where it has its Sourse 't is visible must be essentially inseparable from it therefore the actual want of Perception in so great part of the particular parcels of Matter is a Demonstration that the first Being from whom Perception and Knowledge is inseparable is not Matter How far this makes the want of Perception an essential property of Matter I will not dispute it suffices that it shews That Perception is not an essential Property of Matter and therefore Matter cannot be that eternal original Being to which Perception and Knowledge is Essential Matter I say naturally is without Perception Ergo says your Lordship want of Perception is an essential Property of Matter and God doth not change the essential Properties of things their Nature remaining From whence you infer That God cannot bestow on any parcel of Matter the nature of Matter remaining a Faculty of Thinking If the Rules of Logick since my days be not changed I may safely deny this Consequence For an Argument that runs thus God does not Ergo he cannot I was taught when I came first to the University would not hold For I never said God did But That I see no Contradiction in it that he should if he pleased give to some systems of sensless Matter a Faculty of Thinking and I know no Body before Des Cartes that ever pretended to shew that there was any Contradiction in it So that at worst my not being able to see in Matter any such Incapacity as makes it impossible for Omnipotency to bestow on it a Faculty of Thinking makes me opposite only to the Cartesians For as far as I have seen or heard the Fathers of the Christian Church never pretended to domonstrate that Matter was incapable to receive a Power of Sensation Perception and Thinking from the Hand of the omnipotent Creator Let us therefore if you please suppose the form of your Argumentation right and that your Lordship means God cannot And then if your Argument be good it proves That God could not give to Baalam's Ass a Power to speak to his Master as he did for the want of rational Discourse being natural to that Species 't is but for your Lordship to call it an Essential Property and then God cannot change the Essential Properties of things their Nature remaining Whereby it is proved That God cannot with all his Omnipotency give to an Ass a Power to speak as Balaam's did You say my Lord you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency For he may if he please change a Body into an Immaterial Substance i. e. take away from a Substance the Solidity which it had before and which made it Matter and then give it a Faculty of thinking which it had not before and which makes it a Spirit the same Substance remaining For if the same Substance remains not Body is not changed into an Immaterial Substance But the solid Substance and all belonging to it is Annihilated and an Immaterial Substance Created which is not change of one thing into another but the destroying of one and making another de novo In this change therefore of a Body or Material Substance into an immaterial let us observe those distinct Considerations First you say God may if He Pleases take away from a Solid Substance Solidity which is that which makes it a Material Substance or Body and may make it an Immaterial Substance i. e. a Substance without Solidity But this privation of one Quality gives it not another the bare taking away a lower or less Noble Quality does not give it an Higher or Nobler that must be the gift of God For the bare Privation of one and a meaner Quality cannot be the Position of an Higher and better unless any one will say that Cogitation or the Power of thinking results from the Nature of Substance it self which if it do then where ever there is Substance there must be Cogitation or a Power of thinking Here then upon your Lordship 's own Principles is an Immaterial Subâ—ance without the Faculty of thinking In the next place you will not deny but God may give to this Substance thus deprived of Solidity a Faculty of thinking for you suppose it made capable of that by being made Immaterial whereby you allow that the same numerical Substance may be sometimes wholly Incogitative or without a Power of thinking and at other times perfectly Cogitative or indued with a Power of thinking Further you will not deny but God can give it Solidity and make it Material again For I conclude it will not be denied that God can make it again what it was before Now I crave leave to ask your Lordship why God having given to this Substance the Faculty of thinking after Solidity was taken from it cannot restore to it Solidity again without taking away the Faculty of thinking When you have Resolved this my Lord you will have proved it impossible for God's Omnipotence to give to a Solid Substance a Faculty of thinking but till then not having proved it impossible and yet denying that God can do it is to deny that he can do what is in it self Possible which as I humbly conceive is visibly to set Bound's to God's Omnipotency tho' you say here you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency If I should imitate your Lordship's way of Writing I should not omit to bring in Epicurus here and take notice that this was his way Deum verbis ponere re tollere And then add that I am certain you do not think he promoted the great ends of Religion and Morality For 't is with such Candid and Kind insinuations as these that you bring in both Hobbes and Spinosa into your Discourse here about God's being able if he please to give to some parcels of Matter ordered as he thinks fit a Faculty of thinking Neither of those Authors having as appears by any Passages you bring out of them said any thing to this Question nor having as it seems any other business here but by their Names skilfully to give that Character to my Book with which you would recommend it to the World I pretend not to enquire what measure of Zeal nor for what guides your Lordships Pen in such a way of Writing as yours has all along been with me Only I cannot but consider what Reputation it would give to the Writings of the Fathers of the Church if they should think Truth required or Religion allowed them to imitate such Patterns But God be thanked there be those amongst them who do not admire such ways of managing the Cause of Truth or Religion They being sensible that if every one who believes or can pretend he has Truth on his side is thereby Authorized without proof to insinuate what ever may serve to prejudice Mens minds against the other side there will be great ravage made on Charity and Practice without any gain to Truth or Knowledge And that the Liberties frequently taken by Disputants
in all Antiquity and therefore must be imputed to something else than your Lordship's great Learning Did your Lordship in the Discourse of the Vindication of the Trinity wherein you first fell upon my Book or in your Letter my Answer to which you are here Correcting did your Lordship I say any where object to me that I did not own the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church c If you did the Objection was so secret so hidden so artificial that your words declared quite the contrary In the Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity your Lordship says That my Notions were borrowed to serve other purposes whereby if I understand you right you meant against the Doctrin of the Trinity than I intended them which you repeat again for my Satisfaction and insist upon for my Vindication You having so solemnly more than once professed to clear me and my Intentions from all suspition of having any part in that Controversie as appears farther in the close of your first Letter where all you charge on me is the ill use that others had or might make of my Notions how could I suppose such an Objection made by your Lordship which you declare against without accusing your Lordship of manifest Prevarication If your Lordship had any thing upon your Mind any secret Aims which you did not think fit to own but yet would have me divine and answer to as if I knew them this I confess is too much for me who look no farther into Mens Thoughts than as they appear in their Books Where you have given your Thoughts vent in your Words I have not I think omitted to take notice of them not wholly passing by those Insinuations which have been drop'd from your Lordship's Pen which from another who had not professed so much personal Respect would have shewn no exceeding good disposition of Mind towards me When your Lordship shall go on to accuse me of not believing the Doctrin of the Trinity as received in the Christian Church or any other Doctrin you shall think fit I shall answer as I would to an Inquisitor for tho your Lordship tells me That I need not he afraid of the Inquisition or that you intended to charge me with Heresie in denying the Trinity yet he that shall consider your Lordship's proceeding with me from the beginning as far as it is hitherto gone may have reason to think that the Methods and Management of that Holy Office are not wholly unknown to your Lordship nor have scaped your great reading Your Proceedings with me have had these steps 1. Several Passages of my Essay of Humane Vnderstanding and some of them relating barely to the Being of a God and other Matters wholly remote from any Question about the Trinity were brought into the Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity and there argued against as containing the Errors of Those and Them which Those and Them are not known to this day 2. In your Lordship's Answer to my first Letter when that was given as the great reason why my Essay was brought into that Controversie viz. because in it Certainty was founded upon clear and distinct Ideas was found to fail and was only a supposition of your own other Accusations were sought out against it in relation to the Doctrin of the Trinity viz. That it might be of dangerous consequence to that Doctrin to introduce the new term of Ideas and to place Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our Ideas What are become of these Charges we shall see in the progress of this Letter when we come to consider what your Lordship has reply'd to my Answer upon these Points 3. These Accusations not having it seems weight enough to effect what you intended my Book has been rumaged again to find new and more important Faults in it and now at last at the third Effort my Notions of Ideas are found inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith This indeed carries some sound in it and may be thought worthy the Name and Pains of so great a Man and zealous a Father of the Church as your Lordship That I may not be too bold in affirming a thing I was not privy to give me leave my Lord to tell your Lordship why I presume my Book has upon this occasion been look'd over again to see what could be found in it capable to bear a deeper Accusation that might look like something in a Title-Page Your Lordship by your Station in the Church and the Zeal you have shewn in defending its Articles could not be supposed when you first brought my Book into this Controversie to have omitted these great Enormities that it now stands accused of and to have cited it for smaller Mistakes some whereof were not found but only imagin'd to be in it if you had then known these great Faults which you now charge it with to have been in it If your Lordship had been apprised of its being guilty of such dangerous Errors you would not certainly have pass'd them by And therefore I think one may reasonably conclude that my Essay was new looked into on purpose Your Lordship says That what you have done herein you thought it your Duty to do not with respect to your Self but to some of the Mysteries of our Faith which you do not charge me with opposing but by laying such Foundations as do tend to the overthrow of them It cannot be doubted but your Duty would have made you at the first warn the World that my Notions were inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith if your Lordship had then known it Though the excessive Respect and Tenderness you express towards me Personally in the immediately preceding Words would be enough utterly to confound me were I not a little acquainted with your Lordship's Civilities in this kind For you tell me That these things laid together made your Lordship think it necessary to do that which you was unwilling to do till I had driven you to it which was to shew the Reason you had why you looked on my Notion of Ideas and of Certainty by them as inconsistent with it self and with some important Articles of the Christian Faith What must I think now my Lord of these Words Must I take them as a meer Complement which is never to be interpreted rigorously according to the precise meaning of the Words Or must I believe that your unwillingness to do so hard a thing to me restrained your Duty and you could not prevail on your self how much soever the Mysteries of Faith were in danger to be overthrown to get out these harsh Words viz. That my Notions were inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith till your third Onset after I had forced you to your Duty by two Replies of mine It will not become me my Lord to make my self a Complement from
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
by Reason be excluded from the Certainty under debate which I humbly conceive you have not from my Words or any other way proved 3. The third sort of Propositions that your Lordship excludes are those whose Certainty we know by Remembrance but in these two the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas contained in them is perceived not always indeed as it was at first by an actual view of the Connection of all the intermediate Ideas whereby the agreement or disagreement of those in the Proposition was at first perceived but by other intermediate Ideas that shew the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas contained in the Proposition whose Certainty we remember As in the instance you here make use of viz. That the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones The Certainty of which Proposition we know by Remembrance though the Demonstration hath sliped out of our Minds but we know it in a different way from what your Lordship supposes The agreement of the two Ideas as joined in that Proposition is perceived but it is by the intervention of other Ideas than those which at first produced that Perception I remember i. e. I know for Remembrance is but the reviving of some past Knowledge that I was once certain of the truth of this Proposition That the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones The immutability of the same Relations between the same immutable things is now the Idea that shews me that if the three Angles of a Triangle were once equal to two right ones they will always be equal to two right ones and hence I come to be certain that what was once true in the Case is always true what Ideas once agreed will always agree and consequently what I once knew to be true I shall always know to be true as long as I can remember that I once knew it Your Lordship says That the Debate between us is about Certainty of Knowledge with regard to some Proposition whose Ideas are to be compared as to their agreement or disagreement Out of this Debate you say Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance is to be excluded I desire you then my Lord to tell what sort of Propositions will be within the Debate and to name me one of them if Propositions whose Certainty we know by Sense Reason or Remembrance are excluded However from what you have said concerning them your Lordship in the next Paragraph concludes them out of the Question your Words are These things then being out of the Question Out of what Question I beseech you my Lord The Question here and that of your own proposing to be defended in the Affirmative is this Whether those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do And how Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance comes to have any particular Exception in reference to this Question 't is my misfortune not to be able to find But your Lordship leaving the examination of the Question under debate by a new state of the Question would pin upon me what I never said Your Words are These things then being put out of the Question which belong not to it The Question truly stated is Whether we can attain to any Certainty of Knowledge as to the truth of a Proposition in the way of Ideas where the Ideas themselves by which we came to that Certainty be not clear and distinct With Submission my Lord that which I say in the Point is That we may be certain of the truth of a Proposition concerning an Idea which is not in all its parts clear and distinct and therefore if your Lordship will have any Question with me concerning this matter the Question truly stated is Whether we can frame any Proposition concerning a thing whereof we have but an obscure and confused Idea of whose Truth we can be certain That this is the Question you will easily agree when you will give your self the trouble to look back to the Rise of it Your Lordship having found out a strange sort of Men who had broached a Doctrin which supposed that we must have clear and distinct Ideas of what ever we pretend to a Certainty of in our Minds was pleased for this to call them the Gentlemen of a new way of Reasoning and to make me one of them I answer'd that I placed not Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas and so ought not to have been made one of them being not guilty of what made a Gentleman of this new way of Reasoning 'T is pretended still that I am guilty and indeavour'd to be prov'd To know now whether I am or no it must be consider'd what you lay to their Charge as the consequence of that Opinion and that is That upon this Ground we cannot come to any Certainty that there is such a thing as Substance This appears by more places than one Your Lordship asks How is it possible that we may be certain that there are both bodily and spiritual Substances if our Reason depend upon clear and distinct Ideas And again How come we to be certain that there are spiritual Substances in the World since we can have no clear and distinct Ideas concerning them And your Lordship having set down some Words out of my Book as if they were inconsistent with my Principle of Certainty founded only in clear and distinct Ideas You say From whence it follows that we may be certain of the Being of a spiritual Substance though we have no clear and distinct Ideas of it Other places might be produced but these are enough to shew That those who held clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty were accused to extend it thus far that where any Idea was obscure and confused there no Proposition could be made concerning it of whose truth we could be certain v. g. we could not be certain that there was in the World such a thing as Substance because we had but an obscure and confus'd Idea of it In this sense therefore I denyed that clear and distinct Ideas were necessary to Certainty v. g. I denyed it to be my Doctrin That where an Idea was obscure and confus'd there no Proposition could be made concerning it of whose Truth we could be certain For I held we might be certain of the truth of this Proposition That there was Substance in the World though we have but an obscure and confus'd Idea of Substance And your Lordship endeavoured to prove we could not as may be seen at large in that 10th Chapter of your Vindication c. From all which it is evident that the Question between us truly stated is this Whether we can attain Certainty of the truth of a Proposition concerning any thing whereof we have but an obscure and confus'd Idea This being the Question the first thing you say is That Des Cartes was of your Opinion against
for these Words must be supplied to make the Sentence to me intelligible I intend to complain of them too And then you find fault with me for using the indefinite word whoever and as a Reproof for the unreasonableness of it you say But the Words just before tell me who they are But my Words are not whoever they are But my Words are When any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them c. Your Lordship would here have me understand that there are those that have done it and Rebukes me that I speak as if I knew not any one that had done it and that I may not plead Ignorance you say your Words just before told me who they were viz. The Enemies of the Christian Faith What must I do now to keep my Word and satisfie your Lordship Must I complain of the Enemies of the Christian Faith in general that they have applied my Words as aforesaid and then consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it For that was all I promised to do But this would be strange to complain of the Enemies of the Christian Faith for doing what 't is very likely they never all did and what I do not know that any one of them has done Or must I to content your Lordship read over all the writings of the Enemies of the Christian Faith to see whether any one of them has applied my Words i. e. in such a manner as I complained your Lordship has done that if they have I may complain of them too This truly my Lord is more than I have time for and if it were worth while when it is done I perceive I should not content your Lordship in it For you ask me here Is this all I intend only to complain of them for making me a Party in the Controversie against the Trinity No my Lord this is not all I promised too To consider as well as I can what Satisfaction if they offer any they give me and others for so doing And why should not this content your Lordship in reference to others as well as it does in reference to your self I have but one measure for your Lordship and others When others treat me after the manner you have done why should it not be enough to answer them after the same manner I have done your Lordship But perhaps your Lordship has some dextrous meaning under this which I am not quick sighted enough to perceive and so do not reply right as you would have me I must beg my Readers Pardon as well as your Lordships for using so many Words about Passages that seem not in themselves of that importance I confess that in themselves they are not But yet 't is my misfortune that in this Controversie your way of writing and representing my Sense forces me to it Your Lordship's name in writing is established above controle and therefore 't would be ill breeding in one who barely reads what you write not to take every thing for perfect in its kind which your Lordship says Clearness and Force and Consistence are to be presumed always whatever your Lordship's Words be And there is no other Remedy for an Answerer who finds it difficult any where to come at your Meaning or Argument but to make his Excuse for it in laying the particulars before the Reader that he may be Judge where the Fault lies especially where any matter of Fact is contested deductions from the first rise are often necessary which cannot be made in few Words nor without several Repetitions An inconvenience possibly fitter to be endured than that your Lordship in the run of your Learned Notions should be Shackled with the ordinary and strict Rules of Language and in the delivery of your sublimer Speculations be tied down to the mean and contemptible rudiments of Grammar Though your being above these and freed from a servile observance in the use of trivial Particles whereon the connection of Discourse chiefly depends cannot but cause great difficulties to the Reader And however it may be an ease to any great Man to find himself above the ordinary rules of Writing he who is bound to follow the connection and find out his Meaning will have his Task much encreased by it I am very sensible how much this has swelled these Papers already and yet I do not see how any thing less than what I have said could clear those Passages which we have hitherto examined and set them in their due Light Your next Words are these But whether I have not made my self too much a Party in it i. e. the Controversie against the Trinity will appear before we have done This is an Item for me which your Lordship seems so very fond of and so careful to inculcate wherever you bring in any Words it can be tacked to that if one can avoid thinking it to be the main end of your writing one cannot yet but see that it could not be so much in the Thoughts and Words of a great Man who is above such personal Matters and which he knows the World soon grows weary of unless it had some very particular business there Whether it be the Author that has prejudiced you against his Book or the Book prejudiced you against the Author so it is I perceive that both I and my Essay are fallen under your displeasure I am not unacquainted what great stress is often laid upon invidious Names by skilful Disputants to supply the want of better Arguments But give me leave my Lord to say That 't is too late for me now to begin to value those marks of good Will or a good Cause and therefore I shall say nothing more to them as fitter to be left to the examination of the Thoughts within your own breast from what sourse such reasonings spring and whither they tend I am going my Lord to a Tribunal that has a right to judge of Thoughts and being secure that I there shall be found of no Party but that of Truth for which there is required nothing but the receiving Truth in the Love of it I matter not much of what Party any one shall as may best serve his turn denominate me here Your Lordship's is not the first Pen from which I have receiv'd such strokes as these without any great harm I never found freedom of Stile did me any hurt with those who knew me and if those who know me not will take up borrowed Prejudices it will be more to their own harm than mine So that in this I shall give your Lordship little other Trouble but my Thanks sometimes where I find you skilfully and industriously recommending me to the World under the Character you have chosen for me Only give me leave to say That if the Essay I shall leave behind me hath no other fault to sink it but Heresie and inconsistency with the Articles of the Christian Faith
Matter so disposed a thinking immaterial Substance It being in respect of our Notions not much more remote from our Comprehensions to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to our Idea of Matter a Faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking From my saying thus That God whom I have proved to be an immaterial Being by his Omnipotency may for ought we know superadd to some parts of Matter a faculty of Thinking it requires some skill for any one to represent me as your Lordship does here as one ignorant or doubtful whether Matter may not think to that degree that I am not certain or I do not believe that there is a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently all Revelation may be nothing but the effects of an exalted Fancy or the heats of a disordered Imagination as Spinosa affirm'd For thus I or some Body else whom I desire your Lordship to produce stands painted in this your Lordship's Argument from the supposition of a Divine Revelation which your Lordship brings here to prove That the defining of Knowledge as I do to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the Credibility of the Articles of the Christian Faith But if your Lordship thinks it so dangerous a Position to say It is not much harder for us to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to Matter a faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking which is the utmost I have said concerning the faculty of Thinking in Matter I humbly conceive it would be more to your purpose to prove That the infinite omnipotent Creator of all Things out of nothing cannot if he pleases superadd to some parcels of Matter disposed as he sees fit a faculty of Thinking which the rest of Matter has not rather than to represent me with that Candour your Lordship does as one who so far makes Matter a Thinking thing as thereby to question the being of a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently to take away all Revelation which how natural and genuine a Representation it is of my Sense expressed in the Passages of my Essay which I have above set down I humbly submit to the Reader 's Judgment and your Lordship's Zeal for Truth to determine and shall not stay to examin whether Man may not have an exalted Phancy and the heats of a disorder'd Imagination equally overthrowing Divine Revelation tho' the power of Thinking be placed only in an immaterial Substance I come now to the sequel of your Major which is this If one who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may Think then whoever places Certainty so cannot believe there is an immaterial intelligent Being in the World The consequence here is from does not to cannot which I cannot but wonder to find in an Argument of your Lordships For he that does not to Day believe or know that Matter cannot be so ordered by God's Omnipotency as to think if that subverts the belief of an immaterial intelligent Being in the World may know or believe it to Morrow or if he should never know or believe it yet others who define Knowledge as he does may know or believe it Unless your Lordship can prove that it is impossible for any one who defines Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to know or believe that Matter cannot Think But this as I remember your Lordship has not any where attempted to prove And yet without this your Lordship's way of Reasoning is no more than to argue that one cannot do a thing because another does not do it And yet upon this strange consequence is built all that your Lordship brings here to prove that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of Articles of Faith v. g. It weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article of Faith that there is a God! How so Because I who have so defined Knowledge say in my Essay That the Knowledge of the Existence of any other thing but of God we can have only by Sensation For there being no necessary connexion of real Existence with any Idea a Man hath in his Memory nor of any other Existence but that of God with the Existence of any particular Man no particular Man can know the Existence of any other Being but only when by actual operating upon him it makes it self perceived by him For the having the Idea of any thing in our Mind no more proves the Existence of that thing than the Picture of a Man evidences his Being in the World or the Visions of a Dream make thereby a true History For so are the Words of my Book and not as your Lordship has been pleased to set them down here and they were well chosen by your Lordship to shew that the way of Ideas would not do i. e. In my way by Ideas I cannot prove there is a God But supposing I had said in that place or any other that which would hinder the proof of a God as I have not might I not see my Error and alter or renounce that Opinion without changing my definition of Knowledge Or could not another Man who defined Knowledge as I do avoid Thinking as your Lordship says I say That no Idea proves the Existence of the thing without it self and so able notwithstanding my saying so to prove that there is a God Again your Lordship argues that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of the Articles of Faith Because it takes away Revelation and your Proof of that is because I do not know whether Matter may not Think The same sort of Argumentation your Lordship goes on with in the next Page where you say Again before there can be any such thing as assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation there must be a Certainty as to Sense and Tradition for there can be no Revelation pretended now without immediate Inspiration and the Basis of our Faith is a Revelation contained in an antient Book whereof the parts were delivered at distant times but conveyed down to us by an universal Tradition But now what if my grounds of Certainty can give us no assurance as to these Things Your Lordship says you do not mean That they cannot demonstrate matters of Fact which it were most unreasonable to expect but that these Grounds of Certainty make all things uncertain for your Lordship thinks you have proved That this way of Ideas cannot give a satisfactory Account as to the Existence of the plainest Objects of the Sense because Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas How then can we arrive to any Certainty in perceiving those Objects by their Ideas All the force of which Argument lies in this that I have said
to do so may have been the cause that the World in all Ages has received so much harm and so little advantage from Controversies in Religion These are the Arguments which your Lordship has brought to confute one saying in my Book by other Passages in it which therefore being all but Argumenta ad Hominem if they did prove what they do not are of no other use than to gain a Victory over me a thing methinks so much beneath your Lordship that it does not deserve one of your Pages The question is whether God can if he pleases bestow on any parcel of Matter ordered as he thinks fit a faculty of Perception and Thinking You say You look upon a Mistake herein to be of dangerous Consequence as to the great ends of Religion and Morality If this be so my Lord I think one may well wonder why your Lordship has brought no Arguments to Establish the Truth it self which You look on to be of such dangerous consequence to be mistaken in but have spent so many Pages only in a Personal Matter in endeavouring to shew That I had Inconsistencies in my Book which if any such thing had been shewed the Question would be still as far from being decided and the danger of mistaking about it as little prevented as if nothing of all this had been said If therefore your Lordship's Care of the great ends of Religion and Morality have made You think it necessary to clear this Question the World has reason to conclude there is little to be said against that Proposition which is to be found in my Book concerning the Possibility that some parcels of Matter might be so ordered by Omnipotence as to be endued with a faculty of Thinking if God so pleased since your Lordship's Concern for the promoting the great ends of Religion and Morality has not enabled you to produce one Argument against a Proposition that you think of so dangerous consequence to them And here I crave leave to observe That though in your Title Page you promise to prove that my Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with it self which if it were it could hardly be proved to be inconsistent with any thing else and with the Articles of the Christian Faith Yet your Attempts all along have been to prove me in some Passages of my Book inconsistent with my self without having shewn any Proposition in my Book inconsistent with any Article of the Christian Faith I think your Lordship has indeed made use of one Argument of your own But it is such an one that I confess I do not see how it is apt much to promote Religion especially the Christian Religion founded on Revelation I shall set down your Lordship's Words that they may be considered you say That you are of Opinion that the great Ends of Religion and Morality are best secured by the Proofs of the Immortality of the Soul from its Nature and Properties and which you think proves is Immaterial Your Lordship does not question whether God can give Immortality to a Material Substance but you say it takes off very much from the Evidence of Immortality if it depend wholly upon God's giving that which of its own Nature it is not capable of c. So likewise you say If a Man cannot be certain but that Matter may think as I affirm then what becomes of the Soul's Immateriality and consequently Immortality from its Operations But for all this say I his assurance of Faith remains on its own Basis. Now you appeal to any Man of Sense whether the finding the uncertainty of his own Principles which he went upon in point of Reason doth not weaken the Credibility of these fundamental Articles when they are considered purely at Matters of Faith For before there was a natural Credibility in them on the account of Reason but by going on wrong grounds of Certainty all that is lost and instead of being Certain he is more doubtful than ever And if the Evidence of Faith falls so much short of that of Reason it must needs have less effect upon Men's Minds when the Subserviency of Reason is taken away as it must be when the grounds of Certainty by Reason are vanished Iâ— it at all probable That he who finds his Reason deceive him in such Fundamental Points should have his Faith stand firm and unmoveable on the account of Revelation For in Matters of Revelation there must be some Antecedent Principles supposed before we can believe any thing on the account of it More to the same purpose we have some Pages farther where from some of my Words your Lordship says You cannot but observe That we have no Certainty upon my grounds that Self-consciousness depends upon an individual Immaterial Substance and consequently that a Material Substance may according to my Principles have Self-consciousness in it at least that I am not certain of the contrary Whereupon your Lordship bids me consider whether this doth not a little affect the whole Article of the Resurrection What does all this tend to But to make the World believe that I have lessened the Credibility of the Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection by saying That though it be most highly probable that the Soul is Immaterial yet upon my Principles it cannot be demonstrated because it is not impossible to God's Omnipotency if he pleases to bestow upon some parcels of Matter disposed as he sees fit a faculty of thinking This your Accusation of my lessening the Credibility of these Articles of Faith is founded on this That the Article of the Immortality of the Soul abates of its Credibility If it be allowed That its Immateriality which is the supposed Proof from Reason and Philosophy of its Immortality cannot be demonstrated from natural Reason Which Argument of your Lordship's bottoms as I humbly conceive on this That Divine Revelation abates of its Credibility in all those Articles it proposes porportionably as Humane Reason fails to support the Testimony of God And all that your Lordship in those Passages has said when Examined will I suppose be found to import thus much viz. Does God promise any thing to Mankind to be believed It is very fit and credible to be believed if Reason can demonstrate it to be true But if Humane Reason comes short in the Case and cannot make it out its Credibility is thereby lessened which is in effect to say That the Veracity of God is not a firm and sure foundation of Faith to rely upon without the concurrent Testimony of Reason i. e. with Reverence be it spoken God is not to be believed on his own Word unless what he reveals be in it self credible and might be believed without him If this be a way to promote Religion the Christian Religion in all its Articles I am not sorry that it is not a way to be found in any of my Writings for I imagine any thing like this would and I should think deserv'd