so forward to have made my using it only for precise Knowledge so enormous an impropriety at least you would not have accused it of weakening the Credibility
taking them to be as true as if they were the very Words of Divine Revelation the Question then is how must we interpret the Sense of them For supposing them to be Divine Revelation to ask as your Lordship here does what Resolution I or any one can come to about their possibility seems to me to involve a Contradiction in it For whoever admits a Proposition to be of Divine Revelation supposes it not only to be possible but true Your Lordship's Question then can mean only this What Sense can I upon my Principles come to of either of these Propositions but in the way of Ideas And I crave leave to ask your Lordship what Sense of them can your Lordship upon your Principles come to but in the way of Notions Which in plain English amounts to no more than this That your Lordship must understand them according to the Sense you have of those Terms they are made up of and I according to the Sense I have of those Terms Nor can it be otherwise unless your Lorship can take a Term in any Proposition to have one Sense and yet understand it in another And thus we see that in effect Men have differently understood and interpreted the Sense of these Propositions Whether they used the way of Ideas or not i. e. whether they called what any Word stood for Notion or Sense or Meaning or Idea I think my self obliged to return your Lordship my Thanks for the News you write me here of one who has found a secret way how the same Body may be in distant Places at once It making no part that I can see of the Reasoning your Lordship was then upon I can take it only for a piece of News And the Favour was the greater that your Lordship was pleased to stop your self in the midst of so serious an Argument as the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation to tell it me And methinks 't is pity that that Author had not used some of the Words of my Book which might have served to have tied him and me together For his Secret about a Body in two Places at once which he does keep up and my Secret about Certainty which your Lordship thinks had been better kept up too being all your Words bring me into his Company but very untowardly If your Lordship would be pleased to shew That my Secret about Certainty as you think fit to call it is false or erroneous the World would see a good Reason why you should think it better kept up till then perhaps they may be apt to suspect that the Fault is not so much in my published Secret about Certainty as somewhere else But since your Lordship thinks it had been better kept up I promise that as soon as you shall do me the Favour to make publick a better Notion of Certainty than mine I will by a publick Retractation call in mine Which I hope your Lordship will do for I dare say no Body will think it good or Friendly Advice to your Lordship if you have such a Secret that you should keep it up Your Lordship with some Emphasis bids me observe my own Words that I here positively say That the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it doth not evidently know So that it is plain here that I place Certainty only in evident Knowledge or in clear and distinct Ideas and yet my great Complaint of your Lordship was That you charged this upon me and now your Lordship finds it in my own Words Answ. My own Words in that place are The Mind in not certain of what it doth not evidently know but in them or that Passage as set down by your Lordship there is not the least mention of clear and distinct Ideas and therefore I should wonder to hear your Lordship so solemnly call them my own Words when they are but what your Lordship would have to be a Consequence of my Words were it not as I humbly conceive a way not unfrequent with your Lordship to speak of that which you think a Consequence from any thing said as if it were the very thing said It rests therefore upon your Lordship to prove that evident Knowledge can be only where the Ideas concerning which it is are perfectly clear and distinct I am certain that I have evident Knowledge that the Substance of my Body and Soul exists though I am as certain that I have but a very obscure and confused Idea of any Substance at all So that my Complaint of your Lordship upon that Account remains very well Founded notwithstanding any thing you alledge here Your Lordship summing up the force of what you have said add That you have pleaded 1. That my method of Certainty shakes the belief of Revelation in General 2. That is shakes the belief of particular Propositions or Articles of Faith which depend upon the Sense of Words contained in Scripture That your Lordship has pleaded I grant but with Submission I deny that you have proved 1. That my definition of Knowledge which is that which your Lordship calls my method of Certainty shakes the belief of Revelation in general For all that your Lordship offers for Proof of it is only the alledging some other Passages out of my Book quite different from that my definition of Knowledge which you endeavour to shew do shake the belief of Revelation in General But Indeed have not nor I humbly conceive cannot shew that they do any ways shake the belief of Revelation in general But if they did it does not at all follow from thence that my definition of Knowledge i. e. my method of Certainty at all shakes the belief of Revelation in general which was what your Lordship undertook to prove 2. As to the shaking the belief of particular Propositions or Articles of Faith which depend as you here say upon the Sense of Words I think I have sufficiently cleared my self from that Charge as will yet be more evident from what your Lordship here farther urges Your Lordship says my placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas shakes the Foundations of the Articles of Faith above mentioned which depend upon the Sense of Words contained in the Scripture And the Reason your Lordship gives for it is this Because I do not say we are to believe all that we find there expressed My Lord upon reading these Words I consulted the Errata to see whether the Printer had injured you For I could not easily believe that your Lordship should Reason after a Fashon that would justifie such a conclusion as this viz. Your Lordship in your Letter to me does not say that we are to believe all that we find expressed in Scripture therefore your Notion of Certainty shakes the belief of this Article of Faith that Jesus Christ descended into Hell This I think will scarce hold for a good Consequence till the not saying any Truth be the denying of
For if in this present Case the credibility of this Proposition The Souls of Men shall five for ever revealed in the Scripture be lessened by confessing it cannot be demonstratively proved from Reason though it be asserted to be most highly probable Must not by the same Rule its credibility dwindle away to nothing if natural Reason should not be able to make it out to be so much as probable or should place the probability from natural Principles on the other side For if meer want of Demonstration lessens the credibility of any Proposition divinely revealed must not want of probability or contrary probability from natural Reason quite take away its credibility Here at last it must end if in any one Case the Veracity of God and the credibility of the Truths we receive from him by Revelation be subjected to the verdicts of humane Reason and be allowed to receive any accession or diminution from other Proofs or want of other Proofs of its Certainty or Probability If this be your Lordship's way to promote Religion or defend its Articles I know not what Argument the greatest Enemies of it could use more effectual for the Subversion of those you have undertaken to defend this being to resolve all Revelation perfectly and purely into Natural Reason to bound its Credibility by that and leave no room for Faith in other things than what can be accounted for by Natural Reason without Revelation Your Lordship insists much upon it as if I had contradicted what I had said in my Essay by saying That upon my Principles it cannot be demonstratively proved that it is an immaterial Substance in us that Thinks however probable it be He that will be at the pains to read that Chapter of mine and consider it will find that my Business there was to shew that it was no harder to conceive an immaterial than a material Substance and that from the Ideas of Thought and a Power of moving of Matter which we experienced in out selves Ideas originally not belonging to Matter as Matter there was no more difficulty to conclude there was an immaterial Substance in us than that we had material Parts These Ideas of Thinking and Power of moving of Matter I in another place shew'd did demonstratively lead us to the certain knowledge of the Existence of an immaterial Thinking Being in whom we have the Idea of Spirit in the strictest Sense in which Sense I also applyed it to the Soul in that 23d Chapter of my Essay the easily conceivable possibility nay great probability that that thinking Substance in us is immaterial giving me sufficient Ground for it In which Sense I shall think I may safely attribute it to the thinking Substance in us till your Lordship shall have better proved from my Words That it is impossible it should be immaterial For I only say That it is possible i. e. involves no Contradiction that God the omnipotent immaterial Spirit should if he pleases give to some parcels of Matter disposed as he thinks fit a Power of Thinking and Moving Which parcels of Matter so endued with a Power of Thinking and Motion might properly be called Spirits in contradistinction to unthinking Matter In all which I presume there is no manner of Contradiction I justified my use of the word Spirit in that Sense from the Authorities of Cicero and Virgil applying the Latin word Spiritus from whence Spirit is derived to the Soul as a thinking Thing without excluding Materiality out of it To which your Lordship replies That Cicero in his Tusculan Questions supposes the Soul not to be a finer sort of Body but of a different Nature from the Body That he calls the Body the Prison of the Soul And says That a wise Man's Business is to draw off his Soul from his Body And then your Lordship concludes as is usual with a Question Is it possible now to think so great a Man look'd on the Soul but as a modification of the Body which must be at an end with Life Answ. No it is impossible that a Man of so good Sense as Tully when he uses the word Corpus or Body for the gross and visible parts of a Man which he acknowledges to be mortal should look on the Soul to be a modification of that Body in a Discourse wherein he was endeavouring to persuade another that it was immortal It is to be acknowledge'd that truly great Men such as he was are not wont so manifestly to contradict themselves He had therefore no Thought concerning the modification of the Body of Man in the Case He was not such a Trifler as to examin whether the modification of the Body of a Man was immortal when that Body it self was mortal And therefore that which he reports as Dicoearchus's Opinion he dismisses in the beginning without any more ado c. 11. But Cicero's was a direct plain and sensible Enquiry viz. What the Soul was to see whether from thence he could discover its Immortality But in all that Discourse in his first Book of Tusculan Questions where he lays out so much of his Reading and Reason there is not one Syllable shewing the least Thought that the Soul was an immaterial Substance but many Things directly to the contrary Indeed 1. he shuts out the Body taken in the Sense he uses Corpus all-a-long for the sensible organical parts of a Man and is positive that is not the Soul And Body in this Sense taken for the Humane Body he calls the Prison of the Soul and says a wise Man instancing in Socrates and Cato is glad of a fair opportunity to get out of it But he no where says any such thing of Matter He calls not Matter in general the Prison of the Soul nor talks a Word of being separate from it 2. He concludes That the Soul is not like other Things here below made up of a Composition of the Elements c. 27. 3. He excludes the two gross Elements Earth and Water from being the Soul c. 26. So far he is clear and positive But beyond this he is uncertain beyond this he could not get For in some Places he speaks doubtfully whether the Soul be not Air or Fire Anima sit animus ignisve nescio c. 25. And therefore he agrees with Panoetius that if it be at all Elementary it is as he calls it Inflammata Anima inflamed Air and for this he gives several Reasons c. 18 19. And though he thinks it to be of a peculiar Nature of its own yet he is so far from thinking it immaterial that he says c. 19. That the admitting it to be of an aereal or igneous Nature would not be inconsistent with any thing he had said That which he seems most to incline to is That the Soul was not at all Elementary but was of the same Substance with the Heavens which Aristotle to distinguish from the four Elements and the changeable Bodies here below which he supposed made up of
them called Quinta Essentia That this was Tully's Opinion is plain from these Words Ergo Animus qui ut ego dico divinus est ut Euripides audet dicere Deus quidem si Deus aut anima aut ignis est idem est animus hominis Nam ut illa natura coelestis terra vacat humore sic utriusque harum rerum humanus animus est expers Sin autem est quinta quaedam natura ab Aristotele inducta primum haec deorum est animorum Hanc nos sententiam secuti his ipsis verbis in Consolatione haec expressimus c. 26. And then he goes on c. 27. to repeat those his own Words which your Lordship has quoted out of him wherein he had affirmed in his Treatise de Consolatione the Soul not to have its Original from the Earth or to be mixed or made of any Thing earthly but had said Singularis est igitur quaedam natura vis animi sejuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis Whereby he tells us lie meant nothing but Aristotle's Quinta Essentia which being unmixed being that of which the Gods and Souls consisted he calls it divinum coeleste and concludes it eternal it being as he speaks Sejuncta ab omni mortali concretione From which it is clear That in all his Enquiry about the Substance of the Soul his Thoughts went not beyond the four Elements or Aristotle's Quinta Essentia to look for it In all which there is nothing of Immateriality but quite the contrary He was willing to believe as good and wise Men have always been that the Soul was immortal but for that 't is plain he never thought of its Immateriality but as the Eastern People do who believe the Soul to be immortal but have nevertheless no Thought no Conception of its Immateriality It is remarkable what a very considerable and judicious Author says in the Case No Opinion says he has been so universally received as that of the Immortality of the Soul But its Immateriality is a Truth the knowledge whereof has not spread so far And indeed it is extremely difficult to let into the Mind of a Siamite the Idea of a pure Spirit This the Missionaries who have been longest among them are positive in All the Pagans of the East do truly believe That there remains something of a Man after his Death which subsists independently and separately from his Body But they give Extension and Figure to that which remains and attribute to it all the same Members all the same Substances both solid and liquid which our Bodies are composed of They only suppose that the Souls are of a Matter subtil enough to escape being seen or handled Such were the Shades and the Manes of the Greeks and the Romans And 't is by these Figures of the Souls answerable to those of the Bodies that Virgil supposed Eneas knew Palinurus Dido and Anchises in the other World This Gentleman was not a Man that travelled into those Parts for his Pleasure and to have the opportunity to tell strange Stories collected by Chance when he return'd But one chosen on purpose and he seems well chosen for the purpose to inquire into the Singularities of Siam And he has so well acquitted himself of the Commission which his Epistle Dedicatory tells us he had to inform himself exactly of what was most remarkable there that had we but such an Account of other Countries of the East as he has given us of this Kingdom which he was an Envoy to we should be much better acquainted than we are with the Manners Notions and Religions of that part of the World inhabited by civiliz'd Nations who want neither good Sense nor acuteness of Reason though not cast into the Mould of the Logick and Philosophy of our Schools But to return to Cicero 'T is plain That in his Enquiries about the Soul his Thoughts went not at all beyond Matter This the Expressions that drop from him in several places of this Book evidently shew For Example That the Souls of excellent Men and Women ascended into Heaven of others that they remained here on Earth c. 12. That the Soul is hot and warms the Body That at its leaving the Body it penetrates and divides and breaks through our thick cloudy moist Air That it stops in the Region of Fire and ascends no farther the equality of Warmth and Weight making that its proper place where it is nourished and sustained with the same Things wherewith the Stars are nourished and sustained and that by the convenience of its Neighbourhood it shall there have a clearer View and fuller knowledge of the Heavenly Bodies c. 19. That the Soul also from this height shall have a pleasant and fairer Prospect of the Globe of the Earth the disposition of whose Parts will then lie before it in one View c. 20. That it is hard to determin what Conformation Size and Place the Soul has in the Body That it is too subtil to be seen That it is in the Human Body as in a House or a Vessel or a Receptacle c. 22. All which are Expressions that sufficiently evidence that he who used them had not in his Mind separated Materiality from the Idea of the Soul It may perhaps be replied That a great part of this which we find in chap. 19. is said upon the Principles of those who would have the Soul to be Anima Inflammata inflamed Air. I grant it But it is also to be observed That in this 19th and the two following Chapters he does not only not deny but even admits That so material a thing as infiamed Air may think The Truth of the Case in short is this Cicero was willing to believe the Soul immortal but when he sought in the Nature of the Soul it self something to establish this his Belief into a Certainty of it he found himself at a loss He confessed he knew not what the Soul was but the not knowing what it was he argues c. 2. was no Reason to conclude it was not And thereupon he proceeds to the repetition of what he had said in his 6th Book de Repub. concerning the Soul The Argument which borrowed from Plato he there makes use of if it have any force in it not only proves the Soul to be immortal but more than I think your Lordship will allow to be true For it proves it to be eternal and without beginning as well as without end Neque nata certa est aeterna est says he Indeed from the Faculties of the Soul he concludes right That it is of divine Original But as to the Substance of the Soul he at the end of this Discourse concerning its Faculties c. 25. as well as at the beginning of it c. 22. is not ashamed to own his Ignorance what it is Anima sit animus ignisve nescio nec me pudet ut istos fateri nescive quod nesciam Illud si ulla alia de