THE Bishop of Worcester's ANSWER TO Mr. Locke's Letter Concerning Some PASSAGES Relating to his ESSAY OF Humane Understanding Mention'd in the late Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity With a POSTSCRIPT in answer to some Reflections made on that Treatise in a late Socinian Pamphlet LONDON Printed by I. H. for Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1697. THE Bishop of Worcester's Answer TO Mr. Locke's Letter c. SIR I Have seriously consider'd the Letter you were pleased to send me and I find it made up of two Parts A Complaint of me and a Vindication of your self To both which I shall return as clear and distinct on Answer and in as few words as the matter will permit 1. As to the Complaint of me it runs quite through the Book and even your Postscript is full of it The substance of it is that in answering Objections against the Trinity in point of Reason I produce several Passages out of your Essay of Humane Vnderstanding as if they were intended by you to that Purpose but you declare to the World p. 150. that it was written by you without any Thought of the Controversie between the Trinitarians and Unitarians and p. 224. That your Notions about Ideas have no Connexion with any Objections that are made by others against the Doctrine of the Trinity or against Mysteries And therefore you complain of it as an Injury done to you in imputing that to you which you have not done p. 95. or at least in leaving it so doubtfull that the Reader cannot distinguish who is meant p. 96. and this you call my peculiar way of Writing in this part of my Treatise Now to give you and others satisfaction as to this matter I shall first give an account of the Occasion of it and then shew what Care I took to prevent Misunderstanding about it The Occasion was this Being to answer the Objections in Point of Reason which had not been answered before the first I mention'd was That it was above Reason and therefore not to be believed in answer to this I proposed two Things to be consider'd 1. What we understand by Reason 2. What Ground in Reason there is to reject any Doctrine above it when it is proposed as a matter of Faith As to the former I observ'd that the Vnitarians in their late Pamphlets talk'd very much of clear and distinct Ideas and Perceptions and that the Mysteries of Faith were repugnant to them but never went about to state the Nature and Bounds of Reason in such a manner as those ought to have done who make it the Rule and Standard of what they are to believe But I added that a late Author in a Book call'd Christianity not Mysterious had taken upon him to clear this Matter whom for that cause I was bound to consider the design of his Discourse related wholly to Matters of Faith and not to Philosophical Speculations so that there can be no Dispute about his Application of those he calls Principles of Reason and Certainty When the Mind makes use of intermediate Ideas to discover the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas received into them this Method of Knowledge he saith is properly called Reason or Demonstration The Mind as he goes on receives Ideas two ways 1. By Intromission of the Senses 2. By considering its own Operations And these simple and distinct Ideas are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning And so all our Certainty is resolved into two things either immediate Perception which is self-Evidence or the use of intermediate Ideas which discovers the Certainty of any thing dubious which is what he calls Reason Now this I said did suppose That we must have clear and distinct Ideas of what-ever we pretend to any Certainty of in our minds by Reason and that the only way to attain this Certainty is by comparing these Ideas together which excludes all Certainty of Faith or Reason where we cannot have such clear and distinct Ideas From hence I proceeded to shew that we could not have such clear and distinct Ideas as were necessary in the present Debate either by Sensation or Reflection and consequently we could not attain to any Certainty about it for which I instanced in the Nature of Substance and Person and the Distinction between them And by vertue of these Principles I said That I did not wonder that the Gentlemen of this new way of Reasoning had almost discarded Substance out of the Reasonable Part of the World Which Expression you tell me you do not understand But if you had pleased to have look'd back on the Words just before a Person of your Sagacity could not have missed the Meaning I intended Which are Now this is the case of Substance it is not intromitted by the Senses nor depends upon the Operations of the Mind and cannot be within the compass of our Reason But you say That if I mean that you deny or doubt that there is in the World any such thing as Substance I shall acquit you of it if I look into some Passages in your Book which you refer to But this is not the point before us whether you do own Substance or not but whether by vertue of these Principles you can come to any Certainty of Reason about it And I say the very places you produce do prove the contrary which I shall therefore set down in your own Words both as to Corporeal and Spiritual Substances When we talk or think of any particular sort of Corporeal Substance as Horse Stone c. tho' the Idea we have of either of them be but the Complication or Collection of those several simple Ideas of sensible Qualities which we use to find united in the thing called Horse or Stone yet because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone or one in another we suppose them existing in and supported by some common subject which Support we denote by the name Substance tho' it be certain we have no clear or distinct Idea of that thing we suppose a Support The same happens concerning Operations of the Mind viz. Thinking Reasoning c. which we considering not to subsist of themselves nor apprehending how they can belong to Body or be produced by it we are apt to think these the Actions of some other Substance which we call Spirit whereby yet it is evident that having no other Notion or Idea of Matter but something wherein those many sensible Qualities which affect our Senses do subsist by supposing a Substance wherein Thinking Knowing Doubting and a Power of Moving c. do subsist we have as clear a Notion of the Nature or Substance of Spirit as we have of Body the one being supposed to be without knowing what it is the Substratum to those simple Ideas we have from without and the other supposed with a like Ignorance of what it is to be the Substratum to those Operations which we experiment in
your own Concessions For if the ground of Certainty be resolved into the Agreement and Disagreement of the Ideas as expressed in any Proposition is it not natural enough from hence to infer that from whencesoever this Proposition comes I must judge of it by the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas contained in it You make a Distinction between the Certainty of Truth and the Certainty of Knowledge The former you say Is when Words are so put together in Propositions as exactly to express the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas they stand for and the latter When we perceive the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas as expressed in any Proposition But our question about Certainty must relate to what we perceive and the means we have to judge of the Truth and Falshood of Things as they are expressed to us which you tell us Is by the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas in the Proposition And in another place Where-ever we perceive the Agreement or Disagreement of any of our Ideas there is certain Knowledge and when-ever we are sure those Ideas agree with the Reality of Things there is certain real Knowledge and then conclude I think I have shewn wherein it is that Certainty real Certainty consists which what-ever it was to others was I confess to me heretofore one of those Desiderata which I found great want of So that here is plainly a new Method of Certainty owned and that placed in the Agreement and Disagreement of Ideas But the Author already mention'd professes to go upon the same grounds and therefore it was necessary for me to examine them He saith That the simple and distinct Ideas we receive by Sensation and Reflection are the sole Matter and Foundation of all our Reasoning and that our Knowledge is in Effect nothing else but the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas And that where our Perception is not immediate our Certainty comes from the clear and visible Connexion of Ideas For he saith That if the Connexion of all the intermediate Ideas be not indubitable we can have no Certainty Wherein now do his grounds of Certainty differ from yours But he applies them to other Purposes I grant he doth so and that was it which I had said for your Vindication But the question now is whether your general expression had not given him too much occasion for it It is true that Ch 3. he distinguishes the means of Information from the ground of Perswasion and he reckons all Authority Divine as well as Human among the means of Information and the ground of Perswasion he makes to be nothing but Evidence and this Evidence he saith lies in our Ideas Ch. 4. in the Agreement or Disagreement of them p. 19. and he places Certainty in our clear Perceptions of this Agreement or Disagreement which you call clear and visible Connexion of Ideas And wherein then lies the difference as to the grounds of Certainty But his design is to overthrow the Mysteries of Faith This is too true But upon what grounds Is it not upon this Principle that our Certainty depends upon the clear Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas in any Proposition Now let the Proposition come to us either by Human or Divine Authority If our Certainty depends upon this we can be no more certain than we have clear Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas contained in it and so he thought he had reason to reject all Mysteries of Faith which are contained in Propositions upon your grounds of Certainty But you say you own the infallible Truth of the Scriptures and that where you want the Evidence of Things there is ground enough for you to believe because God hath said it I do verily believe you because I have a far greater Opinion of your Sincerity and Integrity than I see reason for as to the other Person who pretends mightily to own the Authority of Scripture at the same time when he undermines it For his Words are The Authority of God or Divine Revelation is the Manifestation of Truth by Truth it self to whom it is impossible to lye p. 16. But when he comes to state the point how far we are to believe upon Divine Revelation he hath these Words Sect. 2. ch 1. n. 10. The natural Result of what hath been said is That to believe the Divinity of Scripture or the Sense of any Passage thereof without rational Proofs and an evident Consistency is a blameable Credulity and a temerarian Opinion ordinarily grounded upon an ignorant and wilfull Disposition And in the next Chapter he saith That Revelation is not a necessitating Motive but a mean of Information Not the bare Authority of him that speaks but the clear Conception I form of what he says is the ground of my Perswasion And again Whoever reveals any thing his words must be intelligible and the matter possible This rule holds good let God or Man be the Revealer As for unintelligible Relations we can no more believe them from the Revelation of God than from that of Man Sect. 2. ch 2. n. 16. p. 42. But what are all these things to you who own That where you want the Evidence of things the Authority of Revelation is ground enough for you to believe I do not impute them to you but I must say that he alledges no ground for his sayings but your ground of Certainty For in the same Page he saith That the conceived Ideas of things are the only subjects of Believing Denying Approving and every other act of the understanding All the difference we see is that he applies that to Propositions in Scripture which you affirm'd of Propositions in general viz. that our Certainty depends upon the clear Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas contained in them But I shall do you all the Right I can as to this matter by shewing what Reason I had to say that your Notions were turn'd to other purposes than you intended them and that I shall make appear from several passages in the same Book 1. You own the great Defects of Humane Knowledge notwithstanding the simple Ideas we have by Sensation or Reflection And from these things 1. The Paucity and Imperfection of our Ideas in general because our Sensation and Reflection goes so little a way in respect of the vast extent of the Universe and the infinite Power and Wisdom of the Creator of it So that what we see in the intellectual and sensible World holds no proportion to what we see not and whatever we can reach with our Eyes or our Thoughts of either of them is but a point almost nothing in comparison of the rest 2. The want of Ideas which we are capable of because although we have Ideas in general of Bulk Figure and Motion yet we are to seek as to the particulars of them in the greatest part of the Bodies of the Universe
it and I am certain you do not think he hath promoted the great Ends of Religion and Morality I shall now proceed to consider the Arguments for proving a Supream Immaterial Substance which you freely allow to be so And my Design as I said was to shew that the certainty of it is not placed upon any clear and distinct Ideas but upon the force of Reason distinct from it To this you answer That Knowledge and Certainty in your Opinion lies in the Preception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas such as they are and not always in having perfectly clear and distinct Ideas But those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than you do and speak more agreeably to your original grounds of Certainty For your Relative Idea which you here run to again is no certainty at all from the Idea but from the plain Evidence of Reason that Accidents cannot support themselves I pass over all which I think I have sufficiently answered already as when you spend so many Pages about my using the Plural Number when your words are only mentioned c. But I shall pass over nothing which may seem to an indifferent Reader to require any farther Consideration Whether you took this way of Ideas from the Modern Philosopher mentioned by you is not at all material but I intended no Reflection upon you in it for that you mean by my commending you as a Scholar of so great a Master I never meant to take from you the Honour of your own Inventions and I do believe you when you say That you wrote from your own Thoughts and the Ideas you had there But many things may seem New to one that converses only with his own Thoughts which really are not so as he may find when he looks into the Thoughts of other Men which appear in their Books And therefore although I have a just Esteem for the Invention of such who can spin Volumes barely out of their own Thoughts yet I am apt to think they would oblige the World more if after they have thought so much themselves they would examine what thoughts others have had before them concerning the same things that so those may not be thought their own Inventions which are common to themselves and others If a man should try all the Magnetical Experiments himself and publish them as his own Thoughts he might take himself to be the Inventor of them but he that examines and compares them with what Gilbert and others have done before him will not diminish the Praise of his Diligence but may wish he had compared his Thoughts with other Mens by which the World would receive greater Advantage altho' he lost the Honour of being an Original The Matter of Certainty you say one cannot imploy too many Thoughts about viz. as to the finding the true Grounds of it or wherein it is placed This I was led to consider by our Vnitarians placing it in clear and distinct Ideas and therefore rejecting the Mysteries of Faith because they could not have clear and distinct Ideas of them And one wrote purposely to shew that we were not to believe any Mysteries in the Gospel because all our Certainty depended upon the Preception of the Agreement or Disagreement of those simple Ideas which we have by Sensation or Reflection Now if these Principles of Certainty hold good as to all Propositions we can have no Certainty of Faith where we cannot perceive the Connexion of the Ideas contained in them I own that you say That Faith is an Assent to any Proposition not made out by any Deductions of Reason but upon the Credit of the Proposer But this doth not clear the matter for is Faith an Vnreasonable Act Is it not an Assent to a Proposition Then if all certainty in Acts of Reason be derived from the perceiving the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas contained in it either there can be no Certainty of the Reasonable Act of Faith or the Grounds of Certainty must be laid some other way But you say Where you want Evidence of things there is yet Ground enough for you to believe because God hath said it Which doth not yet remove the Difficulty from the true Ground of Certainty for say they Revelation is but a means of Information and God discovers by that such Propositions which we could not have found out without Revelation but where-ever Propositions are offered to our Vnderstandings we must judge of them by our Perception of the Agreement and Disagreement of the Ideas contained in them And Faith doth not overthrow Nature If therefore the Nature of Certainty lies herein we cannot be certain without it Is it not enough for you to disown the Consequence but to shew that it doth not follow from your Principles of Certainty But of this I have spoken already and I love not Repetitions I only take notice that you Assert and hold to the same I stick to my own plain way of Certainty by Ideas And so do those who reject the Mysteries of Faith because not agreeable to their Ideas and think they proceed upon your Grounds But you say That according to my Rules you know not where to place Certainty for in the Account I give of Des Cartes I have these words concerning him The first thing he found any Certainty in was his own Existence which he founded upon the Perception of the Acts of his Mind From hence he proceeded to enquire how he came by this Certainty and he resolved it into this that he had a clear and distinct Preception of it And from hence he formed his general Rule that what he had a clear and distinct Perception of was true Which in Reason ought to go on farther than where there is the like Degree of Evidence for the Certainty was not grounded on the clearness of the Perception but on the plainness of the Evidence Which is of that nature that the very doubting of it proves it since it is impossible that any thing should doubt or question its own being that had it not So that here it is not the clearness of the Idea but an immediate Act of Perception which is the true ground of Certainty And this cannot extend to things without our selves of which we can have no other Perception than what is caused by the Impression of outward Objects But whether we are to judge according to those Impressions doth not depend on the Ideas themselves but upon the Exercise of our Judgment and Reason about them which put the difference between true and false and adequate and inadequate Ideas so that our Certainty is not from the Ideas themselves but from the Evidence of Reason that those Ideas are true and just and consequently that we may build our Certainty upon them These I acknowledge to be my words and yet I see no Reason why I may not stick to them But you say
Pythagoreans but what they Mystically called Numbers he called Ideas But Idea in its original Sense from the Etymology of it is derived from Seeing and so the natural Sense of it is something Visible from thence it came to signifie the Impression made in us from our Senses and thence it was carried to the general Notion of a thing and from thence by Metaphysical and abstracted Speculations to the Original Exemplars of particular Essences which were Simple and Vniform and not liable to those Changes which visible Objects are subject to So Cicero tells us Plato formed his Notion of Idea which he would by no means allow to any Representation made by our Senses which are dull heavy uncertain and imperfect either by the Minuteness or Distance or Mutability of the Objects thence the Philosophers of his School denied any true grounds of Certainty to be laid in the Ideas we have by our Senses which can only afford ground for Probability not as to the bare Objects but as to the Notions we take from them But all Knowledge and Certainty was placed in the acts of the Mind Scientiam nusquam esse censebant nisi in animi notionibus atque rationibus i. e. in examining and comparing not the bare Ideas but the Definitions of things and from these judging of the Truth and Certainty of them And if our Ideas of things be so few so superficial and so imperfect as you confess them to be if we are so much to seek as to the Connexion of Ideas and the finding out proper intermediate Ideas I am afraid this way of Certainty by Ideas will come to very little at last And so this Agreement and Disagreement of Ideas will have the Fate of the Stoicks Criterion of Truth which only multiplied Disputes but ended none Never any men talked more of Certainty than they and they boasted of their Discoveries of the true grounds of it and the question then was not about a Criterion of the bare Existence of things about which they allow'd the Judgment of the Senses to be sufficient and the Ideas from them to be true Nor was it about a Criterion for the Actions of Life for which they thought Probability or Opinion sufficient but it was about finding out such a mark of truth in the Ideas of our Minds as could not agree to a Falshood i. e. such an Impression or Signature as Cicero expresses it as appear'd in that which was which could not be found in that which was not And this was called Visum or a true Idea his words are Quale igitur visum quod ex eo quod esset sicut esset impressum est signatum effectum The Greeks called it a Comprehensive Idea which they compared to Light which discovers it self as well as other Things But when they came to be pinched with particular difficulties about the Natures of Things they were never able to make out that infallible mark of Truth in their Idea and yet this was a more likely way to have found it than to place the grounds of Certainty in the comparing the Agreement and Disagreement of Ideas unless it could be made out that we have a full stock of Ideas and are able to discern and make out the Connexion of them with one another For if we fail in either of these the talking of Ideas and comparing those which we have will do us little service in finding out of Truth But I confess the design in general is so good that it's pity that it should lie open to so many Objections and much more that it should be abused to very bad purposes But my joyning your words with another's Application is that which hath given you so much Offence as to make you think it necessary to publish this Letter for your Vindication 2. I come therefore now to shew the Care I took to prevent being mis-understood which will best appear by my own Words I must do that right to the Ingenious Author of the Essay of Humane Vnderstanding from whence these Notions are borrow'd to serve other purposes than he intended them that he makes the case of Spiritual and Corporeal Substances to be alike It was too plain that the bold Writer against the Mysteries of our Faith took his Notions and Expressions from thence and what could be said more for your Vindication than that he turned them to other purposes than the Author intended them And the true Reason why the Plural Number was so often used by me was because he built upon those which he imagin'd had been your grounds and my business was to shew that those Expressions of yours which seemed most to countenance his method of Proceeding could not give any reasonable Satisfaction But you say You do not place Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas but in the clear and visible Connection of any of our Ideas And Certainty of Knowledge you tell us is to perceive the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas as expressed in any Proposition Whether this be a true account of the Certainty of Knowledge or not will be presently consider'd But it is very possible he might mistake or misapply your Notions but there is too much reason to believe he thought them the same and we have no reason to be sorry that he hath given you this occasion for the explaining your Meaning and for the Vindication of your self in the matters you apprehend I had charged you with And if your Answer doth not come fully up in all things to what I could wish yet I am glad to find that in general you own the Mysteries of the Christian Faith and the Scriptures to be the Foundation and Rule of it For thus you conclude your Book in the last Paragraph of the Postscript The Holy Scripture is to me and always will be the constant Guide of my Assent and I shall always hearken to it as containing infallible Truth relating to things of the highest Concernment And I wish I could say there were no Mysteries in it I acknowledge there are to me and I fear always will be But where I want the Evidence of things there yet is ground enough for me to believe because God hath said it And I shall presently condemn and quit any Opinion of mine as soon as I am shewn that it is contrary to any Revelation in the Holy Scripture Which Words seem to express so much of a Christian Spirit and Temper that I cannot believe you intended to give any advantage to the Enemies of the Christian Faith but whether there hath not been too just occasion for them to apply them in that manner is a thing very fit for you to consider For in an age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are so much exposed by the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity it is a thing of dangerous consequence to start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave mens minds more doubtfull than before as will soon appear from