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
whether this your Interpretation of our Saviour's Words be necessarily to be received as their true Sense is That it will not be very easily reconciled to your saying you do not mean by the same Body The same individual Particles which were united at the point of Death And yet by this Interpretation of our Saviour's Words you can mean no other Particles but such as were united at the Point of Death Because you mean no other Substance but what comes out of the Grave and no Substance no particles come out you say but what were in the Grave and I think your Lordship will not say that the Particles that were seperate from the Body by perspiration before the point of Death were laid up in the Grave But your Lordship I find has an Answer to this viz. That by comparing this with other places you find that the Words of our Saviour above quoted are to be understood of the Substance of the Body to which the Soul was united and not to I suppose your Lordship writ of those individual Particles i. e. those individual Particles that are in the Grave at the Resurrection For so they must be read to make your Lordship's Sense entire and to the purpose of your Answer here And then methinks this last Sense of our Saviour's Words given by your Lordship wholly overturns the Sense which you have given of them above where from those Words you press the belief of the Resurrection of the same Body by this strong Argument that a Substance could not upon hearing the Voice of Christ come out of the Grave which was never in the Grave There as far as I can understand your Words your Lordship argues that our Saviour's Words must be understood of the Particles in the Grave unless as your Lordship says one can make it out that a Substance which never was in the Grave may come out of it And here your Lordship expresly says That our Saviour's Words are to be understood of the Substance of that Body to which the Soul was at any time united and not to those individual Particles that are in the Grave Which put together seems to me to say That our Saviour's Words are to be understood of those Particles only that are in the Grave and not of those Particles only which are in the Grave but of others also which have at any time been vitally united to the Soul but never were in the Grave The next Text your Lordship brings to make the Resurrection of the same Body in your Sense an Article of Faith are these Words of St. Paul For we must all appear before the Iudgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad To which your Lordship subjoins this Question Can these Words be understood of any other material Substance but that Body in which these things were done Answ. A Man may suspend his determining the meaning of the Apostle to be that a Sinner shall suffer for his Sins in the very same Body wherein he committed them Because St. Paul does not say he shall have the very same Body when he suffers that he had when he sinn'd The Apostle says indeed done in his Body The Body he had and did things in at Five or Fifteen was no doubt his Body as much as that which he did things in at Fifty was his Body though his Body were not the very same Body at those different Ages And so will the Body which he shall have after the Resurrection be his Body though it be not the very same with that which he had at Five or Fifteen or Fifty He that at Threescore is broke on the Wheel for a Murder he committed at Twenty is punished for what he did in his Body though the Body he has i. e. his Body at Threescore be not the same i. e. made up of the same individual Particles of Matter that that Body was which he had Forty Years before When your Lordship has resolved with your self what that same immutable he is which at the last Judgment shall receive the things done in his Body your Lordship will easily see that the Body he had when an Embryo in the Womb when a Child playing in Coats when a Man marrying a Wife and when Bed-rid dying of a Consumption and at last which he shall have after the Resurrection are each of them his Body though neither of them be the same Body the one with the other But farther to your Lordship's Question Can these Words be understood of any other material Substance but that Body in which these things were done I Answer these Words of St. Paul may be understood of another material Substance than that Body in which these things were done because your Lordship teaches me and gives me a strong Reason so to understand them Your Lordship says That you do not say the same Particles of Matter which the Sinner had at the very time of the Commission of his Sins shall be raised at the last Day And your Lordship gives this Reason for it For then a long Sinner must have a vast Body considering the continual spending of Particles by Perspiration Now my Lord if the Apostle's Words as your Lordship would argue cannot be understood of any other material Substance but that Body in which these things were done and no Body upon the removal or change of some of the Particles that at any time makes it up is the same material Substance or the same Body it will I think thence follow that either the Sinner must have all the same individual Particles vitally united to his Soul when he is raised that he had vitally united to his Soul when he sin'd Or else St. Paul's Words here cannot be understood to mean the same Body in which the things were done For if there were other Particles of Matter in the Body wherein the thing was done than in that which is raised that which is raised cannot be the same Body in which they were done Unless that alone which has just all the same individual Particles when any action is done being the same Body wherein it was done that also which has not the same individual Particles wherein that Action was done can be the same Body wherein it was done which is in effect to make the same Body sometimes to be the same and sometimes not the same Your Lordship thinks it suffices to make the same Body to have not all but no other Particles of Matter but such as were sometime or other vitally united to the Soul before But such a Body made up of part of the Particles sometime or other vitally united to the Soul is no more the same Body wherein the Actions were done in the distant parts of the long Sinner's life than that is the same Body in which a quarter or half or three quarters of the same
Particles that made it up are wanting For example A Sinner has acted here in his Body an hundred Years he is raised at the last day but with what Body The same says your Lordship That he acted in because St. Paul says he must receive the things done in his Body What therefore must his Body at the Resurrection consist of Must it consist of all the Particles of Matter that have ever been vitally united to his Soul For they in Succession have all of them made up his Body wherein he did these things No says your Lordship That would make his Body too vast it suffices to make the same Body in which the things were done that it consists of some of the Particles and no other but such as were sometime during his life vitally united to his Soul But according to this account his Body at the Resurrection being as your Lordship seems to limit it near the same size it was in some part of his life it will be no more the same Body in which the things were done in the distant parts of his life than that is the same Body in which half or three quarters or more of the individual Matter that made it then up is now wanting For example let his Body at 50 Years old consist of a Million of parts five hundred thousand at least of those parts will be different from those which made up his Body at 10 Years and at an hundred So that to take the numerical Particles that made up his Body at 50 or any other season of his life or to gather them promiscuously out of those which at different times have successively been vitally united to his Soul they will no more make the same Body which was his wherein some of his Actions were done than that is the same Body which has but half the same Particles And yet all your Lordship's Argument here for the same Body is because St. Paul says it must be his Body in which these things were done which it could not be if any other Substance were joined to it i. e. if any other Particles of Matter made up the Body which were not vitally united to the Soul when the Action was done Again your Lordship says That you do not say the same individual Particles shall make up the Body at the Resurrection which were united at the point of death for there must be a great alteration in them of a lingring Disease as if a fat Man falls into a Consumption Because 't is likely your Lordship thinks these Particles of a decrepit wasted withered Body would be too few or unfit to make such a plump strong vigorous well-siz'd Body as it has pleased your Lordship to proportion out in your Thoughts to Men at the Resurrection and therefore some small portion of the Particles formerly united vitally to that Man's Soul shall be re-assumed to make up his Body to the bulk your Lordship judges convenient but the greatest part of them shall be left out to avoid the making his Body more vast than your Lordship thinks will be fit as appears by these your Lordship's words immediately following viz. That you do not say the same Particles the Sinner had at the very time of Commission of his Sins for then a long Sinner must have a vast Body But then pray my Lord what must an Embryo do who dying within a few hours after his Body was vitally united to his Soul has no Particles of Matter which were formerly vitally united to it to make up his Body of that size and proportion which your Lordship seems to require in Bodies at the Resurrection Or must we believe he shall remain content with that small Pittance of Matter and that yet imperfect Body to Eternity because it is an Article of Faith to believe the Resurrection of the very same Body i. e. made up of only such Particles as have been vitally united to the Soul For if it be so as your Lordship says That life is the result of the Vnion of Soul and Body it will follow That the Body of an Embryo dying in the Womb may be very little not the thousandth part of any ordinary Man For since from the first conception and beginning of formation it has life and life is the result of the Vnion of the Soul with the Body an Embryo that shall die either by the untimely death of the Mother or by any other accident presently after it has Life must according to your Lordship's Doctrin remain a Man not an inch long to Eternity because there are not Particles of Matter formerly united to his Soul to make him bigger and no other can be made use of to that purpose Though what greater congruity the Soul hath with any Particles of Matter which were once vitally united to it but are now so no longer than it hath with Particles of Matter which it was never united to would be hard to determine if that should be demanded By these and not a few other the like consequences one may see what service they do to Religion and the Christian Doctrin who raise Questions and make Articles of Faith about the Resurrection of the same Body where the Scripture says nothing of the same Body or if it does it is with no small reprimand to those who make such an enquiry But some Man will say How are the dead raised up And with what Body do they come Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die And that which thou sowest thou sowest not that Body that shall be but bare Grain it may chance of Wheat or of some other Grain But God giveth it a Body as it hath pleased him Words I should think sufficient to deterr us from determining any thing for or against the same Body being raised at the last day It suffices that all the dead shall be raised and every one appear and answer for the things done in this life and receive according to the things he hath done in his Body whether good or bad He that believes this and has said nothing inconsistent herewith I presume may and must be acquitted from being guilty of any thing inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection of the dead But your Lordship to prove the Resurrection of the same Body to be an Article of Faith farther asks How could it be said if any other Substance be joined to the Soul at the Resurrection as its Body that they were the things done in or by the Body Answ. Just as it may be said of a Man at an hundred Years old that hath then an other Substance joined to his Soul than he had at twenty that the Murder or Drunkenness he was guilty of at twenty were things done in the Body How by the Body comes in here I do not see Your Lordship adds And St. Paul 's dispute about the manner of raising the Body might soon have ended if there were no
necessity of the same Body Answ. When I understand what Argument there is in these Words to prove the Resurrection of the same Body without the mixture of one new Atom of Matter I shall know what to say to it In the mean time this I understand That St. Paul would have put as short an end to all disputes about this Matter if he had said That there was a necessity of the same Body or that it should be the same Body The next Text of Scripture you bring for the same Body is If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is not Christ raised From which your Lordship argues It seems then other Bodies are to be raised as his was I grant other dead as certainly raised as Christ was for else his Resurrection would be of no use to Mankind But I do not see how it follows that they shall be raised with the same Body as Christ was raised with the same Body as your Lordship infers in these Words annexed And can there be any doubt whether his Body was the same material Substance which was united to his Soul before I answer none at all nor that it had just the same undistinguish'd Lineaments and Marks yea and the same Wounds that it had at the time of his death If therefore your Lordship will argue from others Bodies being raised as his was That they must keep proportion with his in sameness then we must believe that every Man shall be raised with the same Lineaments and other Notes of distinction he had at the time of his death even with his Wounds yet open if he had any because our Saviour was so raised which seems to me scarce reconcilable with what your Lordship says of a fat Man falling into a Consumption and dying But whether it will consist or no with your Lordship's meaning in that Place this to me seems a consequence that will need to be better proved viz. That our Bodies must be raised the same just as our Saviours was Because St. Paul says If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is not Christ risen For it may be a good consequence Christ is risen and therefore there shall be a Resurrection of the dead and yet this may not be a good consequence Christ was raised with the same Body he had at his Death therefore all Men shall be raised with the same Body they had at their Death contrary to what your Lordship says concerning a fat Man dying of a Consumption But the Case I think far different betwixt our Saviour and those to be raised at the last Day 1. His Body saw not Corruption and therefore to give him another Body new molded mixed with other Particles which were not contained in it as it lay in the Grave whole and entire as it was laid there had been to destroy his Body to frame him a new one without any need But why with the remaining Particles of a Man's Body long since dissolved and molder'd into Dust and Atoms whereof possibly a great part may have undergone variety of changes and entred into other concretions even in the Bodies of other Men other new Particles of Matter mixed with them may not serve to make his Body again as well as the mixture of new and different Particles of Matter with the Old did in the compass of his Life make his Body I think no Reason can be given This may serve to shew why though the Materials of our Saviour's Body were not changed at his Resurrection Yet it does not follow but that the Body of a Man dead and rotten in his Grave or burnt may at the last Day have several new Particles in it and that without any inconvenience Since whatever Matter is vitally united to his Soul is his Body as much as is that which was united to it when he was born or in any other part of his Life 2. In the next place the size shape figure and lineaments of our Saviour's Body even to his Wounds into which doubting Thomas put his Fingers and his Hand were to be kept in the raised Body of our Saviour the same they were at his Death to be a conviction to his Disciples to whom he shew'd himself and who were to be Witnesses of his Resurrection that their Master the very same Man was crucified dead and buried and raised again and therefore he was handled by them and Eat before them after he was risen to give them in all points full Satisfaction that it was really he the same and not another nor a Specter or Apparition of him Though I do not think your Lordship will thence argue that because others are to be raised as he was therefore it is necessary to believe that because he Eat after his Resurrection others at the last Day shall Eat and Drink after they are raised from the dead which seems to me as good an Argument as because his undissolved Body was raised out of the Grave just as it there lay intire without the mixture of any new Particles therefore the corrupted and consumed Bodies of the dead at the Resurrection shall be new framed only out of those scatter'd Particles which were once vitally united to their Souls without the least mixture of any one single Atom of new Matter But at the last Day when all Men are raised there will be no need to be assured of any one particular Man's Resurrection 'T is enough that every one shall appear before the Judgement-seat of Christ to receive according to what he had done in his former Life but in what sort of Body he shall appear or of what Particles made up the Scripture having said nothing but that it shall be a spiritual Body raised in incorruption it is not for me to determine Your Lordship asks were they who saw our Saviour after his Resurrection witnesses only of some material Substance then united to his Soul In Answer I beg your Lordship to consider whether you suppose our Saviour was to be known to be the same Man to the Witnesses that were to see him and testifie his Resurrection by his Soul that could neither be seen nor known to be the same or by his Body that could be seen and by the discernible structure and marks of it be known to be the same When your Lordship has resolved that all that you say in that Page will answer it self But because one Man cannot know another to be the same but by the outward visible lineaments and sensible marks he has been wont to be known and distinguished by will your Lordship therefore argue That the great Judge at the last Day who gives to each Man whom he raises his new Body shall not be able to know who is who unless he give to every one of them a Body just of the same figure size and features and made up of the very same individual Particles he had in his former Life Whether such a way of arguing for
Infant have the same Body But this is a way of Certainty found out to establish the Articles of Faith and to overturn the new Method of Certainty that your Lordship says I have started which is apt to leave Mens Minds more doubtful than before And now I desire your Lordship to consider of what use it is to you in the present Case to quote out of my Essay these Words That partaking of one common Life makes the Identity of a Plant since the Question is not about the Identity of a Plant but about the Identity of a Body It being a very different thing to be the same Plant and to be the same Body For that which makes the same Plant does not make the same Body the one being the partaking in the same continued vegetable life the other the consisting of the same numerical Particles of Matter And therefore your Lordship's inference from my Words above quoted in these which you subjoin seems to me a very strange one viz. So that in things capable of any sort of Life the Identity is consistent with a continued succession of Parts and so the Wheat grown up is the same Body with the Grain that was sown For I believe if my Words from which you infer and so the Wheat grown up is the same Body with the Grain that was sown were put into a Syllogism this would hardly be brought to be the Conclusion But your Lordship goes on with consequence upon consequence though I have not Eyes acute enough every where to see the connection till you bring it to the Resurrection of the same Body The connection of your Lordship's Words are as followeth And thus the alteration of the parts of the Body at the Resurrection is consistent with its Identity if its Organization and Life be the same and this is a real Identity of the Body which depends not upon consciousness From whence it follows that to make the same Body no more is requir'd but restoring life to the organiz'd parts of it If the Question were about raising the same Plant I do not say but there might be some appearance for making such inference from my Words as this Whence it follows that to make the same Plant no more is required but to restore life to the organized parts of it But this deduction wherein from those Words of mine that speak only of the Identity of a Plant your Lordship infers there is no more required to make the the same Body than to make the same Plant being too subtle for me I leave to my Reader to find out Your Lordship goes on and says That I grant likewise That the Identity of the same Man consists in a participation of the same continued life by constantly fleeting particles of Matter in succession vitally united to the same organized Body Answ. I speak in these Words of the Identity of the same Man and your Lordship thence roundly concludes so that there is no difficulty of the sameness of the Body But your Lordship knows that I do not take these two sounds Man and Body to stand for the same thing nor the Identity of the Man to be the same with the Identity of the Body But let us read out your Lordship's Words So that there is no difficulty as to the sameness of the Body if life were continued and if by divine Power life be restored to that material Substance which was before united by a Re-union of the Soul to it there is no Reason to deny the Identity of the Body Not from the Consciousness of the Soul but from that Life which is the Result of the Union of the Soul and Body If I understand your Lordship right you in these Words from the Passages above quoted out of my Book argue that from those Words of mine it will follow That it is or may be the same Body that is raised at the Resurrection If so my Lord your Lordship has then proved That my Book is not inconsistent with but conformable to this Article of the Resurrection of the same Body which your Lordship contends for and will have to be an Article of Faith For though I do by no means deny that the same Bodies shall be raised at the last day yet I see nothing your Lordship has said to prove it to be an Article of Faith But your Lordship goes on with your proofs and says But St. Paul still supposes that it must be that material Substance to which the Soul was before united For saith he It is sown in Corruption it is raised in Incorruption It is sown in Dishonour it is raised in Glory It is sown in Weakness it is raised in Power It is sown a Natural Body it is raised a Spiritual Body Can such a material Substance which was never united to the Body be said to be sown in Corruption and Weakness and Dishonour Either therefore he must speak of the same Body or his meaning cannot be comprehended I answer Can such a material Substance which was never laid in the Grave be said to be sown c For your Lordship says You do not say the same individual Particles which were united at the point of death shall be raised at the last day and no other Particles are laid in the Grave but such as are united at the point of death either therefore your Lordship must speak of an other Body different from that which was sown which shall be raised or else your meaning I think cannot be comprehended But whatever be your meaning your Lordship proves it to be St. Paul's meaning That the same Body shall be raised which was sown in these following Words For what does all this relate to a conscious Principle Answ. The Scripture being express That the same Persons should be raised and appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that every one may receive according to what he had done in his Body it was very well suited to common Apprehensions which refined not about Particles that had been vitally united to the Soul to speak of the Body which each one was to have after the Resurrection as he would be apt to speak of it himself For it being his Body both before and after the Resurrection every one ordinarily speaks of his Body as the same though in a strict and philosophical sense as your Lordship speaks it be not the very same Thus it is no impropriety of Speech to say This Body of mine which was formerly strong and plump is now weak and wasted though in such a Sense a you are speaking in here it be not the same Body Revelation declares nothing any where concerning the same Body in your Lordship's Sense of the same Body which appears not to have been then thought of The Apostle directly proposes nothing for or against the same Body as necessary to be believed That which he is plain and direct in is his opposing and condemning such curious Questions
Flesh and Blood For Flesh and Blood cannot says St. Paul in this very place inherit the Kingdom of God unless I say all this which is contained in St. Paul's Words can be supposed to be the way to deliver this as an Article of Faith which is required to be believed by every one viz. That the dead should be raised with the very same Bodies that they had before in this Life which Article proposed in these or the like plain and express Words could have left no room for doubt in the meanest Capacities nor for contest in the most perverse Minds Your Lordship adds in the next Words And so it hath been always understood by the Christian Church viz. That the Resurrection of the same Body in your Lordship's Sense of same Body is an Article of Faith Answ. What the Christian Church has always understood is beyond my Knowledge But for those who coming short of your Lordship's great Learning cannot gather their Articles of Faith from the understanding of all the whole Christian Church ever since the Preaching of the Gospel who make the far greater part of Christians I think I may say Nine hundred ninety and nine of a Thousand but are forced to have recourse to the Scripture to find them there I do not see that they will easily find there this proposed as an Article of Faith that there shall be a Resurrection of the same Body but that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead without explicitly determining That they shall be raised with Bodies made up wholly of the same Particles which were once vitally united to their Souls in their former Life without the mixture of any one other Particle of Matter which is that which your Lordship means by the same Body But supposing your Lordship to have demonstrated this to be an Article of Faith though I crave leave to own that I do not see that all that your Lordship has said here makes it so much as probable What is all this to me Yes says your Lordship in the following Words My Idea of personal Identity is inconsistent with it for it makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary to the Doctrin of the Resurrection But any material Substance united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body This is an Argument of your Lordship's which I am obliged to Answer to But is it not fit I should first understand it before I Answer it Now here I do not well know what it is to make a thing not to be necessary to the Doctrin of the Resurrection But to help my self out the best I can with a guess I will conjecture which in disputing with learned Men is not very safe your Lordship's meaning is That my Idea of perpersonal Identity makes it not necessary that for the raising the same Person the Body should be the same Your Lordship's next Word is But to which I am ready to reply But what What does my Idea of personal Identity do For something of that kind the adversative Particle But should in the ordinary construction of our Language introduce to make the Proposition clear and intelligible But here is no such thing But is one of your Lordship's priviledged Particles which I must not medle with for fear your Lordship complain of me again as so severe a Critick that for the least Ambiguity in any Particle fill up Pages in my Answer to make my Book look considerable for the bulk of it But since this Proposition here my Idea of personal Identity makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not necessary to the Doctrin of the Resurrection But any material Substance being united to the same Principle of Consciousness makes the same Body is brought to prove my Idea of personal Identity inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection I must make it out in some direct Sense or other that I may see whether it be both true and conclusive I therefore venture to read it thus my Idea of personal Identity makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary at the Resurrection but allows That any material Substance being united to the same principle of Consciousness makes the same Body Ergo my Idea of personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection of the same Body If this be your Lordship's Sense in this Passage as I here have guessed it to be or else I know not what it is I answer 1. That my Idea of Personal Identity does not allow that any material Substance being united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body I say no such thing in my Book nor any thing from whence it may be infer'd and your Lordship would have done me a favour to have set down the Words where I say so or those from which you infer so and shew'd how it follows from any thing I have said 2. Granting that it were a consequence from my Idea of Personal Identity that any material Substance being united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body this would not prove that my Idea of Personal Identity was inconsistent with this Proposition That the same Body shall be raised but on the contrary affirms it Since if I affirm as I do That the same Persons shall be raised and it be a consequence of my Idea of Personal Identity that any material Substance being united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body it follows that if the same Person be raised the same Body must be raised and so I have herein not only said nothing inconsistent with the Resurrection of the same Body but have said more for it than your Lordship For there can be nothing plainer than that in the Scripture it is reaveled That the same Persons shall be raised and appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ to answer for what they have done in their Bodies If therefore whatever Matter be joined to the same Principle of Consciousness make the same Body it is demonstration That if the same Persons are raised they have the same Bodies How then your Lordship makes this an inconsistency with the Resurrection is beyond my conception Yes says your Lordship it is inconsistent with it for it makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary 3. I answer therefore Thirdly That this is the first time I ever learnt That not necessary was the same with inconsistent I say that a Body made up of the same numerical parts of Matter is not necessary to the making of the same Person from whence it will indeed follow that to the Resurrection of the same Person the same numerical Particles of Matter are not required What does your Lordship infer from hence to wit this Therefore he who thinks that the same Particles of Matter are not necessary to the making of the same
Person cannot believe that the same Persons shall be raised with Bodies made of the very same Particles of Matter if God should reveal that it shall be so viz. That the same Persons shall be raised with the same Bodies they had before Which is all one as to say That he who thought the blowing of Rams Horns was not necessary in it self to the falling down of the Walls of Iericho could not believe that they should fall upon the blowing of Rams Horns when God had declared it should be so Your Lordship says My Idea of Personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection the Reason you ground it on is this because it makes not the same Body necessary to the making the same Person Let us grant your Lordship's consequence to be good what will follow from it No less than this That your Lordship's Notion for I dare not say your Lordship has any so dangerous things as Ideas of Personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection The demonstration of it is thus your Lordship says It is not necessary that the Body to be raised at the last day should consist of the same Particles of Matter which were united at the point of death for there must be a great alteration in them in a lingring Disease as if a fat Man falls into a Consumption You do not say the same Particles which the Sinner had at the very time of Commission of his Sins for then a long Sinner must have a vast Body considering the continual spending of Particles by Perspiration And again here your Lordship says You allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter From which words it is evident That your Lordship supposes a Person in this World may be continued and preserved the same in a Body not consisting of the same individual Particles of Matter and hence it demonstratively follows That let your Lordship's Notion of Personal Identity be what it will it makes the same Body not to be necessary to the same Person and therefore it is by your Lordship's Rule inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection When your Lordship shall think fit to clear your own Notion of Personal Identity from this inconsistency with the Article of the Resurrection I do not doubt but my Idea of Personal Identity will be thereby cleared too Till then all inconsistency with that Article which your Lordship has here charged on mine will unavoidably fall upon your Lordship 's too But for the clearing of both give me leave to say my Lord That whatsoever is not necessary does not thereby become inconsistent It is not necessary to the same Person that his Body should always consist of the same numerical Particles this is demonstration because the Particles of the Bodies of the same Persons in this life change every moment and your Lordship cannot deny it and yet this makes it not inconsistent with God's preserving if he thinks fit to the same Persons Bodies consisting of the same numerical Particles always from the Resurrection to Eternity And so likewise though I say any thing that supposes it not necessary that the same numerical Particles which were vitally united to the Soul in this life should be reunited to it at the Resurrection and constitute the Body it shall then have yet it is not inconsistent with this That God may if he pleases give to every one a Body consisting only of such Particles as were before vitally united to his Soul And thus I think I have cleared my Book from all that inconsistency which your Lordship charges on it and would perswade the World it has with the Article of the Resurrection of the dead Only before I leave it I will set down the remainder of what your Lordship says upon this Head that though I see not the coherence nor tendency of it nor the force of any Argument in it against me yet nothing may be omitted that your Lordship has thought fit to entertain your Reader with on this new Point nor any one have Reason to suspect that I have passed by any word of your Lordship's on this now first introduced Subject wherein he might find your Lordship had proved what you had promised in your Title-page Your remaining Words are these The Dispute is not how far Personal Identity in it self may consist in the very same material Substance for we allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter but whether it doth not depend upon a vital Vnion between the Soul and Body and the Life which is consequent upon it and therefore in the Resurrection the same material Substance must be re-united or else it cannot be called a Resurrection but a Renovation i. e. it may be a new Life but not a raising the Body from the dead I confess I do not see how what is here ushered in by the words and therefore is a consequence from the preceding words but as to the propriety of the Name I think it will not be much questioned that if the same Man rise who was dead it may very properly be called the Resurrection of the dead which is the Language of the Scripture I must not part with this Article of the Resurrection without returning my thanks to your Lordship for making me take notice of a Fault in my Essay When I write that Book I took it for granted as I doubt not but many others have done that the Scripture had mention'd in express terms the Resurrection of the Body But upon the Occasion your Lordship has given me in your last Letter to look a little more narrowly into what Revelation has declar'd concerning the Resurrection and finding no such express words in the Scripture as that the Body shall rise or be raised or the Resurrection of the Body I shall in the next Edition of it change these words of my Book The dead Bodies of Men shall rise into these of the Scripture The dead shall rise Not that I question that the dead shall be raised with Bodies But in Matters of Revelation I think it not only safest but our Duty as far as any one delivers it for Revelation to keep close to the words of the Scripture unless he will assume to himself the Authority of one inspired or make himself wiser than the holy Spirit himself If I had spoke of the Resurrection in precisely Scripture terms I had avoided giving your Lordship the occasion of making here such a verbal Reflection on my Words What not if there be an Idea of Identity as to the Body I come now to your Lordship's second Head of Accusation 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 But all the proof of inconsistency your Lordship here
this third Body which St. Paul mentions not and to make that the same or not the same with any other when those which St. Paul speaks of are as I humbly conceive these two visible sensible Bodies the Grain sown and the Corn grown up to Ear with neither of which this insensible embryonated Plant can be the same Body unless an insensible Body can be the same Body with a sensible Body and a little Body can be the same Body with one ten thousand or an hundred thousand times as big as its self So that yet I confess I see not the Resurrection of the same Body proved from these words of St. Paul to be an Article of Faith Your Lordship goes on St. Paul indeed saith That we sow not that Body that shall be but he speaks not of the Identity but the Perfection of it Here my Understanding fails me again For I cannot understand St. Paul to say That the same Identical sensible grain of Wheat which was sown at seed-time is the very same with every grain of Wheat in the Ear at Harvest that sprang from it Yet so I must understand it to make it prove That the same sensible Body that is laid in the Grave shall be the very same with that which shall be raised at the Resurrection For I do not know of any seminal Body in little contained in the dead Carcass of any Man or Woman which as your Lordship says in Seeds having its proper Organical parts shall afterwards be enlarged and at the Resurrection grow up into the same Man For I never thought of any Seed or Seminal parts either of Plant or Animal so wonderfully improved by the Providence of God whereby the same Plant or Animal should beget it self nor ever heard that it was by Divine Providence designed to produce the same individual but for the producing of future and distinct individuals for the continuation of the same Species Your Lordship's next Words are And although there be such a difference from the Grain it self when it comes up to be perfect Corn with Root Stalk Blade and Ear that it may be said to outward appearance not to be the same Body yet with regard to the Seminal and Organical parts it is as much the same as a Man grown up is the same with the Embryo in the Womb. Answ. It does not appear by any thing I can find in the Text That St. Paul here compared the Body produced with the Seminal and Organical parts contained in the Grain it sprang from but with the whole sensible Grain that was sown Microscopes had not then discovered the little Embryo plant in the Seed and supposing it should have been reavealed to St. Paul though in the Scripture we find little Revelation of natural Philosophy yet an Argument taken from a thing perfectly unknown to the Corinthians whom he writ to could be of no manner of use to them nor serve at all either to instruct or convince them But granting that those St. Paul writ to knew it as well as Mr. Lewenhooke yet your Lordship thereby proves not the raising of the same Body Your Lordship says it is as much the same I crave leave to add Body as a Man grown up is the same Same what I beseech your Lordship with the Embryo in the Womb. For that the Body of the Embryo in the Womb and Body of the Man grown up is the same Body I think no one will say unless he can perswade himself that a Body that is not the hundredth part of an other is the same with that other which I think no one will do till having renounced this dangerous way by Ideas of Thinking and Reasoning he has learnt to say that a part and the whole are the same Your Lordship goes on And although many Arguments may be used to prove that a Man is not the same because Life which depends upon the course of the Blood and the manner of Respiration and Nutrition is so different in both States yet that Man would be thought ridiculous that should seriously affirm That it was not the same Man And your Lordship says I grant that the variation of great Parcels of Matter in Plants alters not the Identity And that the Organization of the parts in one coherent Body partaking of one common Life makes the Identity of a Plant. Answ. My Lord I think the Question is not about the same Man but the same Body For tho' I do say somewhat differently from what your Lordship sets down as my words here That that which has such an Organization as is fit to receive and distribute Nourishment so as to continue and frame the Wood Bark and Leaves c. of a Plant in which consists the vegetable Life continues to be the same Plant as long as it partakes of the same Life though that Life be communicated to new Particles of Matter vitally united to the living Plant. Yet I do not remember that I any where say That a Plant which was once no bigger than an Oaten straw and afterwards grows to be above a Fathom about is the same Body though it be still the same Plant. The well known Tree in Epping Forest called the King's Oak which from not weighing an Ounce at first grew to have many Tuns of Timber in it was all along the fame Oak the very same Plant but no body I think will say it was the same Body when it weighed a Tun as it was when it weighed but an Ounce unless he has a mind to signalize himself by saying That that is the same Body which has a thousand Particles of different Matter in it for one Particle that is the same which is no better than to say That a thousand different Particles are but one and the same Particle and one and the same Particle is a thousand different Particles a thousand times a greater absurdity than to say half is the whole or the whole is the same with the half which will be improved ten thousand times yet farther if a Man shall say as your Lordship seems to me to argue here That that great Oak is the very same Body with the Acorn it sprang from because there was in that Acorn an Oak in little which was afterwards as your Lordship expresses it so much enlarged as to make that mighty Tree For this Embryo if I may so call it or Oak in little being not the hundredth or perhaps the thousandth part of the Acorn and the Acorn being not the thousandth part of the grown Oak 't will be very extraordinary to prove the Acorn and the grown Oak to be the same Body by a way wherein it cannot be pretended that above one Particle of an hundred Thousand or a Million is the same in the one Body that was in the other From which way of Reasoning it will follow that a Nurse and her Sucking-child have the same Body and be past doubt that a Mother and her
to have other Titles than bare Scepticism bestowed upon it and would have raised no small Out-cry against any one who is not to be supposed to be in the right in all that he says and so may securely say what he pleases Such as I the Prophanum Vulgus who take too much upon us if we would examine have nothing to do but to hearken and believe though what he said should subvert the very Foundations of the Christian Faith What I have above observed is so visibly contained in your Lordship's Argument That when I met with it in your Answer to my first Letter it seemed so strange from a Man of your Lordship's Character and in a Dispute in defence of the Doctrin of the Trinity that I could hardly perswade my self but it was a slip of your Pen But when I found it in your second Letter made use of again and seriously enlarged as an Argument of Weight to be insisted upon I was convinced that it was a Principle that you heartily imbraced how little favourable soever it was to the Articles of the Christian Religion and particularly those which you undertook to defend I desire my Reader to peruse the Passages as they stand in your Letters themselves and see whether what you say in them does not amount to this That a Revelation from God is more or less credible according as it has a stronger or weaker confirmation from Humane Reason For 1. Your Lordship says You do 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 depends wholly upon God's giving that which of its own Nature it is not capable of To which I reply any ones not being able to demonstrate the Soul to be Immaterial takes off not very much nor at all from the evidence of its Immortality if God has revealed that it shall be Immortal because the Veracity of God is a Demonstration of the Truth of what he has revealed and the want of an other Demonstration of a Proposition that is demonstratively true takes not off from the Evidence of it For where there is a clear Demonstration there is as much Evidence as any Truth can have that is not Self-evident God has revealed that the Souls of Men shall live for ever But says your Lordship from this Evidence it takes off very much if it depends wholly upon God's giving that which of its own Nature it is not capable of i. e. The Revelation and Testimony of God loses much of its Evidence if this depends wholly upon the good Pleasure of God and cannot be demonstratively made out by natural Reason that the Soul is immaterial and consequently in its own Nature immortal For that is all that here is or can be meant by these Words which of its own Nature it is not capable of to make them to the purpose For the whole of your Lordship's Discourse here is to prove That the Soul cannot be material because then the Evidence of its being immortal would be very much lessened Which is to say That 't is not as credible upon divine Revelation that a material Substance should be immortal as an immaterial or which is all one That God is not equally to be believed when he declares that a material Substance shall be immortal as when he declares that an immaterial shall be so because the Immortality of a material Substance cannot be demonstrated from natural Reason Let us try this Rule of your Lordship 's a little farther God hath revealed that the Bodies Men shall have after the Resurrection as well as their Souls shall live to Eternity Does your Lordship believe the eternal Life of the one of these more than of the other because you think you can prove it of one of them by natural Reason and of the other not Or can any one who admits of divine Revelation in the Case doubt of one of them more than the other Or think this Proposition less credible the Bodies of Men after the Resurrection shall live for ever than this That the Souls of Men shall after the Resurrection live for ever For that he must do if he thinks either of them is less credible than the other If this be so Reason is to be consulted how far God is to be believed and the credit of divine Testimony must receive its force from the Evidence of Reason which is evidently to take away the credibility of divine Revelation in all supernatural Truths wherein the Evidence of Reason fails And how much such a Principle as this tends to the support of the Doctrin of the Trinity or the promoting the Christian Religion I shall leave it to your Lordship to consider I am not so well read in Hobbes or Spinoza as to be able to say what were their Opinions in this Matter But possibly there be those who will think your Lordship's Authority of more use to them in the Case than those justly decried Names And be glad to find your Lordship a Patron of the Oracles of Reason so little to the Advantage of the Oracles of Divine Revelation This at least I think may be subjoined to the Words at the bottom of the next Page That those who have gone about to lessen the Credibility of Articles of Faith which evidently they do who say they are less credible because they cannot be made out demonstratively by Natural Reason have not been thought to secure several of the Articles of the Christian Faith especially those of the Trinity Inoarnation and Resurrection of the Body which are those upon the account of which I am brought by your Lordship into this Dispute I shall not trouble the Reader with your Lordship's Endeavours in the following Words to prove That if the Soul be not an immaterial Substance it can be nothing but Life your very first Words visibly confuting all that you alledge to that purpose They are If the Soul be immaterial Substance it is really nothing but Life which is to say That if the Soul be really a Substance it is not really a Substance but really nothing else but an affection of a Substance for the Life whether of a material or immaterial Substance is not the Substance it self but an affection of it 2. You say Although we think the separate State of the Soul after Death is sufficiently revealed in the Scripture yet it creates a great difficulty in understanding it if the Soul be nothing but Life or a material Substance which must be dissolved when Life is ended For if the Soul be a material Substance it must be made up as others are of the Cohesion of solid and separate Parts how minute and invisible soever they be And what is it which should keep them together when Life is gone So that it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial
For if in this present Case the credibility of this Proposition The Souls of Men shall five for ever revealed in the Scripture be lessened by confessing it cannot be demonstratively proved from Reason though it be asserted to be most highly probable Must not by the same Rule its credibility dwindle away to nothing if natural Reason should not be able to make it out to be so much as probable or should place the probability from natural Principles on the other side For if meer want of Demonstration lessens the credibility of any Proposition divinely revealed must not want of probability or contrary probability from natural Reason quite take away its credibility Here at last it must end if in any one Case the Veracity of God and the credibility of the Truths we receive from him by Revelation be subjected to the verdicts of humane Reason and be allowed to receive any accession or diminution from other Proofs or want of other Proofs of its Certainty or Probability If this be your Lordship's way to promote Religion or defend its Articles I know not what Argument the greatest Enemies of it could use more effectual for the Subversion of those you have undertaken to defend this being to resolve all Revelation perfectly and purely into Natural Reason to bound its Credibility by that and leave no room for Faith in other things than what can be accounted for by Natural Reason without Revelation Your Lordship insists much upon it as if I had contradicted what I had said in my Essay by saying That upon my Principles it cannot be demonstratively proved that it is an immaterial Substance in us that Thinks however probable it be He that will be at the pains to read that Chapter of mine and consider it will find that my Business there was to shew that it was no harder to conceive an immaterial than a material Substance and that from the Ideas of Thought and a Power of moving of Matter which we experienced in out selves Ideas originally not belonging to Matter as Matter there was no more difficulty to conclude there was an immaterial Substance in us than that we had material Parts These Ideas of Thinking and Power of moving of Matter I in another place shew'd did demonstratively lead us to the certain knowledge of the Existence of an immaterial Thinking Being in whom we have the Idea of Spirit in the strictest Sense in which Sense I also applyed it to the Soul in that 23d Chapter of my Essay the easily conceivable possibility nay great probability that that thinking Substance in us is immaterial giving me sufficient Ground for it In which Sense I shall think I may safely attribute it to the thinking Substance in us till your Lordship shall have better proved from my Words That it is impossible it should be immaterial For I only say That it is possible i. e. involves no Contradiction that God the omnipotent immaterial Spirit should if he pleases give to some parcels of Matter disposed as he thinks fit a Power of Thinking and Moving Which parcels of Matter so endued with a Power of Thinking and Motion might properly be called Spirits in contradistinction to unthinking Matter In all which I presume there is no manner of Contradiction I justified my use of the word Spirit in that Sense from the Authorities of Cicero and Virgil applying the Latin word Spiritus from whence Spirit is derived to the Soul as a thinking Thing without excluding Materiality out of it To which your Lordship replies That Cicero in his Tusculan Questions supposes the Soul not to be a finer sort of Body but of a different Nature from the Body That he calls the Body the Prison of the Soul And says That a wise Man's Business is to draw off his Soul from his Body And then your Lordship concludes as is usual with a Question Is it possible now to think so great a Man look'd on the Soul but as a modification of the Body which must be at an end with Life Answ. No it is impossible that a Man of so good Sense as Tully when he uses the word Corpus or Body for the gross and visible parts of a Man which he acknowledges to be mortal should look on the Soul to be a modification of that Body in a Discourse wherein he was endeavouring to persuade another that it was immortal It is to be acknowledge'd that truly great Men such as he was are not wont so manifestly to contradict themselves He had therefore no Thought concerning the modification of the Body of Man in the Case He was not such a Trifler as to examin whether the modification of the Body of a Man was immortal when that Body it self was mortal And therefore that which he reports as Dicoearchus's Opinion he dismisses in the beginning without any more ado c. 11. But Cicero's was a direct plain and sensible Enquiry viz. What the Soul was to see whether from thence he could discover its Immortality But in all that Discourse in his first Book of Tusculan Questions where he lays out so much of his Reading and Reason there is not one Syllable shewing the least Thought that the Soul was an immaterial Substance but many Things directly to the contrary Indeed 1. he shuts out the Body taken in the Sense he uses Corpus all-a-long for the sensible organical parts of a Man and is positive that is not the Soul And Body in this Sense taken for the Humane Body he calls the Prison of the Soul and says a wise Man instancing in Socrates and Cato is glad of a fair opportunity to get out of it But he no where says any such thing of Matter He calls not Matter in general the Prison of the Soul nor talks a Word of being separate from it 2. He concludes That the Soul is not like other Things here below made up of a Composition of the Elements c. 27. 3. He excludes the two gross Elements Earth and Water from being the Soul c. 26. So far he is clear and positive But beyond this he is uncertain beyond this he could not get For in some Places he speaks doubtfully whether the Soul be not Air or Fire Anima sit animus ignisve nescio c. 25. And therefore he agrees with Panoetius that if it be at all Elementary it is as he calls it Inflammata Anima inflamed Air and for this he gives several Reasons c. 18 19. And though he thinks it to be of a peculiar Nature of its own yet he is so far from thinking it immaterial that he says c. 19. That the admitting it to be of an aereal or igneous Nature would not be inconsistent with any thing he had said That which he seems most to incline to is That the Soul was not at all Elementary but was of the same Substance with the Heavens which Aristotle to distinguish from the four Elements and the changeable Bodies here below which he supposed made up of