Identity Answ. Give me leave my Lord to say that the Reason of believing any Article of the Christian Faith such as your Lordship is here speaking of to me and upon my Grounds is its being a part of Divine Revelation Upon this Ground I believed it before I either writ that Chapter of Identity and Diversity and before I ever thought of those Propositions which your Lordship quotes out of that Chapter and upon the same Ground I believe it still and not from my Idea of Identity This saying of your Lordship 's therefore being a Proposition neither self-evident nor allowed by me to be true remains to be proved So that your Foundation failing all your large Superstructure built thereon comes to nothing But my Lord before we go any farther I crave leave humbly to represent to your Lordship That I thought you undertook to make out that my Notion of Ideas was inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith But that which your Lordship instances in here is not that I yet know an Article of the Christian Faith The Resurrection of the dead I acknowledge to be an Article of the Christian Faith But that the Resurrection of the Same Body in your Lordship's Sense of the same Body is an Article of the Christian Faith is what I confess I do not yet know In the New Testament wherein I think are contained all the Articles of the Christian Faith I find our Saviour and the Apostles to preach the Resurrection of the Dead and the Resurrection from the dead in many places But I do not remember any place where the Resurrection of the same Body is so much as mentioned Nay which is very remarkable in the Case I do not remember in any place of the New Testament where the general Resurrection at the last Day is spoken of any such Expression as the Resurrection of the Body much less of the same Body I say the general Resurrection at the last Day Because where the Resurrection of some particular Persons presently upon our Saviour's Resurrection is mentioned the Words are The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after his Resurrection and went into the Holy City and appeared to many Of which peculiar way of speaking of this Resurrection the Passage it self gives a Reason in these Words appeared to many i. e. Those who slept appeared so as to be known to be risen But this could not be known unless they brought with them the Evidence that they were those who had been dead whereof there were these two Proofs their Graves were opened and their Bodies not only gone out of them but appeared to be the same to those who had known them formerly alive and knew them to be dead and buried For if they had been those who had been dead so long that all who knew them once alive were now gone those to whom they appeared might have known them to be Men but could not have known they were risen from the dead Because they never knew they had been dead All that by their appearing they could have known was that they were so many living Strangers of whose Resurrection they knew nothing 'T was necessary therefore that they should come in such Bodies as might in make and size c. appear to be the same they had before that they might be known to those of their Acquaintance whom they appeared to And it is probable they were such as were newly dead whose Bodies were not yet dissolved and dissipated and therefore 't is particularly said here differently from what is said of the general Resurrection that their Bodies arose Because they were the same that were then lying in their Graves the Moment before they rose But your Lordship endeavours to prove it must be the same Body And let us grant that your Lordship nay and others too think you have proved it must be the same Body will you therefore say that he holds what is inconsistent with an Article of Faith who having never seen this your Lordship's interpretation of the Scripture nor your Reasons for the same Body in your sense of same Body or if he has seen them yet not understanding them or not perceiving the force of them believes what the Scripture proposes to him viz. That at the last Day the dead shall be raised without determining whether it shall be with the very same Bodies or no I know your Lordship pretends not to erect your particular interpretations of Scripture into Articles of Faith and if you do not He that believes the dead shall be raised believes that Article of Faith which the Scripture proposes And cannot be accused of holding any thing inconsistent with it if it should happen that what he holds is inconsistent with another Proposition viz. That the dead shall be raised with the same Bodies in you Lordship's Sense which I do not find proposed in Holy Writ as an Article of Faith But your Lordship argues it must be the same Body which as you explain same Body is not the same individual particles of Matter which were united at the point of Death Nor the same particles of Matter that the Sinner had at the time of the Commission of his Sins But that it must be the same material Substance which was vitally united to the Soul here i. e. as I understand it the same individual particles of Matter which were sometime or other during his Life here vitally united to his Soul Your first Argument to prove that it must be the same Body in this Sense of the same Body is taken from these Words of our Saviour All that are in the Graves shall hear his Voice and shall come forth From whence your Lordship argues That these Words all that are in their Graves relates to no other Substance than what was united to the Soul in Life because a different Substance cannot be said to be in the Graves and to come out of them Which Words of your Lordships if they prove any thing prove that the Soul too is lodg'd in the Grave and raised out of it at the last Day For your Lordship says Can a different Substance be said to be in their Graves and come out of them So that according to this interpretation of these Words of our Saviour No other Substance being raised but what hears his Voice and no other Substance hearing his Voice but what being called comes out of the Grave and no other Substance coming out of the Grave but what was in the Grave any one must conclude that the Soul unless it be in the Grave will make no part of the Person that is raised unless as your Lordship argues against me You can make it out that a Substance which never was in the Grave may come out of it or that the Soul is no Substance But setting aside the Substance of the Soul another thing that will make any one doubt
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
the Bible to be the Word of God though they imagine God himself in the shape of an Old Man sitting in Heaven which they could not do if they knew i. e. had examined and understood any demonstration whereby he is proved to be immaterial without which they cannot know it 2. If your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation it is necessary to know that there is simply an intelligent Being this also I deny For to suppose a Divine Revelation is not necessary that a Man should know that there is such an intelligent Being in the World I say know i. e. from things that he does know demonstratively deduce the proof of such a Being it is enough for the receiving Divine Revelation to believe that there is such a Being without having by demonstration attained to the Knowledge that there is a God Every one that believes right does not always reason exactly especially in abstract Metaphysical Speculations and if no body can believe the Bible to be of Divine Revelation but he that clearly comprehends the whole deduction and sees the evidence of the demonstration wherein the existence of an intelligent Being on whose Will all other Beings depend is Scientifically proved there are I fear but few Christians among illiterate People to look no farther He that believes there is a God though he does no more than believe it and has not attained to the Certainty of Knowledge i. e. does not see the evident demonstration of it has Ground enough to admit of Divine Revelation The Apostle tells us That he that will come to God must believe that he is But I do not remember the Scripture any where says That he must know that he is 3. In the next place if your Lordship means That to suppose Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. explicitly believe that there is a perfectly immaterial Being I shall leave it to your Lordship's consideration whether it may not be Ground enough for the Supposition of a Revelation to believe that there is an all-knowing unerring Being who can neither deceive nor be deceived without a Man 's precisely determining in his Thoughts whether that unerring omniscient Being be immaterial or no. 'T is past all doubt that every one that examins and reasons right may come to a Certainty that God is perfectly immaterial But it may be a question whether every one who believes a Revelation to be from God may have enter'd into the disquisition of the immateriality of his Being Whether I say every ignorant day Labourer who believes the Bible to be the Word of God has in his mind consider'd materiality and immateriality and does explicitly believe God to be immaterial I shall leave to your Lordship to determine if you think fit more expresly than your Words do here 4. If your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation a Man must becertain i. e. believe that there is a supreme intelligent Being from whom it comes who can neither deceive nor be deceived I grant it to be true These being the several Propositions either of which may be meant in your Lordship 's so general and to me doubtful way of expressing your self to avoid the length which a particular Answer to each of them would run me into I will venture and it is a venture to answer to an ambiguous Proposition in one Sense when the Author has the liberty of saying he meant it in another a great convenience of general loose and doubtful Expressions I will I say venture to answer to it in the Sense I guess most suited to your Lordship's purpose and see what your Lordship proves by it I will therefore suppose your Lordship's Reasoning to be this That To suppose Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. believe that there is a Principle above Matter and Motion i. e. an immaterial intelligent Being in the World Let it be so what does your Lordship infer Therefore upon the Principles of Certainty by Ideas he i. e. he that places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas cannot be certain of i. e. believe this This consequence seems a little strange but your Lordship proves it thus Because he does not know but Matter may think Which Argument put into form will stand thus If one who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Idea does not know but Matter may think then whoever places Certainty so cannot believe there is an immaterial intelligent Being in the World But there is one who placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may think Ergo whoever places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas cannot believe that there is an intelligent immaterial Being This Argumentation is so defective in every part of it that for fear I should be thought to make an Argument for your Lordship in requital for the Answer your Lordship made for me I must desire the Reader to consider your Lordship says We must be certain He cannot be certain because he doth not know which in short is We cannot because he cannot and he cannot because he doth not This consider'd will justifie the Syllogism I have made to contain your Lordship's Argument in its full force I come therefore to the Syllogism it self and there first I deny the Minor which is this There is one who placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas doth not know but Matter may think I begin with this because this is the Foundation of all your Lordship's Argument and therefore I desire your Lordship would produce any one who placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may think The Reason why I press this is because I suppose your Lordship means me here and would have it thought that I say I do not know but that Matter may think But that I do not say so nor any thing else from whence may be infer'd what your Lordship adds in the annexed Words if they can be infer'd from it And consequently all Revelation may be nothing but the effects of an exalted Fancy or the heats of a disorder'd Imagination as Spinosa affirm'd On the contrary I do say It is impossible to conceive that matter either with or without motion could have originally in and from it self Perception and knowledge And having in that Chapter establish'd this Truth That there is an eternal immaterial knowing Being I think no body but your Lordship could have imputed to me the doubting that there was such a Being because I say in another place and to another purpose It is impossible for us by the contemplation of our own Ideas without Revelation to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some Systems of Matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and think or else joined and fixed to
here asks me concerning mine How comes Person to stand for this and nothing else From whence comes compleat Substance or peculiar manner of Subsistence to make up the Idea of a Person Whether it be true or false I am not now to enquire but how it comes into this Idea of a Person Has common use of our Language appropriated it to this Sense If not this seems to be a meer Arbitrary Idea and may as well be denied as affirmed And what a fine pass are we come to in your Lordship's way if a meer Arbitrary Idea must be taken into the only true Method of Certainty But if this be the true Idea of a Person then there can be no Vnion of two Natures in one Person For if a compleat intelligent Substance be the Idea of a Person and the divine and humane Natures be compleat intelligent Substances then the Doctrin of the Vnion of two Natures and one Person is quite sunk for here must be two Persons in this way of your Lordship's Again if this be the Idea of a Person then where there are three Persons there must be three distinct compleat intelligent Substances and so there cannot be three Persons in the same individual Essence And thus both these Doctrins of the Trinity and Incarnation are past recovery gon if this way of your Lordship's hold These my Lord are your Lordship's very Words what force there is in them I will not enquire but I must beseech your Lordship to take them as Objections I make against your Notion of Person to shew the danger of it and the inconsistency it has with the Doctrin of the Trinity and Incarnation of our Saviour and when your Lordship has removed the Objections that are in them against your own definition of Person mine also by the very same Answers will be cleared Your Lordship's Argument in the following Words to page 65. seems to me as far as I can collect to lie thus Your Lordship tells me that I say That in Propositions whose Certainty is built on clear and perfect Ideas and evident deductions of Reason there no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation which contradicts them This Proposition not serving your Lordship's turn so well for the conclusion you designed to draw from it your Lordship is pleased to enlarge it For you ask But suppose I have Ideas sufficient for Certainty what is to be done then From which Words and your following Discourse if I can understand it it seems to me that your Lordship supposes it reasonable for me to hold That where-ever we are any how certain of any Propositions whether their Certainty be built on clear and perfect Ideas or no there no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation which contradicts them And thence your Lordship concludes That because I say we may make some Propositions of whose Truth we may be certain concerning things whereof we have not Ideas in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct therefore my Notion of Certainty by Ideas must overthrow the credibility of a Matter of Faith in all such Propositions which are offered to be believed on the account of divine Revelation A Conclusion which I am so unfortunate as not to find how it follows from your Lordship's Premisses because I cannot any way bring them into Mode and Figure with such a Conclusion But this being no strange thing to me in my want of skill in your Lordship's way of writing I in the mean time crave leave to ask Whether there be any Propositons your Lordship can be certain of that are not divinely revealed And here I will presume that your Lordship is not so Sceptical but that you can allow Certainty attainable in many things by your natural Faculties Give me leave then to ask your Lordship Whether where there be Propositions of whose Truth you have certain Knowledge you can receive any Proposition for divine Revelation which contradicts that Certainty Whether that Certainty be built upon the Agreement of Ideas such as we have or on whatever else your Lordship builds it If you cannot as I presume your Lordship will say you cannot I make bold to return you your Lordship's Questions here to me in your own Words Let us now suppose that you are to judge of a Proposition delivered as a Matter of Faith where you have a Certainty by Reason from your Grounds such as they are Can you my Lord assent to this as a Matter of Faith when you are already certain of the contrary by your way How is this possible Can you believe that to be true which you are certain is not true Suppose it be That there are two Natures in one Person the Question is Whether you can assent to this as a Matter of Faith hf you should say where there are only Probabilities on the other side I grant that you then allow Revelation is to prevail But when you say you have Certainty by Ideas or without Ideas to the contrary I do not see how it is possible for you to assent to a Matter of Faith as true when you are certain from your method that it is not true For how can you believe against Certainty because the Mind is actually determined by Certainty And so your Lordship's Notion of Certainty by Ideas or without Ideas be it what it will must overthrow the credibility of a matter of Faith in all such Propositions which are offered to be believed on the account of Divine Revelation This Argumentation and Conclusion is good against your Lordship if it be good against me For Certainty is Certainty and he that is certain is certain and cannot assent to that as true which he is certain is not true whether he supposes Certainty to consist in the preception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as a Man has or in any thing else For whether those who have attained Certainty not by the way of Ideas can believe against Certainty any more than those who have attained Certainty by Ideas we shall then see when your Lordship shall be pleased to shew the World your way to Certainty without Ideas Indeed if what your Lordship insinuates in the beginning of this Passage which we are now upon be true your Lordship is safer in your way without Ideas i. e. without immediate objects of the Mind in Thinking if there be any such way as to the understanding divine Revelation right than those who make use of Ideas But yet you are still as far as they from assenting to that as true which you are certain is not true Your Lordship's Words are So great a difference is there between forming Ideas first and then judging of Revelation by them and the believing of Revelation on its proper Grounds and the interpreting the Sense of it by the due measures of Reason If it be the priviledge of those alone who renounce Ideas i. e. the immediate objects of the Mind in Thinking to
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
Substance and then we know the Solution and Texture of Bodies cannot reach the Soul being of a different Nature Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is that should keep the Parts of a material Soul together after it is separated from the Body yet it will be always as easie to give an account of it as to give an account what it is which shall keep together a material and immaterial Substance And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that I hope does not with your Lordship weaken the Credibility of the inseparable Union of Soul and Body to Eternity And I perswade my self that the Men of Sense to whom your Lordship appeals in the Case do not find their belief of this Fundamental Point much weakened by that difficulty I thought heretofore and by your Lordship's Permission would think so still that the Union of Parts of Matter one with another is as much in the Hands of God as the Union of a material and immaterial Substance and that it does not take off very much or at all from the Evidence of Immortality which depends on that Union that it is no easie matter to give an account what it is that should keep them together Though its depending wholly upon the Gift and good Pleasure of God where the manner creates great difficulty in the understanding and our Reason cannot discover in the Nature of things how it is be that which your Lordship so positively says lessens the Credibility of the Fundamental Articles of the Resurrection and Immortality But my Lord to remove this Objection a little and to shew of how small force it is even with your self give me leave to presume That your Lordship as firmly believes the Immortality of the Body after the Resurrection as any other Article of Faith If so then it being no easie matter to give an account what it is that shall keep together the Parts of a material Soul to one that belives it is material can no more weaken the Credibility of its Immortality than the like difficulty weakens the Credibility of the Immortality of the Body For when your Lordship shall find it an easie matter to give an account what it is besides the good Pleasure of God which shall keep together the Parts of our material Bodies to Eternity or even Soul and Body I doubt not but any one who shall think the Soul material will also find it as easie to give an account what it is that shall keep those Parts of Matter also together to Eternity Were it not that the Warmth of Controversie is apt to make Men so far forget as to take up those Principles themselves when they will serve their turn which they have highly condemned in others I should wonder to find your Lordship to argue That because it is a difficulty to understand what should keep together the minute Parts of a material Soul when Life is gone and because it is not an easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial Substance Therefore it is not so credible as if it were easie to give an account by Natural Reason how it could be For to this it is that all this your Discourse tends as is evident by what is already set down out of Page 55 and will be more fully made out by what your Lordship says in other places though there needs no such Proofs since it would all be nothing against me in any other Sense I thought your Lordship had in other places asserted and insisted on this Truth That no part of Divine Revelation was the less to be believed because the thing it self oreated great difficulty in the understanding and the manner of it was hard to be explained and it was no easie matter to give an account how it was This as I take it your Lordship condemned in others as a very unreaonable Principle and such as would subvert all the Articles of the Christian Religion that were mere matters of Faith as I think it will And is it possible that you should make use of it here your self against the Article of Life and Immortality that Christ hath brought to light through the Gospel and neither was nor could be made out by Natural Reason without Revelation But you will say you speak only of the Soul and your Words are That it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial Substance I grant it but crave leave to say That there is not any one of those Difficulties that are or can be raised about the manner how a material Soul can be immortal which do not as well reach the Immortality of the Body But if it were not so I am sure this Principle of your Lordship's would reach other Articles of Faith wherein our natural Reason finds it not so easy to give an Account how those Mysteries are And which therefore according to your Principles must be less credible than other Articles that create less difficulty to the Vnderstanding For your Lordship says That you appeal to any Man of Sense whether to a Man who thought by his Principles he could from natural Grounds demonstrate the Immortality of the Soul the finding the uncertainty of those Principles he went upon in point of Reason i. e. the finding he could not certainly prove it by natural Reason doth not weaken the credibility of that fundamental Article when it is considered purely as a Matter of Faith Which in effect I humbly conceive amounts to this That a Proposition divinely revealed that cannot be proved by natural Reason is less credible than one that can Which seems to me to come very little short of this with due reverence be it spoken That God is less to be believed when he affirms a Proposition that cannot be proved by natural Reason than when he proposes what can be proved by it The direct contrary to which is my Opinion though you endeavour to make good by these following Words 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 Is 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 Than which I think there are hardly plainer Words to be found out to declare that the credibility of God's Testimony depends on the natural evidence or probability of the things we receive from Revelation and rises and falls with it And that the Truths of God or the Articles of meer Faith lose so much of their credibility as they want Proof from Reason Which if true Revelation may come to have no credibility at all
believe Revelation on its proper Grounds and the interpreting the Sense of it by the due measures of Reason I shall not think it strange that any one who undertakes to interpret the Sense of Revelation should renounce Ideas i. e. That he who would think right of the meaning of any Text of Scripture should renounce and lay by all immediate objects of the Mind in Thinking But perhaps your Lordship does not here extend this difference of believing Revelation on its proper Grounds and not on its proper Grounds to all those who are not and all those who are for Ideas But your Lordship makes this comparison here only between your Lordship and me who you think am guilty of forming Ideas first and then judging of Revelation by them Answ. If so then this lays the blame not on my Doctrin of Ideas but on my particular ill use of them That then which your Lordship would insinuate of me here as a dangerous way to mistaking the Sense of the Scripture is That I form Ideas first and then judge of Revelation by them i. e. In plain English that I get to my self the best I can the signification of the Words wherein the Revelation is delivered and so endeavour to understand the Sense of the Revelation delivered in them And pray my Lord does your Lordship do otherwise Does the believing of Revelation upon its proper Grounds and the due measures of Reason teach you to judge of Revelation before you understand the Words it is deliver'd in i. e. before you have formed the Ideas in your Mind as well as you can which those Words stand for If the due measures of Reason teach your Lordship this I beg the favour of your Lordship to tell me those due measures of Reason that I may leave those undue measures of Reason which I have hitherto followed in the interpreting the Sense of the Scripture whose Sense it seems I should have interpreted first and understood the signification of the Words afterwards My Lord I read the Revelation of the Holy Scripture with a full assurance that all it delivers is true And though this be a submission to the Writings of those Inspired Authors which I neither have nor can have for those of any other Men Yet I use and know not how to help it till your Lordship shew me a better method in those due measures of Reason which you mention the same way to interpret to my self the Sense of that Book that I do of any other First I endeavour to understand the Words and Phrases of the Language I read it in i. e. to form Ideas they stand for If your Lordship means any thing else by forming Ideas first I confess I understand it not And if there be any Word or Expression which in that Author or in that place of that Author seems to have a peculiar meaning i. e. to stand for an Idea which is different from that which the common use of that Language has made it a Sign of that Idea also I endeavour to form in my Mind by comparing this Author with himself and observing the design of his Discourse that so as far as I can by a sincere endeavour I may have the same Ideas in every place when I read the Words which the Author had when he writ them But here my Lord I take care not to take those for Words of Divine Revelation which are not the Words of Inspired Writers Nor think my self concerned with that Submission to receive the Expressions of Fallible Men and to Labour to find out their Meaning or as your Lordship Phrases it interpret their Sense as if they were the Expressions of the Spirit of God by the Mouths or Pens of Men Inspired and Guided by that infallible Spirit This my Lord is the method I use in interpreting the Sense of the Revelation of the Scriptures if your Lordship knows that I do otherwise I desire you to convince me of it And if your Lordship does otherwise I desire you to shew me wherein your method differs from mine that I may reform upon so good a Pattern For as for what you accuse me of in the following Words it is that which either has no Fault in it or if it have your Lordship I humbly conceive is as guilty as I. Your Words are I may pretend what I please That I hold the assurance of Faith and the Certainty by Ideas to go upon very different Grounds but when a Proposition is offered me out of Scripture to be believed and I doubt about the Sense of it is not Recourse to be made to my Ideas Give me leave my Lord with all submission to return your Lordship the same Words Your Lordship may pretend what you please that you hold the assurance of Faith and the Certainty of Knowledge to stand upon different Grounds for I presume your Lordship will not say that Believing and Knowing stand upon the same Grounds for that would I think be to say That probability and demonstration are the same thing But when a Proposition is offered you out of Scripture to be believed and you doubt about the Sense of it is not recourse to be made to your Notions What my Lord is the difference here between your Lordship's and my way in the Case I must have recourse to my Ideas and your Lordship must have recourse to your Notions For I think you cannot believe a Proposition contrary to your own Notions for then you would have the same and different Notions at the same time So that all the difference between your Lordship and me is That we do both the same thing only your Lordship shews a great dislike to my using the term Idea But the instance your Lordship here gives is beyond my comprehension Your say a Proposition is offered me out of Scripture to be believed and I doubt about the Sense of it As in the present Case whether there can be three Persons in one Nature or two Natures and one Person My Lord my Bible is faulty again for I do not remember that I ever read in it either of these Propositions in these precise Words There are three Persons in one Nature or There are two Natures and one Person When your Lordship shall shew me a Bible wherein they are so set down I shall then think them a good instance of Propositions offered me out of Scripture till then whoever shall say that they are Propositions in the Scripture when there are no such Words so put together to be found in Holy Writ seems to me to make a new Scripture in Words and Propositions that the Holy Ghost dictated not I do not here question their Truth nor deny that they may be drawn from the Scripture But I deny that these very Propositions are in express Words in my Bible For that is the only thing I deny here if your Lordship can shew them me in yours I beg you to do it In the mean time
till one can get to some positive determined Sense of the Speaker If your Lordship had pleased to have condescended so far to my low Capacity as to have delivered your meaning here determined to any one of the Senses above set down or any other that you may have in these Words I gather'd them from it would have saved me a great deal of writing and your Lordship loss of time in reading I should not say this here to your Lordship were it only in this one place that I find this inconvenience It is every where in all your Lordship's Reasonings that my want of Understanding causes me this difficulty and against my Will multiplies the words of my Answer For notwithstanding all that great deal that I have already said to these few Pages of your Lordship's yet my defence is not clear and set in its due light unless I shew in particular of every one of those Propositions some whereof I admit as true others I deny as not so that it will not prove what is to be proved viz. That my placing of Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas lessens the credibility of any Article of Faith which it had before Your Lordship having done with the Fundamental Articles of Natural Religion you come in the next place to those of Revelation to enquire as your Lordship says Whether those who embrace the Articles of Faith in the way of Ideas can retain their Certainty of those Articles when these Ideas are quitted What this Enquiry is I know not very well because I neither understand what it is to imbrace Articles of Faith in the way of Ideas nor know what your Lordship means by retaining their Certainty of those Articles when these Ideas are quitted But 't is no strange thing for my short Sight not always distinctly to discern your Lordship's meaning Yet here I presume to know that this is the thing to be proved viz. That my definition of Knowledge does not leave to the Articles of the Christian Faith the same credibility they had before The Articles your Lordship instances in are 1. The Resurrection of the dead And here your Lordship proceeds just in the same method of arguing as you did in the former your Lordship brings several Passages concerning Identity out of my Essay which you suppose inconsistent with the belief of the Resurrection of the same Body and this is your Argument to prove that my defining of Knowledge to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas alters the Foundations of this Article of Faith and leaves it not the same credibility it had before Now my Lord granting all that your Lordship has here quoted out of my Chapter of Identity and diversity to be as false as your Lordship pleases and as inconsistent as your Lordship would have it with the Article of the Resurrection from the dead nay granting all the rest of my whole Essay to be false how will it follow from thence that the placing Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this Article of Faith That the dead shall rise Let it be that I who place Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas am guilty of Errors that weaken the credibility of this Article of Faith others who place Certainty in the same Perception may not run into those Errors and so not have their belief of this Article at all shaken Your Lordship therefore by all the long discourse you have made here against my Notion of Personal Identity to prove that it weakens the credibility of the Resurrection of the dead should you have proved it never so clearly has not I humbly conceive said therein any one word towards the proving That my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of this Article of Faith For this my Lord is the Proposition to be proved as your Lordship cannot but remember if you please to recollect what is said in your 21st and following Pages and what in the 95th Page of my second Letter quoted by your Lordship it was designed as an answer to And so I proceed to the next Articles of Faith your Lordship instances in Your Lordship says 2. The next Articles of Faith which my Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with are no less than those of the Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour Where I must humbly crave leave to observe to your Lordship that in this second Head here your Lordship has changed the Question from my Notion of Certainty to my Notion of Ideas For the Question as I have often had occasion to observe to your Lordship is Whether my Notion of Certainty i. e. my placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas alters the Foundation and lessens the credibility of any Article of Faith This being the Question between your Lordship and me ought I humbly conceive most especially to have been kept close to in this Article of the Trinity because 't was upon the account of my Notion of Certainty as prejudicial to the Doctrine of the Trinity that my Book was first brought into this Dispute But your Lordship offers nothing that I can find to prove That my definition of Knowledge or Certainty does any way lessen the credibility of either of the Articles here mentioned unless your insisting upon some supposed Errors of mine about Nature and Person must be taken for proofs of this Proposition That my definition of Certainty lessens the credibility of the Articles of the Trinity and our Saviour's Incarnation And then the Answer I have already given to the same way of Argumentation used by your Lordship concerning the Articles of a God Revelation and the Resurrection I think may suffice Having as I beg leave to think shewn that your Lordship has not in the least proved this Proposition That the placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of any one Article of Faith which was your former Accusation against this as your Lordship is pleased to call it new Method of Certainty of so dangerous consequence to that Article of Faith which your Lordship has endeavoured to defend and all that your terrible Representation of it being as I humbly conceive come to just nothing I come now to vindicate my Book from your new Accusation in your last Letter and to shew that you no more prove the Passages you alledge out of my Essay to have any inconsistency with the Articles of Christian Faith you oppose them to than you have proved by them That my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of any of those Articles 1. The Article of Christian Faith your Lordship begins with is that of the Resurrection of the dead and concerning that you say The Reason of believing the Resurrection of the same Body upon my Grounds is from the Idea of