reason to complain of it and of the manner of its being brought in And if you had pleas'd not to have moved other Questions nor brought other Charges against my Book till this which was the Occasion and Subject of my First Letter had been cleared by making out that the Passages you had in your Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity quoted out of my Book had something in them against the Doctrin of the Trinity and so were with just reason brought by you as they were into that Dispute there had been no other but that Personal Matter as you call it between us In the Examination of those Pages meant as you said for my Satisfaction and of other parts of your Letter I found contrary to what I expected Matter of renewing and enlarging my complaint and this I took notice of and set down in my Reply which it seems I should not have done The knowledge of the World should have taught me better And I should have taken that for Satisfaction which you were pleased to give in which I could not find any nor as I believe any intelligent or impartial Reader So that your Lordship's care of the World that it should not grow weary of this Controversie and the Fault you find of my mis-imploying Fifty Pages of my Letter reduces it self at last in effect to no more but this That your Lordship should have a liberty to say what you please pay me in what Coin you think fit my part should be to be satisfied with it rest content and say nothing This indeed might be a way not to weary the World and to save 50 Pages of clean Paper and put such an end to the Controversie as your Lordship would not dislike I learn from your Lordship that it is the first part of Wisdom in some Mens Opinions not to begin in such Disputes What the knowledge of the World which is a sort of Wisdom should in your Lordship's Opinion make a Man do when one of your Lordship's Character begins with him is very plain He is not to reply so far as he judges his Defence and the Matter requires but as your Lordship is pleased to allow which some may think no better than if one might not reply at all After having thus rebuked me for having been too copious in my Reply in the next Words your Lordship instructs me what I should have answer'd That I should have clear'd my self by declaring to the World that I owned the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church This as I take it is a meer Personal Matter of the same Woof with a Spanish Sant Benito and as it seems to me designed to sit close to me What must I do now my Lord Must I silently put on and wear this Badge of your Lordship's Favour and as one well understanding the World say not a Word of it because the World soon grows weary of Personal Matters If in Gratitude for this Personal Favour I ought to be silent yet I am forced to tell you That in what you require of me here you possibly have cut out too much Work for a poor ordinary Layman for whom it is too hard to know how a Doctrin so disputed has been received in the Christian Church and who might have thought it enough to own it as delivered in the Scriptures Your Lordship herein lays upon me what I cannot do without owning to know what I am sure I do not know For how the Doctrin of the Trinity has been always received in the Christian Church I confess my self ignorant I have not had time to examine the History of it and to read those Controversies that have been writ about it And to own a Doctrin as received by others when I do not know how those others received it is perhaps a short way to Orthodoxy that may satisfie some Men But he that takes this way to give Satisfaction in my Opinion makes a little bold with Truth and it may be questioned whether such a Profession be pleasing to that God who requires Truth in the inward Parts however acceptable it may in any Man be to his Diocesan I presume your Lordship in your Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity intends to give it us as it has been received in the Christian Church And I think your Words viz. It is the Sense of the Christian Church which you are bound to defend and no particular Opinions of your own authorize one to think so But if I am to own it as your Lordship has there delivered it I must own what I do not understand For I confess your Exposition of the Sense of the Church wholly transcends my Capacity If you require me to own it with an implicit Faith I shall pay that Deference as soon to your Lordship's Exposition of the Doctrin of the Church as any ones But if I must understand and know what I own it is my Misfortune and I cannot deny it that I am as far from owning what you in that Discourse deliver as I can be from professing the most unintelligible thing that ever I read to be the Doctrin that I own Whether I make more use of my poor Understanding in the Case than you are willing to allow every one of your Readers I cannot tell but such an Understanding as God has given me is the best I have and that which I must use in the apprehending what others say before I can own the Truth of it and for this there is no help that I know That which keeps me a little in countenance is That if I mistake not Men of no mean Parts even Divines of the Church of England and those of neither the lowest Reputation nor Rank find their Understandings fail them on this occasion and stick not to own That they understand not your Lordship in that Discourse and particularly that your 6th Chapter is unintelligible to them as well as me whether the fault be in their and my Understandings the World must be judge But this is only by the by for this is not the Answer I here intend your Lordship Your Lordship tells me That to clear my self I should have owned to the World the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received c. Answer I know not whether in a Dispute managed after a new way wherein one Man is argued against and another Man's words all along quoted it may not also be a good as well as a new Rule for the Answerer to reply to what was never objected and clear himself from what was never laid to his Charge If this be not so and that this new way of Attacking requires not this new way of Defence your Lordship's Prescription to me here what I should have done will amongst the most intelligent and impartial Readers pass for a strange Rule in Controversie and such as the learnedst of them will not be able to find
Infidelity I thought it had refered to Terms Why so says your Lordship your Quarrel you say was not with the term Ideas But that which you insisted upon was the way of Certainty by Ideas and the new Terms as imploied to that purpose and therefore 't is that which your Lordship must be understood to mean by what ill Men make use of c. Now I appeal to my Reader whether I may not be excused if I took Them rather to refer to Terms a word in the Plural Number preceding in the same Period than to way of Certainty by Ideas which is of the Singular Number and neither preceding no nor so much as expressed in the same Sentence And if by my Ignorance in the use of the Pronoun Them 't is my misfortune to be often at a loss in the understanding of your Lordship's Writings I hope I shall be excused Another excuse for my understanding that one of the things in my Book which your Lordship thought might be of dangerous consequence was the term Idea may be found in these Words of your Lordship But what need all this great noise about Ideas and Certainty true and real Certainty by Ideas If after all it comes only to this That our Ideas only present to us such things from whence we bring Arguments to prove the Truth of things But the World hath been strangely amuzed with Ideas of late and we have been told That strange things might be done by the help of Ideas and yet these Ideas at last come to be common Notions of things which we must make use of in our Reasoning I shall offer one Passage more for my excuse out of the same Page I had said in my Chapter about the Existence of God I thought it most proper to express my self in the most usual and familiar way by common Words and Expressions Your Lordship wishes I had done so quite through my Book for then I had never given that occasion to the Enemies of our Faith to take up my new way of Ideas as an effectual Battery as they imagin'd against the Mysteries of the Christian Faith But I might have enjoyed the Satisfaction of my Ideas long enough before your Lordship had taken notice of them unless you had found them employ'd in doing Mischief Thus this Passage stands in your Lordship's former Letter though here your Lordship gives us but a part off it and that part your Lordship breaks of into two and gives us inverted and in other words Perhaps those who observe this and better understand the Arts of Controversie than I do may find some skill in it But your Lordship breaks off the former Passage at these Words strange things might be done by the help of Ideas and then adding these new ones i. e. as to matter of Certainty leaves out those which contain your wish That I had expressed my self in the most usual way by common Words and Expressions quite through my Book as I had done in my Chapter of the Existence of a God for then says your Lordship I had not given that occasion to the Enemies of our Faith to take up my new way of Ideas as an effectual Battery c. which wish of your Lordship's is That I had all along left out the term Idea as is plain from my Words which you refer to in your wish as they stand in my first Letter viz. I thought it most proper to express my self in the most usual and familiar way by common Words and known ways of Expression and therefore as I think I have scarce used the word Idea in that whole Chapter Now I must again appeal to my Reader Whether your Lordship having so plainly wished that I had used common Words and Expressions in opposition to the term Idea I am not excusable if I took you to mean that Term Though your Lordship leaves out the wish and instead of it puts in i. e. as a matter of Certainty words which were not in your former Letter though it be for mistaking you in my Answer to that Letter that you here blame me I must own my Lord my dulness will be very apt to mistake you in Expressions seemingly so plain as these till I can presume my self quick-sighted enough to understand Mens meaning in their Writings not by their Expressions which I confess I am not and is an Art I find my self too old now to learn But bare mistake is not all your Lordship accuses me also of Unfairness and Disingenuity in understanding these Words of yours The World has been strangely amuzed with Ideas and yet these Ideas at last come to be only common Notions of things as if in them your Lordship owned Ideas to be only common Notions of things To this my Lord I must humbly crave leave to answer That there was no Vnfairness or Disingenuity in my saying your Lordship owned Ideas for such because I understood you to speak in that place in your own Sense and thereby to shew that the new term Idea need not be introduced when it signified only the common Notions of things i. e. signified no more than Notion doth which is a more usual Word This I took to be your meaning in that place and whether I or any one might not so understand it without deserving to be told That this is a way of turning things upon your Lordship which you did not expect from me or such a solemn appeal as this Iudge now how fair and ingenuous this Answer is I leave to any one who will but do me the favour to cast his Eye on the Passage above quoted as it stands in your Lordship 's own Words in your first Letter For I humbly beg leave to say That I cannot but wonder to find that when your Lordship is charging me with want of Fairness and Ingenuity you should leave out in the quoting of your own Words those which served most to justifie the Sense I had taken them in and put others in the stead of them In your first Letter they stand thus But the World hath been strangely amuzed with Ideas of late and we have been told that strange things might be done by the help of Ideas and yet these Ideas at last come to be only common Notions of things which we must make use of in our Reasoning and so on to the end of what is above set down all which I quoted to secure my self from being suspected to turn things upon your Lordship in a Sense which your Words that the Reader had before him would not bear And in your second Letter in the place now under consideration they stand thus But the World hath been strangely amuzed with Ideas of late and we have been told that strange things may be done with Ideas i. e. as to matter of Certainty and there your Lordship ends Will your Lordship give me leave now to use your own Words Iudge now how
something wherein those many Sensible Qualities which affect our Senses do subsist by supposing a Substance wherein Thinking Knowing Doubting and a Power of Moving c. do subsist We have as clear a Notion of the Nature or Substance of Spirit as we have of Body the one being supposed to be without knowing what it is the Substratum to those simple Ideas we have from without and the other supposed with a like Ignorance of what it is to be the Substratum to those Operations which we Experiment in our selves But how these words prove that upon my Principles we cannot come to any Certainty of Reason that there is any such thing as Substance in the World I confess I do not see nor has your Lordship as I humbly conceive shewn And I think it would be a hard matter from these Words of mine to make a Syllogism whose Conclusion should be Ergo from my Principles we cannot come to any Certainty of Reason that there is any Substance in the World Your Lordship indeed tells me that I say that these and the like fashions of speaking that the Substance is always supposed something And grant that I say over and over that Substance is supposed but that your Lordship says is not what you looked for but something in the way of Certainty by Reason What your Lordship looks for is not I find always easy for me to guess But what I brought that and some other Passages to the same purpose for out of my Essay that I think they prove viz. that I did not Discard nor almost Discard Substance out of the Reasonable part of the World For he that supposes in every Species of Material Beings Substance to be always something doth not Discard or almost Discard it out of the World or deny any such thing to be The Passages alledged I think prove this which was all I brought them for And if they should happen to prove no more I think you can hardly infer from thence That therefore upon my Principles we can come to no Certainty that there is any such thing as Substance in the World Your Lordship goes on to insist mightily upon my supposing and to these Words of mine We cannot conceive how these sensible Qualities should subsist alone and therefore we suppose a Substance to support them Your Lordship replies It is but supposing still because we cannot conceive it otherwise But what Certainty follows from not being barely able to conceive Answer The same Certainty that follows from the Repugnancy to our first Conceptions of things upon which your Lordship grounds the relative Idea of Substance Your Words are It is a mere effect of Reason because it is a Repugnancy to our first Conceptions of things that Modes or Accidents should subsist by themselves Your Lordship then if I understand your Reasoning here concludes That there is Substance because it is a Repugnancy to our Conceptions of things for whether that Repugnancy be to our first or second Conceptions I think that 's all one that Modes or Accidents should subsist by themselves and I conclude the same thing because we cannot conceive how sensible Qualities should subsist by themselves Now what the difference of Certainty is from a Repugnancy to our Conceptions and from our not being able to conceive I confess my Lord I am not acute enough to discern And therefore it seems to me that I have laid down the same Certainty of the Being of Substance that your Lordship has done Your Lordship adds Are there not multitudes of things which we are not able to conceive and yet it would not be allowed us to suppose what we think fit upon that account Answer Your Lordship's is certainly a very just Rule 't is pity it does not reach the Case But because it is not allowed us to suppose what we think fit in things which we are not able to conceive it does not therefore follow That we may not with Certainty suppose or infer that which is a natural and undeniable Consequence of such an inability to conceive as I call it or repugnancy to our Conception as you call it We cannot conceive the Foundation of Harlem Church to stand upon nothing but because it is not allowed us to suppose what we think fit viz. That it is laid upon a Rock of Diamond or supported by Fairies yet I think all the World will allow the infallible Certainty of this Supposition from thence that it rests upon something This I take to be the present Case and therefore your next Words I think do less concern Mr. L. than my Lord B. of W. I shall set them down that the Reader may apply them to which of the two he thinks they most belong They are I could hardly conceive that Mr. L. would have brought such Evidence as this against himself but I must suppose some unknown Substratum in this Case For these Words that your Lordship has last quoted of mine do not only not prove That upon my Principles we cannot come to any Certainty that there is any such thing as Substance in the World but prove the contrary that there must certainly be Substance in the World and upon the very same Grounds that your Lordship takes it to be certain Your next Paragraph which is to the same purpose I have read more than once and can never forbear as often as I read it to wish my self young again or that a liveliness of Fancy suitable to that Age would teach me to sport with Words for the Diversion of my Readers This I find your Lordship thinks so necessary to the quickning of Controversie that you will not trust the Debate to the greatness of your Learning nor the gravity of your Subject without it whatever Authority the Dignity of your Character might give to what your Lordship says for you having quoted these Words of mine As long as there is any simple Idea or sensible Quality left according to my way of Arguing Substance cannot be discarded because all simple Ideas all sensible Qualities carry with them a Supposition of a Substratum to Exist in and a Substance wherein they inhere You add What is the meaning of carrying with them a Supposition of a Substratum and a Substance Have these simple Ideas the Notion of a Substance in them No but they carry it with them How so Do sensible Qualities carry a Corporeal Substance along with them Then a Corporeal Substance must be intromitted by the Senses together with them No but they carry the Supposition with them and truly that is burden enough for them But which may do they carry it It seems its only because we cannot conceive it otherwise What is this Conceiving It may be said it is an Act of the Mind not built on simple Ideas but lies in the comparing the Ideas of Accident and Substance together and from thence finding that an Accident must carry Substance along with it But
M r. Locke's Reply To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Worcester's Answer to his Second Letter Wherein besides other incident Matters what his Lordship has said Concerning Certainty by Reason Certainty by Ideas and Certainty of Faith The Resurrection of the same Body The Immateriality of the Soul The Inconsistency of Mr. Locke's Notions with the Articles of the Christian Faith and their Tendency to Sceptism is examined LONDON Printed by H. C. for A. and I. Churchill at the Black Swan in Pater-noster-Row and E. Castle next Scotland-yard by Whitehall MDCXCIX My Lord YOUR Lordship in the beginning of the last Letter you honoured me with seems so uneasie and displeased at my having said too much already in the Question between us that I think I may conclude you would be well enough pleas'd if I should say no more and you would dispense with me for not keeping my Promise I made you to answer the other parts of your first Letter If this proceeds from any tenderness in your Lordship for my Reputation that you would not have me expose my self by an overflow of Words in many places void of Clearness Coherence and Argument and that therefore might have been spared I must acknowledge it is a piece of great Charity and such wherein you will have a lasting Advantage over me since good Manners will not permit me to return you the like Or should I in the Ebullition of Thoughts which in me your Lordship finds as impetuous as the Springs of Modena mentioned by Ramazzini be in danger to forget my self and to think I had some right to return the general Complaint of length and intricacy without Force yet you have secured your self from the Suspition of any such Trash on your side by making Cobwebs the easie Product of those who write out of their own Thoughts which it might be a Crime in me to impute to your Lordship If this Complaint of yours be not a Charitable Warning to me I cannot well guess at the design of it for I would not think that in a Controversie which you my Lord have dragg'd me into you would assume it as a Priviledge due to your self to be as copious as you please and say what you think fit and expect I should reply only so and so much as would just suit your good liking and serve to set the Cause right on that side which your Lordship contends for My Lord I shall always acknowledge the great distance that is between your Lordship and my self and pay that Deference that is due to your Dignity and Person But Controversie though it excludes not good Manners will not be managed with all that Submission which one is ready to pay in other Cases Truth which is inflexible has here its Interest which must not be given up in a Complement Plato and Aristotle and other great Names must give way rather than make us renounce Truth or the Friendship we have for her This possibly your Lordship will allow for it is not spun out of my own Thoughts I have the Authority of others for it And I think it was in Print before I was born But you will say however I am too long in my Replies It is not impossible but it may be so But with all due Respect to your Lordship's Authority the greatness whereof I shall always readily acknowledge I must crave leave to say That in this Case you are by no means a proper Judge We are now as well your Lordship as my self before a Tribunal to which you have appealed and before which you have brought me 'T is the Publick must be judge whether your Lordship has enlarged too far in accusing me or I in defending my self Common Justice makes great allowance to a Man pleading in his own Defence and a little length if he should be guilty of it finds excuse in the Compassion of by-standers when they see a Man causelesly attacked after a new way by a potent Adversary and under various Pretences Occasions sought and Words wrested to his disadvantage This my Lord you must give me leave to think to be my Case whilst this strange way your Lordship has brought me into this Controversie your gradual Accusations of my Book and the different Causes your Lordship has assigned of them together with Quotations out of it which I cannot find there and other Things I have complained of to some of which your Lordship has not vouchsafed any Answer shall remain unaccounted for as I humbly conceive they do I confess my Answers are long and I wish they could have been shorter But the Difficulty I have to find out and set before others your Lordship's meaning that they may see what I am answering to and so be able to judge of the Pertinency of what I say has unavoidably enlarged them Whether this be wholly owing to my dulness or whether a little perplexedness both as to Grammar and Coherence caused by those numbers of Thoughts whether of your own or others that crowd from all parts to be set down when you write may not be allow'd to have some share in it I shall not presume to say I am at the Mercy of your Lordship and my other Readers in the Point and know not how to avoid a Fault that has no Remedy Your Lordship says The World soon grows weary of Controversies especially when they are about Personal Matters which made your Lordship wonder that one who understands the World so well should spend above 50. Pages in renewing and enlarging a Complaint wholly concerning himself To which give me leave to say That if your Lordship had so much considered the World and what it is not much pleased with when you published your Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity perhaps your Lordship had not so personally concerned me in that Controversie as it appears now you have and continue still to do Your Lordship wonders that I spend above 50 Pages in renewing and enlarging my Complaint concerning my self Your Wonder I humbly conceive will not be so great when you recollect That your Answer to my Complaint and the Satisfaction you proposed to give me and others in that Personal Matter began the first Letter you honoured me with and ended in the 47th Page of it where you said You suppose the Reason of your mentioning my Words so often was now no longer a Riddle to me and so you proceeded to other Particulars of my Vindication If therefore I have spent 50 Pages of my Answer in shewing that what you offered in 47 Pages for my Satisfaction was none but that the Riddle was a Riddle still the disproportion in the number of Pages is not so great as to be the Subject of much wonder especially to those who consider that in what you call Personal Matter I was shewing that my Essay having in it nothing contrary to the Doctrin of the Trinity was yet brought into that Dispute and that therefore I had
in all Antiquity and therefore must be imputed to something else than your Lordship's great Learning Did your Lordship in the Discourse of the Vindication of the Trinity wherein you first fell upon my Book or in your Letter my Answer to which you are here Correcting did your Lordship I say any where object to me that I did not own the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church c If you did the Objection was so secret so hidden so artificial that your words declared quite the contrary In the Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity your Lordship says That my Notions were borrowed to serve other purposes whereby if I understand you right you meant against the Doctrin of the Trinity than I intended them which you repeat again for my Satisfaction and insist upon for my Vindication You having so solemnly more than once professed to clear me and my Intentions from all suspition of having any part in that Controversie as appears farther in the close of your first Letter where all you charge on me is the ill use that others had or might make of my Notions how could I suppose such an Objection made by your Lordship which you declare against without accusing your Lordship of manifest Prevarication If your Lordship had any thing upon your Mind any secret Aims which you did not think fit to own but yet would have me divine and answer to as if I knew them this I confess is too much for me who look no farther into Mens Thoughts than as they appear in their Books Where you have given your Thoughts vent in your Words I have not I think omitted to take notice of them not wholly passing by those Insinuations which have been drop'd from your Lordship's Pen which from another who had not professed so much personal Respect would have shewn no exceeding good disposition of Mind towards me When your Lordship shall go on to accuse me of not believing the Doctrin of the Trinity as received in the Christian Church or any other Doctrin you shall think fit I shall answer as I would to an Inquisitor for tho your Lordship tells me That I need not he afraid of the Inquisition or that you intended to charge me with Heresie in denying the Trinity yet he that shall consider your Lordship's proceeding with me from the beginning as far as it is hitherto gone may have reason to think that the Methods and Management of that Holy Office are not wholly unknown to your Lordship nor have scaped your great reading Your Proceedings with me have had these steps 1. Several Passages of my Essay of Humane Vnderstanding and some of them relating barely to the Being of a God and other Matters wholly remote from any Question about the Trinity were brought into the Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity and there argued against as containing the Errors of Those and Them which Those and Them are not known to this day 2. In your Lordship's Answer to my first Letter when that was given as the great reason why my Essay was brought into that Controversie viz. because in it Certainty was founded upon clear and distinct Ideas was found to fail and was only a supposition of your own other Accusations were sought out against it in relation to the Doctrin of the Trinity viz. That it might be of dangerous consequence to that Doctrin to introduce the new term of Ideas and to place Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our Ideas What are become of these Charges we shall see in the progress of this Letter when we come to consider what your Lordship has reply'd to my Answer upon these Points 3. These Accusations not having it seems weight enough to effect what you intended my Book has been rumaged again to find new and more important Faults in it and now at last at the third Effort my Notions of Ideas are found inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith This indeed carries some sound in it and may be thought worthy the Name and Pains of so great a Man and zealous a Father of the Church as your Lordship That I may not be too bold in affirming a thing I was not privy to give me leave my Lord to tell your Lordship why I presume my Book has upon this occasion been look'd over again to see what could be found in it capable to bear a deeper Accusation that might look like something in a Title-Page Your Lordship by your Station in the Church and the Zeal you have shewn in defending its Articles could not be supposed when you first brought my Book into this Controversie to have omitted these great Enormities that it now stands accused of and to have cited it for smaller Mistakes some whereof were not found but only imagin'd to be in it if you had then known these great Faults which you now charge it with to have been in it If your Lordship had been apprised of its being guilty of such dangerous Errors you would not certainly have pass'd them by And therefore I think one may reasonably conclude that my Essay was new looked into on purpose Your Lordship says That what you have done herein you thought it your Duty to do not with respect to your Self but to some of the Mysteries of our Faith which you do not charge me with opposing but by laying such Foundations as do tend to the overthrow of them It cannot be doubted but your Duty would have made you at the first warn the World that my Notions were inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith if your Lordship had then known it Though the excessive Respect and Tenderness you express towards me Personally in the immediately preceding Words would be enough utterly to confound me were I not a little acquainted with your Lordship's Civilities in this kind For you tell me That these things laid together made your Lordship think it necessary to do that which you was unwilling to do till I had driven you to it which was to shew the Reason you had why you looked on my Notion of Ideas and of Certainty by them as inconsistent with it self and with some important Articles of the Christian Faith What must I think now my Lord of these Words Must I take them as a meer Complement which is never to be interpreted rigorously according to the precise meaning of the Words Or must I believe that your unwillingness to do so hard a thing to me restrained your Duty and you could not prevail on your self how much soever the Mysteries of Faith were in danger to be overthrown to get out these harsh Words viz. That my Notions were inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith till your third Onset after I had forced you to your Duty by two Replies of mine It will not become me my Lord to make my self a Complement from
your Words which you did not intend me in them But on the other side I would not willingly neglect to acknowledge any Civility from your Lordship in the full extent of it The Business is a little nice because what is contain'd in those two Passages cannot by a less skilful Hand than yours be well put together though they immediately follow one another This I am sure falls out very untowardly that your Lordship should drive me who had much rather have been otherwise imployed to drive your Lordship to do that which you were unwilling to do The World sees how much I was driven For what Censures what Imputations must my Book have lain under if I had not cleared it from those Accusations your Lordship brought against it when I am charged now with Evasions for not clearing my self from an Accusation which you never brought against me But if it be an Evasion not to answer to an Objection that has not been made what is it I beseech you my Lord to make no reply to Objections that have been made Of which I promise to give your Lordship a List whenever you shall please to call for it I forbear it now for fear that if I should say all that I might upon this new Accusation it would be more than would suit with your Lordship's liking and you should complain again that you have opened a Passage which brings to your mind Ramazzini and his Springs of Modena But your Lordship need not be afraid of being overwhelmed with the Ebullition of my Thoughts nor much trouble your self to find a way to give check to it Meer Ebullition of Thoughts never overwhelms or sinks any one but the Author himself but if it carries Truth with it that I confess has force and it may be troublesome to those that stand in its way Your Lordship says You see how dangerous it is to give occasion to one of such a fruitful Invention as I am to write I am obliged to your Lordship that you think my Invention worth concerning your self about though it be so unlucky as to have your Lordship and me always differ about the measure of its Fertility In your first Answer you thought I too much extended the Fertility of my Invention and ascribed to it what it had no Title to And here I think you make the Fertility of my Invention greater than it is For in what I have answered to your Lordship there seems to me no need at all of a Fertil Invention 'T is true it has been hard for me to find out whom you writ against or what you meant in many places As soon as that was found the Answer lay always so obvious and so easie that there needed no labour of Invention to discover what one should reply The Things themselves where there were any strip'd of the Ornaments of Scholastick Language and the less obvious ways of learned Writings seemed to me to carry their Answers visibly with them This permit me my Lord to say That however fertil my Invention is it has not in all this Controversie produced one Fiction or wrong Quotation But before I leave the Answer you dictate permit me to observe that I am so unfortunate to be blamed for owning what I was not accused to disown and here for not owning what I was never charged to disown The like Misfortune have my poor Writings They offend your Lordship in some places because they are new and in others because they are not new Your next Words which are a new Charge I shall pass over till I come to your Proof of them and proceed to the next Paragraph Your Lordship tells me You shall wave all unnecessary Repetitions and come immediately to the matter of my Complaint as it is renewed in my Second Letter What your Lordship means by unnecessary Repetitions here seems to be of a piece with your blaming me in the foregoing Page for having said too much in my own defence and this taken altogether confirms my Opinion That in your Thoughts it would have been better I should have replyed nothing at all For you having set down here near twenty Lines as a necessary Repetition out of your former Letter your Lordship omits my answer to them as wholly unnecessary to be seen and consequently you must think was at first unnecessary to have been said For when the same Words are necessary to be repeated again if the same reply which was made to them be not thought fit to be repeated too it is plainly judged to be nothing to the purpose and should have been spared at first 'T is true your Lordship has set down some few Expressions taken out of several parts of my Reply but in what manner the Reader cannot clearly see without going back to the Original of this Matter He must therefore pardon me the trouble of a deduction which cannot be avoided where Controversie is managed at this rate which necessitates and so excuses length of the Answer My Book was brought into the Trinitarian Controversie by these steps Your Lordship says That 1. The Vnitarians have not explained the Nature and Bounds of Reason 2. The Author Of Christianity not Mysterious to make amends for this has offer'd an account of Reason 3. His Doctrin concerning Reason supposes that we must have clear and distinct Ideas of whatever we pretend to any Certainty of in our Mind 4. Your Lordship calls this a new way of Reasoning 5. This Gentleman of this new way of Reasoning in his First Chapter says something which has a conformity with some of the Notions in my Book But it is to be observed he speaks them as his own Thoughts and not upon my Authority nor with taking any notice of me 6. By vertue of this he is presently entituled to I know not how much of my Book and divers Passages of my Essay are quoted and attributed to him under the Title of The Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning for he is by this time turned into a Troop and certain unknown if they are not all contained in this one Author's Doublet They and These are made by your Lordship to lay about them shrewdly for several Pages together in your Lordship's Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity c. with Passages taken out of my Book which your Lordship was at the pains to quote as Theirs i. e. certain unknown Anti-trinitarians Of this your Lordship's way strange and new to me of dealing with my Book I took notice To which your Lordship tells me here you replyed in these following words which your Lordship has set down as no unnecessary Repetition Your Words are It was because the Person who opposed the Mysteries of Christianity went upon my Grounds and made use of my Words although your Lordship declared withal That they were used to other purposes than I intended them and your Lordship confessed that the Reason why you
nothing Repeated Your Lordship says That you told me the Reason why I was brought into the Controversie after the manner I had complained of was because the Person who opposed the Mysteries of Christianity went upon my Grounds and for this you quote the 46th Page of your first Letter But having turned to that place and finding there these Words That you found my Notions as to Certainty by Ideas was the main Foundation which that Author went upon Which are far from being repeated in the Words set down here unless Grounds in general be the same with Notions as to Certainty by Ideas I beg leave to consider what you here say as new to me and not Repeated Your Lordship says That you brought me into the Controversie as you did because that Author went upon my Grounds 'T is possible he did or did not But it cannot appear that he did go upon my Grounds till those Grounds are assigned and the places both out of him and me produced to shew that we agree in the same Grounds and go both upon them when this is done there will be room to consider whether it be so or no. In the mean time you having brought me into the Controversie for his going upon this particular Ground supposed to be mine That clear and distinct Ideas are necessary to Certainty It can do nothing towards the clearing this to say in general as your Lordship does That he went upon my Grounds because though he should agree with me in several other Things but differ from me in this one Notion of Certainty there could be no reason for your dealing with me as you have done That Notion of Certainty being your very exception against his Account of Reason and the sole occasion you took of bringing in Passages out of my Book and the very Foundation of arguing against them Your Lordship farther says here in this Repetition which you did not say before in the place refer'd to as Repeated That he made use of my Words I think he did of Words something like mine But as I humbly conceive also he made use of them as his own and not as my Words for I do not remember that he quotes me for them This I am sure That in the Words quoted out of him by your Lordship upon which my Book is brought in there is not one Syllable of Certainty by Ideas No doubt whatever he or I or any one have said if your Lordship disapproves of it you have a right to Question him that said it But I do not see how this gives your Lordship any Right to entitle any Body to what he does not say whoever else says it The Author of Christianity not Mysterious says in his Book something suitable to what I had said in mine borrowed or not borrowed from mine I leave your Lordship to determine for him But I doe not see what ground that gives your Lordship to concern me in the Controversie you have with him for things I say which he does not and which I say to a different purpose from his Let that Author and I agree in this one Notion of Certainty as much as you please what Reason I beseech your Lordship could this be to quote my Words as his who never used them and to purposes as you say more than once to which I never intended them This was that which I complained was a Riddle to me And since your Lordship can give no other Reason for it than those we have hitherto seen I think it is sufficiently unridled and you are in the right when you say you think it is no longer a Riddle to me I easily grant my little Reading may not have instructed me what has been or what may be done in the several ways of writing and managing of Controversie which like War always produces new Stratagems Only I beg my Ignorance may be my Apology for saying that this appears a new way of writing to me and this is the first time I ever met with it But let the ten Lines which your Lordship has set down out of him be if you please supposed to be precisely my Words and that he quoted my Book for them I not see how even this entitles him to any more of my Book than he has quoted Or how any Words of mine in other parts of my Book can be ascribed to him or argued against as his or rather as I know not whose which was the Thing I complained of for the These and They those Passages of my Book were ascribed to could not be that Author for he used them not Nor the Author of The Essay of Humane Vnderstanding for he was not argued against but was discharged from the Controversie under Debate So that neither he nor I being the They and Those that so often occur and deserved so much Pains from your Lordship I could not but complain of this to me incomprehensible way of bringing my Book into that Controversie Another part of your Lordship's Repetition which I humbly conceive is no Repetition because this also I find not in that Passage quoted for it is this That your Lordship confessed that the Reason why you quoted my Words so much My Lord I do not remember any need your Lordship had to give a Reason why you quoted my Words so much because I do not remember that I made that the matter of my Complaint That which I complained of was not the quantity of what was quoted out of my Book but the manner of quoting it viz. That I was so every where joined with others under the comprehensive words They and Them though my Book alone were every where quoted that the World would be apt to think I was the Person who argued against the Trinity And again That which I complained of was That I was made one of the Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning without being guilty of what made them so and so was brought into a Chapter wherein I thought my self not concerned which was managed so that my Book was all along quoted and others argued against others were entitled to what I said and I to what others said without knowing why or how Nay I told your Lordship in that very Reply That if your Lordship had directly questioned any of my Opinions I should not have complained Thus your Lordship sees my Complaint was not of the largeness but of the manner of your Quotations But of that in all these many Pages imployed by your Lordship for my Satisfaction you as I remember have not been pleased to offer any reason nor can I hither to find it any way cleared When I do I shall readily acknowledge your great Mastery in this as in all other ways of writing I have in the foregoing Pages for the clearing this Matter been obliged to take notice of Them and Those as directly signifying no body Whether your Lordship will excuse me for so doing I know
one of them 't is plain you must say This and what your Lordship says farther on this Point seems to me to prove nothing but that you suppose that either there are no such thing as obscure and confused Ideas and then with submission the distinction between clear and obscure distinct and confused is useless and 't is in vain to talk of clear and obscure distinct and confused Ideas in opposition to one another Or else your Lordship supposes that an obscure and confused Idea is wholly undistinguishable from all other Ideas and so in effect is all other Ideas For if an obscure and confused Idea be not one and the same with all other Ideas as it is impossible for it to be then the obscure and confused Idea may and will be so far different from some other Ideas that it may be perceived whether it agrees or disagrees with them or no. For every Idea in the Mind clear or obscure distinct or confused is but that one Idea that it is and not another Idea that it is not and the Mind perceives it to be the Idea that it is and not another Idea that it is different from What therefore I mean by obscure and confused Ideas I have at large shewn and shall not trouble your Lordship with a Repetition of here For that there are such obscure and confused Ideas I suppose the instances your Lordship gives here Evince to which I shall add this one more Suppose you should in the Twilight or in a thick Mist see two Things standing upright near the size and shape of an ordinary Man but in so dim a Light or at such a distance that they appeared very much alike and you could not perceive them to be what they really were the one a Statue the other a Man would not these Two be obscure and confused Ideas And yet could not your Lordship be certain of the Truth of this Proposition concerning either of them that it was something or did exist and that by perceiving the agreement of that Idea as obscure and confused as it was with that of Existence as exprest in that Proposition This my Lord is just the case of Substance upon which you raised this Argument concerning obscure and confused Ideas which this instance shews may have Propositions made about them of whose Truth we may be certain Hence I crave liberty to conclude That I am nearer the Truth than those who say That Certainty is founded only in clear and distinct Ideas if any Body does say so For no such Saying of any one of those with whom your Lordship joined me for so saying is that I remember yet produced though this be that for which They and Those whoever they be had from your Lordship the Title of the Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning And this be the Opinion which your Lordship declares you Oppose as certainly overthrowing all Mysteries of Faith and excluding the Notion of Substance out of rational Discourse which terrible Tarmagant Proposition viz. That Certainty is founded only in clear and distinct Ideas which has made such a Noise and been the cause of the spending above Ten times Fifty Pages and given occasion to very large Ebullition of Thoughts appears not by any thing that has been yet produced to be any where in their Writings with whom upon this Score you have had so warm a Controversie but only in your Lordship's Imagination and what you have at least for this once writ out of your own Thoughts But if this Paragraph contain so little in defence of the Proposition which your Lordship in the beginning of it set down on purpose to defend what follows is visibly more remote from it But since your Lordship has been pleased to tack it on here though without applying of it any way that I see to the defence of the Proposition to be defended which is already got clean out of Sight I am taught that 't is fit I consider it here in this which your Lordship has thought the proper place for it In the next Paragraph your Lordship is pleased to take notice of this part of my Complaint viz. That I say more than twice or ten times That you blame those who place Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas but I do not and yet you bring me in amongst them And for this your Lordship quotes Seventeen several Pages of my second Letter Whoever will give himself the trouble to turn to those Pages will see how far I am in those places from barely saying That you blame those who place Certainty c. And what reason you had to point to so many Places for my so saying as a repetition of my Complaint And I believe they will find the Proposition about placing Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas is mentioned in them upon several occasions and to different purposes as the Argument required Be that as it will this is a part of my Complaint and you do me a Favour that after having as you say met with it in so many Places you are pleased at last to take notice of it and promise me a full answer to it The first part of which full answer is in these Words That you do not deny but the first occasion of your Lordship's Charge was in the Supposition that clear and distinct Ideas were necessary in order to any Certainty in our Minds And that the only way to attain this Certainty was by comparing these Ideas together My Lord though I have faithfully set down these Words out of your 2d Answer yet I must own I have Printed them in something a different Character from that which they stand in your Letter For your Lordship has published this Sentence so as if the supposition that clear and distinct Ideas were necessary in order to any Certainty in our Minds were my Supposition whereas I must crave Leave to let my Reader know That that Supposition is purely your Lordship's for you neither in your Defence of the Trinity nor in your first Answer produce any thing to prove That that was either an Assertion or Supposition of mine But your Lordship was pleased to suppose it for me As to the latter Words and that the only way to attain this Certainty was by comparing these Ideas together If your Lordship means by these Ideas Ideas in general then I acknowledge these to be my Words or to my Sense but then they are not any Supposition in my Book though they are made part of the Supposition here but their Sense is expressed in my Essay at large in more places than one But if by these Ideas your Lordship means only clear and distinct Ideas I crave leave to deny that to be my Sense or any Supposition of mine Your Lordship goes on But to prove this Prove what I beseech you my Lord That Certainty was to be attained by comparing Ideas was a Supposition of mine To prove that there
by Reason be excluded from the Certainty under debate which I humbly conceive you have not from my Words or any other way proved 3. The third sort of Propositions that your Lordship excludes are those whose Certainty we know by Remembrance but in these two the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas contained in them is perceived not always indeed as it was at first by an actual view of the Connection of all the intermediate Ideas whereby the agreement or disagreement of those in the Proposition was at first perceived but by other intermediate Ideas that shew the agreement or disagreement of the Ideas contained in the Proposition whose Certainty we remember As in the instance you here make use of viz. That the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones The Certainty of which Proposition we know by Remembrance though the Demonstration hath sliped out of our Minds but we know it in a different way from what your Lordship supposes The agreement of the two Ideas as joined in that Proposition is perceived but it is by the intervention of other Ideas than those which at first produced that Perception I remember i. e. I know for Remembrance is but the reviving of some past Knowledge that I was once certain of the truth of this Proposition That the three Angles of a Triangle are equal to two right ones The immutability of the same Relations between the same immutable things is now the Idea that shews me that if the three Angles of a Triangle were once equal to two right ones they will always be equal to two right ones and hence I come to be certain that what was once true in the Case is always true what Ideas once agreed will always agree and consequently what I once knew to be true I shall always know to be true as long as I can remember that I once knew it Your Lordship says That the Debate between us is about Certainty of Knowledge with regard to some Proposition whose Ideas are to be compared as to their agreement or disagreement Out of this Debate you say Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance is to be excluded I desire you then my Lord to tell what sort of Propositions will be within the Debate and to name me one of them if Propositions whose Certainty we know by Sense Reason or Remembrance are excluded However from what you have said concerning them your Lordship in the next Paragraph concludes them out of the Question your Words are These things then being out of the Question Out of what Question I beseech you my Lord The Question here and that of your own proposing to be defended in the Affirmative is this Whether those who offer at clear and distinct Ideas bid much fairer for Certainty than I do And how Certainty by Sense by Reason and by Remembrance comes to have any particular Exception in reference to this Question 't is my misfortune not to be able to find But your Lordship leaving the examination of the Question under debate by a new state of the Question would pin upon me what I never said Your Words are These things then being put out of the Question which belong not to it The Question truly stated is Whether we can attain to any Certainty of Knowledge as to the truth of a Proposition in the way of Ideas where the Ideas themselves by which we came to that Certainty be not clear and distinct With Submission my Lord that which I say in the Point is That we may be certain of the truth of a Proposition concerning an Idea which is not in all its parts clear and distinct and therefore if your Lordship will have any Question with me concerning this matter the Question truly stated is Whether we can frame any Proposition concerning a thing whereof we have but an obscure and confused Idea of whose Truth we can be certain That this is the Question you will easily agree when you will give your self the trouble to look back to the Rise of it Your Lordship having found out a strange sort of Men who had broached a Doctrin which supposed that we must have clear and distinct Ideas of what ever we pretend to a Certainty of in our Minds was pleased for this to call them the Gentlemen of a new way of Reasoning and to make me one of them I answer'd that I placed not Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas and so ought not to have been made one of them being not guilty of what made a Gentleman of this new way of Reasoning 'T is pretended still that I am guilty and indeavour'd to be prov'd To know now whether I am or no it must be consider'd what you lay to their Charge as the consequence of that Opinion and that is That upon this Ground we cannot come to any Certainty that there is such a thing as Substance This appears by more places than one Your Lordship asks How is it possible that we may be certain that there are both bodily and spiritual Substances if our Reason depend upon clear and distinct Ideas And again How come we to be certain that there are spiritual Substances in the World since we can have no clear and distinct Ideas concerning them And your Lordship having set down some Words out of my Book as if they were inconsistent with my Principle of Certainty founded only in clear and distinct Ideas You say From whence it follows that we may be certain of the Being of a spiritual Substance though we have no clear and distinct Ideas of it Other places might be produced but these are enough to shew That those who held clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty were accused to extend it thus far that where any Idea was obscure and confused there no Proposition could be made concerning it of whose truth we could be certain v. g. we could not be certain that there was in the World such a thing as Substance because we had but an obscure and confus'd Idea of it In this sense therefore I denyed that clear and distinct Ideas were necessary to Certainty v. g. I denyed it to be my Doctrin That where an Idea was obscure and confus'd there no Proposition could be made concerning it of whose Truth we could be certain For I held we might be certain of the truth of this Proposition That there was Substance in the World though we have but an obscure and confus'd Idea of Substance And your Lordship endeavoured to prove we could not as may be seen at large in that 10th Chapter of your Vindication c. From all which it is evident that the Question between us truly stated is this Whether we can attain Certainty of the truth of a Proposition concerning any thing whereof we have but an obscure and confus'd Idea This being the Question the first thing you say is That Des Cartes was of your Opinion against
of them should not be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct as is evident in this Proposition that Substance does Exist But you give not off this Matter so For these Words of mine above quoted by your Lordship viz. It being evident that our Knowledge cannot exceed our Ideas where they are imperfect confused or obscure we cannot expect to have certain perfect or clear Knowledge your Lordship has here up again And thereupon charge it on me as a contradiction that confessing our Ideas to be imperfect confused and obscure I say I do not yet place Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas Answer The Reason is plain for I do not say that all our Ideas are imperfect confused and obscure nor that obscure and confused Ideas are in all their parts so obscure and confused that no agreement or disagreement between them and any other Idea can be perceived and therefore my confession of imperfect obscure and confused Ideas takes not away all Knowledge even concerning those very Ideas But says your Lordship Can Certainty be had with imperfect and obscure Ideas and yet no Certainty be had by them Add if you please my Lord by those parts of them which are obscure and confused And then the Question will be right put and have this easie Answer Yes my Lords and that without any contradiction because an Idea that is not in all its parts perfectly clear and distinct and is therefore an obscure and confused Idea may yet with those Ideas with which by any obscurity it has it is not confounded be capable to produce Knowledge by the perception of its agreement or disagreement with them And yet it will hold true that in that part wherein it is imperfect obscure and confused we cannot expect to have certain perfect or clear Knowledge For Example he that has the Idea of a Leopard as only of a spotted Animal must be confessed to have but a very imperfect obscure and confused Idea of that Species of Animals and yet this obscure and confused Idea is capable by a perception of the agreement or disagreement of the clear part of it viz. that of Animal with several other Ideas to produce Certainty Though as far as the obscure part of it confounds it with the Idea of a Lynx or other spotted Animal it can joyn'd with them in many Propositions produce no Knowledge This might easily be understood to be my meaning by these Words which your Lordship quotes out of my Essay viz. That our Knowledge consisting in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any two Ideas its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that Perception and not in the clearness or obscurity of the Ideas themselves Upon which your Lordship asks How is it possible for the Mind to have a clear perception of the agreement of Ideas if the Ideas themselves be not clear and distinct Answer Just as the Eyes can have a clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of the clear and distinct parts of a Writing with the clear parts of another though one or both of them be so obscure and blur'd in other parts that the Eye cannot perceive any agreement or disagreement they have one with another And I am sorry that these Words of mine My Notion of Certainty by Ideas is that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas such as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no were not plain enough to make your Lordship understand my meaning and save you all this new and as it seems to me needless trouble In your 15th Page your Lordship comes to your second of the three Answers which you say you had given and would lay together and defend You say 2 you answer'd That it is very possible the Author of Christianity not Mysterious might mistake or misapply my Notions but there is too much reason to believe he thought them the same and we have no reason to be sorry that he hath given me this occasion for the explaining my meaning and for the Vindication of my self in the matters I apprehend he had charged me with These words your Lordship quotes out of the 36th Page of your first Letter But as I have already observed they are not there given as an answer to this that you make me here say and therefore to what purpose you repeat them here is not easie to discern unless it can be thought that an unsatisfactory answer in one place can become satisfactory by being repeated in another where it is as I humbly conceive less to the purpose and no answer at all It was there indeed given as an answer to my saying That I did not place Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas which I said to shew that you had no reason to bring me into the Controversie because the Author of Christianity not Mysterious placed Certainty in clear and distinct Ideas To satisfie me for your doing so your Lordship answers That it was very possible that Author might mistake or misapply my Notions A reason indeed that will equally justifie your bringing my Book into any Controversie For there is no Author so infallible write he in what Controversie he pleases but 't is possible he may mistake or misapply my Notions That was the force of this your Lordship's Answer in that place of your first Letter but what it serves for in this place of your second Letter I have not Wit enough to see The remainder of it I have answer'd in the 37th and 38th Pages of my second Letter and therefore cannot but wonder to see it repeated here again without any notice taken of what I said in answer to it though you set it down here again as you say p. 7. on purpose to defend But all the defence made is only to that part of my Reply which you set down as a fresh Complaint that I make in these Words This can be no reason why I should be joined with a Man that had misapplied my Notions and that no Man hath so much mistaken and misapplied my Notions as your Lordship and therefore I ought rather to be joined with your Lordship And then you with some warmth subjoin But is this fair and ingenuous dealing to represent this Matter so as if your Lordship had joined us together because he had misunderstood and misapplied my Notions Can I think your Lordship a Man of so little Sense to make that the reason of it No Sir says your Lordship it was because he assigned no other Grounds but mine and that in my own Words however now I would divert the meaning of them another way My Lord I did set down your Words at large in my second Letter and therefore do not see how I could be liable to any Charge of unfair or disingenuous dealing in representing the Matter which I am sure you will allow as
a Proof of my not misrepresenting since I find you use it your self as a sure Fence against any such Accusation where you tell me That you have set down my own Words at large that I may not complain that your Lordship misrepresents my Sense The same Answer I must desire my Reader to apply for me to your 73d and 90th Pages where your Lordship makes Complaints of the like kind with this here The Reasons you give for joining me with the Author of Christianity not Mysterious are put down verbatim as you gave them and if they did not give me that Satisfaction they were designed for am I to be blamed that I did not find them better than they were You joined me with that Author because he placed Certainty only in clear and distinct Ideas I told your Lordship I did not do so and therefore that could be no reason for your joining me with him You answer 'T was possible he might mistake or misapply my Notions So that our agreeing in the Notion of Certainty the pretended Reason for which we were joined failing all the reason which is left and which you offer in this Answer for your joining of us is the possibility of his mistaking my Notions And I think it a very natural Inference that if the meer possibility of any ones mistaking me be a reason for my being joined with him Any ones actual mistaking me is a stronger reason why I should be joined with him But if such an Inference shews more than you would have it the satisfactoriness and force of your Answer I hope you will not be angry with me if I cannot change the Nature of things Your Lordship indeed adds in that place That there is too much reason to believe that the Author thought his Notions and mine the same Answ. When your Lordship shall produce that Reason it will be seen whether it were too much or too little Till it is produced there appears no Reason at all and such concealed Reason though it may be too much can be supposed I think to give very little Satisfaction to me or any body else in the Case But to make good what you have said in your Answer your Lordship here replies That you did not join us together because he had misunderstood and misapplied my Notions Answ. Neither did I say That therefore you did join us But this I crave leave to say That all the reason you there gave for your joining us together was the possibility of his mistaking and misapplying my Notions But your Lordship now tells me No Sir this was not the reason of your joining us but it was because he assigned no other Grounds but mine and in my own Words Answ. My Lord I do not remember that in that place you give this as a reason for your joining of us and I could not answer in that place to what you did not there say but to what you there did say Now your Lordship does say it it here here I shall take the liberty to answer it The Reason you now give for your joining me with that Author is because he assigned no other Grounds but mine which however tenderly expressed is to be understood I suppose that he did assign my Grounds Of what I beseech your Lordship did he assign my Grounds and in my Words If it were not my Grounds of Certainty it could be no manner of reason for your joining me with him because the only reason why at first you made him and me with him a Gentleman of the new way of Reasoning was his supposing clear and distinct Ideas necessary to Certainty which was the Opinion that you declared you opposed Now my Lord if you can shew where that Author has in my Words assigned my Grounds of Certainty there will be some Grounds for what you say here But till your Lordship does that it will be pretty hard to believe that to be the ground of your joining us together which being no where to be found can scarce be thought the true reason of your doing it Your Lordship adds However now I would divert the meaning of Them i. e. those my Words an other way Answ. When ever you are pleased to set down those Words of mine wherein that Author assigns my Grounds of Certainty it will be seen how I now divert their meaning another way till then they must remain with several other of your Lordship's invisible Them which are no where to be found But to your asking me Whether I can think your Lordship a Man of that little Sense I crave leave to reply That I hope it must not be concluded that as often as in your way of writing I meet with any thing that does not seem to me satisfactory and I endeavour to shew that it does not prove what it is made use of for that I presently think your Lordship a Man of little Sense This would be a very hard Rule in defending ones self especially for me against so great and learned a Man whose reasons and meaning it is not I find always easie for so mean a Capacity as mine to reach and therefore I have taken great care to set down your Words in most places to secure my self from the imputation of misrepresenting your Sense and to leave it fairly before the Reader to judge whether I mistake it and how far I am to be blamed if I do And I would have set down your whole Letter page by page as I answered it would not that have made my Book too big If I must write under this fear that you apprehend I think meanly of you as often as I think any reason you make use of is not satisfactory in the Point it is brought for the causes of uneasiness would return too often and it would be better once for all to conclude your Lordship infallible and acquiesce in whatever you say than in every page to be so rude as to tell your Lordship I think you have little Sense if that be the interpretation of my endeavouring to shew that your reasons come short any where My Lord when you did me the honour to answer my first Letter which I thought might have passed for a submissive Complaint of what I did not well understand rather than a Dispute with your Lordship you were pleased to insert into it direct Accusations against my Book which looked as if you had a mind to enter into a direct Controversie with me This condescention in your Lordship has made me think my self under the protection of the Laws of Controversie which allow a free examining and shewing the weakness of the Reasons brought by the other side without any offence If this be not permitted me I must confess I have been mistaken and have been guilty in answering you any thing at all For how to answer without answering I confess I do not know I wish you had never writ any thing that I was particularly
concerned to examine And what I have been concerned to examine I wish it had given me no occasion for any other answer but an admiration of the manner and justness of your Corrections and an acknowledgment of an increase of that great Opinion which I had of your Lordship before But I hope it is not expected from me in this Debate that I should admit as good and conclusive all that drops from your Pen for fear of causing so much displeasure as you seem here to have upon this occasion or for fear you should object to me the presumption of thinking you had but little Sense as often as I endeavoured to shew that what you say is of little force When those Words and Grounds of mine are produced that the Author of Christianity not Mysterious assigned which your Lordship thinks a sufficient reason for your joining me with him in opposing the Doctrin of the Trinity I shall consider them and endeavour to give you Satisfaction about them as well I have already concerning those ten Lines which you have more than once quoted out of him as taken out of my Book and which is all that your Lordship has produced out of him of that kind in all which there is not one Syllable of clear and distinct Ideas or of Certainty founded in them In the mean time in answer to your other Question But is this fair and ingenuous dealing I refer my Reader to p. 35-38 of my second Letter where he may see at large all this whole matter and all the unfairness and disingenuity of it which I submit to him to judge whether for any fault of that kind it ought to have drawn on me the marks of so much displeasure Your Lordship goes on here and tells me That although you were willing to allow me all reasonable occasions for my own Vindication as appears by your Words yet you were sensible enough that I had given too just an occasion to apply them in that manner as appears by the next Page What was it I beseech you my Lord that I was to vindicate my self from and what was those Them I had given too just an occasion to apply in that manner and what was that manner they were applied in and what was the occasion they were so applied For I can find none of all these in that next page to which your Lordship refers me when those are set down the World will be the better able to judge of the Reason you had to join me after the manner you did However saying my Lord without proveing I humbly conceive is but saying and in such Personal Matter so turned shews more the disposition of the speaker than any ground for what is said Your Lordship as a proof of your great care of me tells me at the top of that Page That you had said so much that nothing could be said more for my Vindication And before you come to the bottom of it you labour to persuade the World That I have need to vindicate my self Another possibly who could find in his Heart to say two such things would have taken care they should not have stood in the same Page where the Juxta-position might enlighten them too much and surprize the Sight But possibly your Lordship is so well satisfied of the Worlds readiness to believe your Professions of good Will to me as a mark whereof you tell me here of your willingness to allow me all reasonable occasions to vindicate my self that no body can see any thing but Kindness in whatever you say though it appears in so different Shapes In the following Words your Lordship accuses me of too nice a piece of Criticism and tells me it looks like Chicaning Answ. I did not expect in a Controversie begun and managed as this which your Lordship has been pleased to have with me to be accused of Chicaning without great provocation because the mentioning that Word might perhaps raise in the Reader 's Minds some odd Thoughts which were better spared But this Accusation made me look back into the places you quoted in the Margent and there find the Matter to stand thus To a pretty large quotation set down out of the Postscript to my first Letter you subjoin Which Words seem to express so much of a Christian Spirit and Temper that your Lordship cannot believe I intended to give any advantage to the Enemies of the Christian Faith but whether there hath not been too just occasion for them to apply them in that manner is a thing very fit for me to consider In my answer I take notice that the Term Them in this Passage of your Lordship's can in the ordinary construction of our Language be applied to nothing but which Words in the beginning of that Passage i. e. to my Words immediately preceding This your Lordship calls Chicaning and gives this reason for it viz. Because any one that reads without a design to Cavil would easily interpret Ihem of my Words and Notions about which the Debate was Answ. That any one that reads that Passage with or without design to Cavil could hardly make it intelligible without interpreting Them so I readily grant but that it is easie for me or any body to interpret any ones meaning contrary to the necessary construction and plain import of the Words that I crave leave to deny I am sure it is not Chicaning to presume that so great an Author as your Lordship writes according to the Rules of Grammar and as an other Man writes who understands our Language and would be understood to do the contrary would be a presumption liable to blame and might deserve the name of Chicaning and Cavil And that in this case it was not easie to avoid the interpreting the term Them as I did the reason you give why I should have done it is a farther Proof Your Lordship to shew it was easie says the Postscript comes in but as a Parenthesis Now I challenge any one living to shew me where in that place the Parenthesis must begin and where end which can make Them applicable to any thing but the words of my Postscript I have tried with more care and pains than is usually required of a Reader in such cases and cannot I must own find where to make a breach in the Thread of your Discourse with the imaginary Parenthesis which your Lordship mentions and was not I suppose omitted by the Printer for want of Marks to Print it And if this which you give as the Key that opens to the interpretation that I should have made be so hard to be found the interpretation it self could not be so very easie as you speak of But to avoid all blame for understanding that Passage as I did and to secure my self from being suspected to seek a subterfuge in the natural import of your Words against what might be conjectur'd to be your Sense I added But if by any
new way of Construction unintelligible to me the word Them here shall be applied to any Passages of my Essay of Humane Vnderstanding I must humbly crave leave to observe this one Thing in the whole course of what your Lordship had designed for my Satisfaction That tho' my Complaint be of your Lordship's manner of applying what I had publish'd in my Essay so as to interest me in a Controversie wherein I medled not yet your Lordship all along tells me of others that have misapplied I know not what Words in my Book after I know not what manner Now as to this Matter I beseech your Lordship to believe that when any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them so as to make them opposite to the Doctrin of the Trinity and me a Party in that Controversie against the Trinity as your Lordship knows I complain your Lordship has done I shall complain of them too and consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it This Passage of mine your Lordship here represents thus viz. That I say That if by an unintelligible new way of Construction the word Them be applied to any Passages in my Book What then Why then whoever they are I intend to Complain of them too But says your Lordship the Words just before tell me who they are viz. The Enemies of the Christian Faith And then your Lordship Asks whether this be all that I intend viz. only to Complain of them for making me a Party in the Controversie against the Trinity My Lord were I given to Chicaning as you call my being stop'd by Faults of Grammar that disturb the Sense and make the Discourse incoherent and unintelligible if we are to take it from the Words as they are I should not want Matter enough for such an Exercise of my Pen As for Example here again where your Lordship makes me say That if the word Them be applied to any Passages in my Book then whoever They are I intend to Complain c. These being set down for my Words I would be very glad to be able to put them into a Grammatical construction and make to my self an intelligible Sense of them But They being not a Word that I have an absolute Power over to place where and for what I will I confess I cannot do it For the term They in the Words here as your Lordship has set them down having nothing that it can refer to but Passages or them which stands for Words it must be a very suddain metamorphosis that must change them into Persons for 't is for Persons that the word They stands here and yet I crave leave to say that as far as I understand English They is a Word cannot be used without reference to something mentioned before Your Lordship tells me the Words just before tell me who they are The Words just mentioned before are these if by an unintelligible new way of Construction the word Them be applied to any Passage of my Book for 't is to some words before indeed but before in the same contexture of Discourse that the word They must refer to make it any where intelligible But here are no Persons mentioned in the Words just before though your Lordship tells me the Words just before shew who they are but this just before where the Persons are mentioned whom your Lordship intends by They here is so far off that 16 Pages of your Lordships second Letter 174 Pages of my second Letter and above 100 Pages of your Lordships first Letter come between So that one must read above 280 Pages from the Enemies of the Christian Faith in the 37th Page of your first Letter before one can come to the They which refers to them here in the 17th Page of your Lordship's second Letter My Lord 't is my misfortune that I cannot pretend to any Figure amongst the Men of Learning but I would not for that reason be render'd so despicable that I could not write ordinary Sense in my own Language I must beg leave therefore to inform my Reader that what your Lordship has set down here as mine is neither my Words nor my Sense For 1. I say not if by any unintelligible new way of Construction But I say If by any new way of Construction unintelligible to me Which are far different Expressions For that may be very intelligible to others which may be unintelligible to me And indeed my Lord there are so many Passages in your Writings in this Controversie with me which for their Construction as well as otherwise are so unintelligible to me that if I should be so unmannerly as to measure your Understanding by mine I should not know what to think of them In those cases therefore I presume not to go beyond my own Capacity I tell your Lordship often which I hope Modesty will permit what my weak Understanding will not reach but I am far from saying it is therefore absolutely unintelligible I leave to others the benefit of their better Judgments to be enlightened by your Lordship where I am not 2. The use your Lordship here makes of these Words But if by any new way of Construction unintelligible to me the word Them be applied to any Passages in my Book Is not the principal nor the only as your Lordship makes it use for which I said them But this That if your Lordship by Them in that place were to be understood to mean that there were others that misapplied Passages of my Book this was no satisfaction for what your Lordship had done in that kind Though this I observed was your way of defence That when I complained of what your Lordship had done you told me that others had done so too As if that could be any manner of Satisfaction I added in the close That when any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them so as to make them opposite to the Doctrin of the Trinity and me a Party in that Controversie against the Trinity as your Lordship knows I complain your Lordship has done I shall complain of them too and consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it Of this any one of mine your Lordship makes your forementioned They whether with any advantage of Sense or clearness to my Words the Reader must judge However this latter part of that Passage with the particular turn your Lordship gives to it is what your Words would perswade your Reader is all that I say here Would not your Lordship upon such an occasion from me cry out again Is this fair and ingenuous Dealing And would not you think you had reason to do so But let us see what we must guess your Lordship makes me say and your exceptions to it Your Lordship makes me say whoever they are who misapply my Words as I complain your Lordship has done
for these Words must be supplied to make the Sentence to me intelligible I intend to complain of them too And then you find fault with me for using the indefinite word whoever and as a Reproof for the unreasonableness of it you say But the Words just before tell me who they are But my Words are not whoever they are But my Words are When any one in such a manner applies my Words contrary to what I intended them c. Your Lordship would here have me understand that there are those that have done it and Rebukes me that I speak as if I knew not any one that had done it and that I may not plead Ignorance you say your Words just before told me who they were viz. The Enemies of the Christian Faith What must I do now to keep my Word and satisfie your Lordship Must I complain of the Enemies of the Christian Faith in general that they have applied my Words as aforesaid and then consider as well as I can what Satisfaction they give me and others in it For that was all I promised to do But this would be strange to complain of the Enemies of the Christian Faith for doing what 't is very likely they never all did and what I do not know that any one of them has done Or must I to content your Lordship read over all the writings of the Enemies of the Christian Faith to see whether any one of them has applied my Words i. e. in such a manner as I complained your Lordship has done that if they have I may complain of them too This truly my Lord is more than I have time for and if it were worth while when it is done I perceive I should not content your Lordship in it For you ask me here Is this all I intend only to complain of them for making me a Party in the Controversie against the Trinity No my Lord this is not all I promised too To consider as well as I can what Satisfaction if they offer any they give me and others for so doing And why should not this content your Lordship in reference to others as well as it does in reference to your self I have but one measure for your Lordship and others When others treat me after the manner you have done why should it not be enough to answer them after the same manner I have done your Lordship But perhaps your Lordship has some dextrous meaning under this which I am not quick sighted enough to perceive and so do not reply right as you would have me I must beg my Readers Pardon as well as your Lordships for using so many Words about Passages that seem not in themselves of that importance I confess that in themselves they are not But yet 't is my misfortune that in this Controversie your way of writing and representing my Sense forces me to it Your Lordship's name in writing is established above controle and therefore 't would be ill breeding in one who barely reads what you write not to take every thing for perfect in its kind which your Lordship says Clearness and Force and Consistence are to be presumed always whatever your Lordship's Words be And there is no other Remedy for an Answerer who finds it difficult any where to come at your Meaning or Argument but to make his Excuse for it in laying the particulars before the Reader that he may be Judge where the Fault lies especially where any matter of Fact is contested deductions from the first rise are often necessary which cannot be made in few Words nor without several Repetitions An inconvenience possibly fitter to be endured than that your Lordship in the run of your Learned Notions should be Shackled with the ordinary and strict Rules of Language and in the delivery of your sublimer Speculations be tied down to the mean and contemptible rudiments of Grammar Though your being above these and freed from a servile observance in the use of trivial Particles whereon the connection of Discourse chiefly depends cannot but cause great difficulties to the Reader And however it may be an ease to any great Man to find himself above the ordinary rules of Writing he who is bound to follow the connection and find out his Meaning will have his Task much encreased by it I am very sensible how much this has swelled these Papers already and yet I do not see how any thing less than what I have said could clear those Passages which we have hitherto examined and set them in their due Light Your next Words are these But whether I have not made my self too much a Party in it i. e. the Controversie against the Trinity will appear before we have done This is an Item for me which your Lordship seems so very fond of and so careful to inculcate wherever you bring in any Words it can be tacked to that if one can avoid thinking it to be the main end of your writing one cannot yet but see that it could not be so much in the Thoughts and Words of a great Man who is above such personal Matters and which he knows the World soon grows weary of unless it had some very particular business there Whether it be the Author that has prejudiced you against his Book or the Book prejudiced you against the Author so it is I perceive that both I and my Essay are fallen under your displeasure I am not unacquainted what great stress is often laid upon invidious Names by skilful Disputants to supply the want of better Arguments But give me leave my Lord to say That 't is too late for me now to begin to value those marks of good Will or a good Cause and therefore I shall say nothing more to them as fitter to be left to the examination of the Thoughts within your own breast from what sourse such reasonings spring and whither they tend I am going my Lord to a Tribunal that has a right to judge of Thoughts and being secure that I there shall be found of no Party but that of Truth for which there is required nothing but the receiving Truth in the Love of it I matter not much of what Party any one shall as may best serve his turn denominate me here Your Lordship's is not the first Pen from which I have receiv'd such strokes as these without any great harm I never found freedom of Stile did me any hurt with those who knew me and if those who know me not will take up borrowed Prejudices it will be more to their own harm than mine So that in this I shall give your Lordship little other Trouble but my Thanks sometimes where I find you skilfully and industriously recommending me to the World under the Character you have chosen for me Only give me leave to say That if the Essay I shall leave behind me hath no other fault to sink it but Heresie and inconsistency with the Articles of the Christian Faith
the proper Place My Lord if I offended your Lordship by passing it by because I thought there was no Argument in it I hope I have now given you some sort of Satisfaction by shewing there is no Argument in it and letting you see that your consequence here could not be infer'd from your antecedent If you think it may I desire you to try it in a Syllogism For whatever you are pleased to say in another place my way of Certainty by Ideas will admit of Antecedents and Consequents and of Syllogism as the proper form to try whether the Inference be right or no. I shall set down your following Words that the Reader may see your Lordship's manner of Reasoning concerning this matter in its full force and consistency and try it in a Syllogism if he pleases Your Words are By this it evidently appears that although your Lordship was willing to allow me all fair ways of interpreting my own Sense yet you by no means Thought that my Words were wholy misunderstood or misapplied by that Author But rather that he saw into the true consequence of them as they lie in my Book And what answer do I give to this Not a Word in the proper place for it You tell me you were willing to allow me all fair ways of interpreting my own Sense If your Lordship had been conscious to your self that you had herein meant me any kindness I think I may presume you would not have minded me here again of a Favour which you had told me of but in the preceding Page and to make it an Obligation need not have been more than once talked of unless your Lordship thought the Obligation was such that it would hardly be seen unless I were told of it in words at length and in more places than one For what Favour I beseech you my Lord is it to allow me to do that which needed not your allowance to be done and I could have done if it had been necessary of my self without being blamed for taking that liberty Whatsoever therefore your meaning was in these Words I cannot think you took this way to make me sensible of your Kindness Your Lordship says you were willing to allow me to interpret my own Sense What you were willing to allow me to do I have done My Sense is that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas and my Sense therein I have interpreted to be the agreement or disagreement not only of perfectly clear and distinct Ideas but such Ideas as we have whether they be in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct or no. Farther in answer to your Objection that it might be of dangerous Consequence I so explained my Sense as to shew that Certainty in that Sense was not nor could be of dangerous Consequence This which was the Point in question between us your Lordship might have found at large explain'd in 82d and ten or twelve following Pages of my second Letter if you had been pleased to have taken notice of them But it seems you were more willing to tell me That though you were willing to allow me all ways of interpreting my own Sense yet you by no means thought that my Words were wholy misunderstood or misapply'd by that Author but rather that he saw into the true consequence of them as they lie in my Book I shall here set down your Lordship's Words where to give me and others Satisfaction you say you took care to prevent being misunderstood which will best appear by your own Words viz. That you must doe that right to the ingenious Author of the Essay of Humane Vnderstanding from whom these Notions are borrowed to serve other purposes than he intended them It was too plain that the bold Writer against the Mysteries of our Faith took his Notions and Expressions from thence and what could be said more for my Vindication than that he turned them to other purposes than the Author intended them This you endeavour to prove p. 43-46 and then conclude By which it is sufficiently proved that you had Reason to say that my Notion was carried beyond my Intention These Words out of your first Letter I shall leave here set by those out of your Second that you may at your leisure if you think fit for it will not become me to tell your Lordship that I am willing to allow it explain your self to the general Satisfaction that it may be known which of them is now your Sense for they are I suppose too much to be together any ones Sense at the same time My Intention being thus so well vindicated by your Lordship that you think nothing could be said more for my Vindication the misunderstanding or not misunderstanding of my Book by that or any other Author is what I shall not wast my time about If your Lordship thinks he saw into the true Consequence of this Position of mine that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas for 't is from the inference that you suppose he makes from that my definition of Knowledge that you are here proving it to be of dangerous Consequence he is beholding to your Lordship for your good Opinion of his quick Sight I take no part in that one way or other What consequences your Lordship's quick Sight which must be allowed to have out-done what you suppose of that Gentleman's has found and charged on that Notion as dangerous I shall endeavour to give you Satisfaction in You farther add that though I answer'd not a Word in the proper Place yet afterwards Let. 2. p. 95. for you would omit nothing that may seem to help my Cause I offer something towards an Answer I shall be at a loss hereafter what to do with the 82d and following Pages to the 95th since what is said in those Pages of my second Letter goes for nothing because it is not in its proper Place Though if any one will give himself the trouble to look into my second Letter he will find that the Argument I was upon in the 46th Page obliged me to defer what I had farther to say to your new Accusation But that I re-assumed it in the 82d and answer'd it in that and the following Pages But supposing every Writer had not that exactness of Method which shew'd by the natural and visible connection of the parts of his Discourse that every thing was laid in its proper place is it a sufficient Answer not to take any notice of it The Reason why I put this Question is because if this be a Rule in Controversie I humbly conceive I might have passed over the greatest part of what your Lordship has said to me because the Disposition it has under numerical Figures is so far from giving me a view of the orderly connection of the parts of your Discourse that I have often been tempted to suspect the negligence of
the Printer for misplacing your Lordship's Numbers since so ranked as they are they do to me who am confounded by them lose all Order and Connection quite The next thing in the Defence which you go on with is an exception to my use of the word Certainty In the close of the Answer I had made in the Pages you pass over I add that Though the Laws of Disputation allow bare denial as a sufficient Answer to Sayings without any offer of a Proof yet my Lord to shew how willing I am to give your Lordship all Satisfaction in what you apprehend may be of dangerous Consequence in my Book as to that Article I shall not stand still sullenly and put your Lordship upon the difficulty of shewing wherein that Danger lies but shall on the other side endeavour to shew your Lordship That that Definition of mine whether True or False Right or Wrong can be of no dangerous Consequence to that Article of Faith The Reason which I shall offer for it is this because it can be of no Consequence to it at all And the Reason of it was clear from what I had said before That Knowing and Believing were Two different Acts of the Mind And that my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas i. e. that my Definition of Knowledge one of those Acts of the Mind would not at all alter or shake the Definition of Faith which was another Act of the Mind distinct from it And therefore I added That the Certainty of Faith if your Lordship thinks fit to call it so has nothing to do with the Certainty of Knowledge And to talk of the Certainty of Faith seems all one to me as to talk of the Knowledge of Believing a way of Speaking not easy to me to understand These and other Words to this purpose in the following Paragraphs your Lordship lays hold on and sets down as liable to no small exception Though as you tell me the main strength of my Defence lies in it Let what Strength you please lie in it my Defence was strong enough without it For to your bare Saying my method of Certainty might be of dangerous Consequence to any Article of the Christian Faith without proving it it was a defence strong enough barely to deny and put you upon shewing wherein that danger lies which therefore this main strength of my Defence as you call it apart I insist on But as to your exception to what I said on this occasion it consists in this that there is a Certainty of Faith and therefore you set down my saying That to talk of the Certainty of Faith seems all one as to talk of the Knowledge of believing As that which shews the inconsistency of my Notion of Ideas with the Articles of the Christian Faith These are your Words here and yet you tell me That it is not my way of Ideas but my way of Certainty by Ideas that your Lordship is unsatisfied about What must I do now in the Case when your Words are expresly that my Notion of Ideas have an inconsistency with the Articles of the Christian Faith Must I presume that your Lordship means my Notion of Certainty All that I can do is to search out your meaning the best I can and then shew where I apprehend it not conclusive But this uncertainty in most places what you mean makes me so much work that a great deal is omitted and yet my Answer is too long Your Lordship asks in the next Paragraph How comes the Certainty of Faith so hard a Point with me Answ. I suppose you ask this Question more to give others hard thoughts of my Opinion of Faith than to be informed your self For you cannot be ignorant that all along in my Essay I use Certainty for Knowledge so that for you to ask me How comes the Certainty of Faith to become so hard a Point with me is the same thing as for you to ask How comes the knowledge of Faith or if you please the knowledge of Believing to be so hard a Point with me A Question which I suppose you will think needs no Answer let your meaning in that doubtful Phrase be what it will I used in my Book the term Certainty for Knowledge so generally that no body that has read my Book though much less attentively than your Lordship can doubt of it That I used it in that sense there I shall refer my Reader but to two places amongst many to convince him This I am sure your Lordship could not be ignorant that by Certainty I mean Knowledge since I have so used it in my Letters to you Instances whereof are not a few some of them may be found in the places marked in the Margent And in my second Letter what I say in the leaf immediately preceding that which you quote upon this occasion would have put it past a possibility for any one to make shew of a doubt of it had not that been amongst those Pages of my Answer which for its being out of its proper place it seems you were resolved not to take notice of and therefore I hope it will not be besides my purpose here to mind you of it again After having said something to shew why I used Certainty and Knowledge for the same thing I added that Your Lordship could not but take notice of this in the 18th § of Ch. 4. of my 4th Book it being a Passage you had quoted and runs thus Where-ever we perceive the agreement or disagreement of any of our Idaas there is certain Knowledge And where-ever we are sure those Ideas agree with the reality of things there is certain real Knowledge of which having given the marks I think I have shewn wherein Certainty real Certainty consists And I farther add in the immediately following Words That my definition of Knowledge in the beginning of the 4th Book of my Essay stands thus Knowledge seems to be nothing but the perception of the connection and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our Ideas Which is the very definition of Certainty that your Lordship is here contesting Since then you could not but know that in this discourse Certainty with me stood for or was the same thing with Knowledge may not one justly wonder how you come to ask me such a Question as this How comes the Knowledge of Believing to become so hard a Point with me For that was in effect the Question that you asked when you put in the term Certainty since you knew as undoubtedly that I meant Knowledge by Certainty as that I meant Believing by Faith i. e. you could doubt of neither And that you did not doubt of it is plain from what you say in the next Page where you endeavour to prove this an improper way of speaking Whether it be a proper way of speaking I allow to be a fair Question
another Language into which it was from thence transplanted But if you will give me leave to remind you of it I remember that you my Lord say in the same place That little weight is to be laid upon a bare Grammatical Etymology when a Word is used in another sense by the best Authors And I think you could not have brought a more proper instance to verifie that saying than that which you produce here But pray my Lord why so far about Why are we sent to the antient Romans Why must we consult which is no easie task all Mankind who have talked of Faith to know whether Certainty be properly used for Faith or no when to determine it between your Lordship and Me there is so sure a Remedy and so near at hand It is but for you to say wherein Certainty consists This when I gently offer'd to your Lordship in my first Letter you interpreted it to be a design to draw you out of your way I am sorry my Lord you should think it out of your way to put an end a short end to a Controversie which you think of such moment Methinks it should not be out of your way with one blow finally to overthrow an Assertion which you think to be of dangerous consequence to that Article of Faith which your Lordship has endeavoured to defend I proposed the same again where I say For this there is a very easie Remedy It is but for your Lordship to set aside this Definition of Knowledge by giving us a better and this danger is over But you choose rather to have a Controversie with my Book for having it in it and to put me upon the Defence of it This is so express that your taking no notice of it puts me at a loss what to think To say that a Man so great in Letters does not know wherein Certainty consists is a greater presumption than I will be guilty of and yet to think that you do know and will not tell is yet harder Who can think or will dare to say That your Lordship so much concerned for the Articles of Faith and engaged in this dispute with me by your duty for the preservation of them should choose to keep up a Controversie with me rather than remove that danger which my wrong Notion of Certainty threatens to the Articles of Faith For my Lord since the Question is moved and it is brought by your Lordship to a publick Dispute wherein Certainty consists a great many knowing no better may take up with what I have said and rather than have no Notion of Certainty at all will stick by mine till a better be shew'd them And if mine tends to Scepticism as you say and you will not furnish them with one that does not what is it but to give way to Scepticism and let it quietly prevail on Men as either having my Notion of Certainty or none at all Your Lordship indeed says something in excuse in your 75th Page which that my Answer may be in the proper place shall be consider'd when we come there Your Lordship declares That you are utterly against any private Mints of Words I know not what the Publick may do for your particular Satisfaction in the Case but till publick Mints of Words are erected I know no Remedy for it but that you must patiently suffer this matter to go on in the same course that I think it has gone in ever since Language has been in use Here in this Island as far as my knowledge reaches I do not find that ever since the Saxons time in all the alterations that have been made in our Language that any one Word or Phrase has had its Authority from the Great Seal or passed by Act of Parliament When the dazling Metaphor of the Mint and new mill'd Words c. which mightily as it seems delighted your Lordship when you were writing that Paragraph will give you leave to consider this matter plainly as it is you will find that the Coining of Mony in publickly authoriz'd Mints affords no manner of Argument against private Mens medling in the introducing new or changing the signification of old Words every one of which alterations always has its rise from some private Mint The Case in short is this Mony by vertue of the Stamp received in the publick Mint which vouches its intrinsick Worth has authority to pass This use of the publick Stamp would be lost if private Men were suffer'd to offer Mony stamp'd by themselves On the contrary Words are offer'd to the Publick by every private Man Coined in his private Mint as he pleases but 't is the receiving of them by others their very passing that gives them their Authority and Currancy and not the Mint they come out of Horace I think has given a true account of this matter in a Country very jealous of any Usurpation upon the publick Authority Multa renascentur quae jam cecidere cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula si volet usus Quem penes arbitrium jus norma loquendi But yet whatever change is made in the signification or credit of any word by publick use this change has always its beginning in some private Mint so Horace tells us it was in the Roman Language quite down to his time Ego cur acquirere pauca Si possum invideor quum lingua Catonis Enni Sermonem patrium ditaverit nova rerum Nomina protulerit Licuit semperque licebit Signatum praesente nota procudere nomen Here we see Horace expresly says That private Mints of Words were always Licensed and with Horace I humbly conceive so they will always continue how utterly soever your Lordship may be against them And therefore he that offers to the Publick new mill'd Words from his own private Mint is not always in that so bold an Invader of the publick Authority as you would make him This I say not to excuse my self in the present Case for I deny that I have at all changed the signification of the word Certainty And therefore if you had pleased you might my Lord have spared your saying on this Occasion That it seems our old Words must not now pass in the current Sense And those Persons assume too much Authority to themselves who will not suffer common Words to pass in their general acceptation and other things to the same purpose in this Paragraph till you had proved that in strict propriety of speech it could be said That a Man was certain of that which he did not know but only believed If you had had time in the heat of Dispute to have made a little Reflection on the use of the English word Certainty in strict Speaking perhaps your Lordship would not have been so forward to have made my using it only for precise Knowledge so enormous an impropriety at least you would not have accused it of weakening the Credibility
this Proposition Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this fundament Article that there is a God And so of the immortality of the Soul because I say I know not but Matter may think Your Lordship would infer Ergo my definition of Certainty weakens the credibility of the Revelation of the Souls immortality Your Lordship is pleased here to call this Proposition That Knowledge or Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas My general grounds of Certainty as if I had some more particular grounds of Certainty Whereas I have no other Ground or Notion of Certainty but this one alone all my Notion of Certainty is contained in that one particular Proposition but perhaps your Lordship did it that you might make the Proposition above quoted viz. No Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self under the Title you give it of the way of Ideas pass for one of my particular Grounds of Certainty whereas it is no more any Ground of Certainty of mine or definition of Knowledge than any other Proposition in my Book Another thing very remarkable in what your Lordship here says is That you make the failing to attain Knowledge by any way of Certainty in some particular Instances to be the finding the uncertainty of the way it self which is all one as to say That if a Man misses by Algebra the certain Knowledge of some Propositions in Mathematicks therefore he finds the way or principles of Algebra to be uncertain or false This is your Lordship's way of reasoning here Your Lordship quotes out of me That I say no Idea proves the existence of the thing without it self And that I say That one cannot be certain that Matter cannot think from whence your Lordship argues That he who says so cannot attain to Certainty that there is a God or that the Soul is immortal and thereupon your Lordship concludes he finds the uncertainty of the Principles he went upon in Point of Reason i. e. that he finds this Principle or Ground of Certainty he went upon in reasoning viz. That Certainty or Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to be uncertain For if your Lordship means here by Principles he went upon in Point of Reason any thing else but that definition of Knowledge which your Lordship calls my Way Method Grounds c. of Certainty which I and others to the endangering some Articles of Faith go upon I crave leave to say it concerns nothing at all the Argument your Lordship is upon which is to prove That the placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas may be of dangerous consequence to any Article of Faith Your Lordship in the next place says Before we can believe any thing upon the account of Revelation we must suppose there is a God What use does your Lordship make of this Your Lordship thus argues But by my way of Certainty a Man is made uncertain whether there be a God or no. For that to me is the meaning of those Words How can his Faith stand firm as to Divine Revelation when he is made uncertain by his own way whether there be a God or no Or they can to me mean nothing to the Question in hand What is the conclusion from hence This it must be or nothing to the purpose Ergo my defini-nition of Knowledge or which is the same thing my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas leaves not the Articles of Faith the same credibility they had before To excuse my dulness in not being able to comprehend this consequence pray my Lord consider that your Lordship says Before we can believe any thing upon the account of Revelation it must be supposed that there is a God But cannot he who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement and disagreement of Ideas supposes there is a God But your Lordship means by suppose that one must be certain that there is a God Let it be so and let it be your Lordship's priviledge in Controversie to use one word for another though of a different signification as I think to suppose and be certain are Cannot one that places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas be certain there is a God I can assure you my Lord I am certain there is a God and yet I own That I place Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas Nay I dare venture to say to your Lordship That I have proved there is a God and see no inconsistency at all between these two Propositions That Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement of disagreement of Ideas and that it is certain there is a God So that this my Notion of Certainty this definition of Knowledge for any thing your Lordship has said to the contrary leaves to this Fundamental Article the same Credibility and the same Certainty it had before Your Lordship says farther To suppose Divine Revelation we must be certain that there is a principle above Matter and Motion in the World Here again my Lord your way of writing makes work for my Ignorance and before I can either admit or deny this Proposition or judge what force it has to prove the Proposition in question I must distinguish it into these different Senses which I think your Lordship's way of speaking may comprehend For your Lordship may mean it thus To suppose Divine Revelation we must be certain i. e. we must believe that there is a principle above Matter and Motion in the World Or your Lordship may mean thus We must be certain i. e. we must know that there is something above Matter or Motion in the World In the next place your Lordship may mean by something above Matter and Motion either simply an intelligent Being for Knowledge without determining what Being it is in is a principle above Matter and Motion Or your Lordship may mean an immaterial intelligent Being so that this undetermined way of expressing includes at least four distinct Propositions whereof some are true and others not so For 1. My Lord if your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. must certainly know that there is an intelligent Being in the World and that that intelligent Being is immaterial from whence that Revelation comes I deny it For a Man may suppose Revelation upon the belief of an intelligent Being from whence it comes without being able to make out to himself by a Scientifical Reasoning that there is such a Being A proof whereof I humbly conceive are the Anthropomorphites among the Christians heretofore who nevertheless rejected not the Revelation of the New Testament and he that will talk with illiterate People in this Age will I doubt not find many who believe
or am supposed to have said or to hold for that I ever said so I do not remember That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas Ergo whoever holds that Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas cannot have any assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation My Lord let that Proposition viz. That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas be mine as much as your Lordship pleases and let it be as inconsistent as you please with the assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation How will it follow from thence that the placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas is the Cause that there cannot be any such thing as the assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation to any Body Though I who hold Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement and disagreement of Ideas have the Misfortune to run into this Error viz. That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas which is inconsistent with the assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation yet it is not necessary that all others who with me hold that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas should also hold That Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas or that I my self should always hold it Unless your Lordship will say that whoever places Certainty as I do in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas must necessarily hold all the Errors that I do which are inconsistent with or weaken the belief of any Article of Faith and hold them incorrigibly Which has as much consequence as if I should argue that because your Lordship who lives at Worcester does sometime mistake in quoting me therefore no Body who lives at Worcester can quote my Words right or your Lordship can never mend your wrong Quotations For my Lord the holding Certainty to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas is no more a necessary cause of holding those erroneous Propositions which your Lordship imputes to me as weakening the credibility of the mentioned Articles of Faith than the place of your Lordship's dwelling is a necessary cause of wrong Quoting I shall not here go about to trouble your Lordship with Divining again what may be your Lordship's precise Meaning in several of the Propositions contained in the Passage above set down especially that remarkably ambiguous and to me obscure one viz. There must be a Certainty as to Sense and Tradition I fear I have wasted too much of your Lordship's and my Reader 's time in that imployment already and there would be no end if I should endeavour to explain whatever I am at a loss about the determined Sense of in any of your Lordship's Expressions Only I will crave leave to beg my Reader to observe That in this first Head which we are upon your Lordship has used the Terms Certain and Certainty near Twenty times but without determining in any of them whether you mean Knowledge or the full assurance of Faith or any degree of Believing though it be evident that in these Pages your Lordship uses Certainty for all these Three Which ambiguous use of the main Word in that Discourse cannot but render your Lordship's Sense clear and perspicuous and your Argument very cogent and no doubt will do so to any one who will be but at the pains to reduce that one Word to a clear determined Sense all through these few Paragraphs Your Lordship says Have not all Mankind who have talked of matters of Faith allowed a Certainty of Faith as well as a Certainty of Knowledge Answ. But did ever any one of all that Mankind allow it as a tolerable way of speaking that believing in general for which your Lordship has used it which contains in it the lowest degree of Faith should be called Certainty Could he who said I Believe Lord help my Vnbelief or any one who is weak in Faith or of little Faith be properly be said to be certain or de dubio certus of what he believes but with a weak degree of Assent I shall not question what your Lordship 's great Learning may Authorize But I imagine every one hath not skill or will not assume the liberty to speak so If a Witness before a Judge asked upon his Oath whether he were certain of such a thing should answer yes he was certain and upon farther demand should give this account of his Certainty That he believed it would he not make the Court and Auditors believe strangely of him For to say that a Man is certain when he barely believes and that perhaps with no great Assurance of Faith is to say that he is certain where he owns an Vncertainty For he that says he barely believes acknowledges that he Assents to a Proposition as true upon bare probability And where any one Assents thus to any Proposition his Assent excludes not a possibility that it may be otherwise and wherein any one's Judgment there is a possibility to be otherwise there one cannot deny but there is some Uncertainty and the less cogent the Probabilities appear upon which he Assents the greater the Uncertainty So that all barely probable Proofs which procure Assent always containing some visible possibility that it may be otherwise or else it would be demonstration and consequently the weaker the Probability appears the weaker the Assent and the more the Uncertainty It thence follows that where there is such a mixture of Uncertainty there a Man is so far uncertain and therefore to say That a Man is certain where he barely believes or assents but weakly though he does believe seems to me to say That he is certain and uncertain together But though bare Belief always include some degrees of Uncertainty yet it does not therefore necessarily include any degree of wavering the evidently strong probability may as steadily determine the Man to Assent to the Truth or make him take the Proposition for true and act accordingly as Knowledge makes him see or be certain that it is true And he that doth so as to Truths reveal'd in the Scripture will shew his Faith by his Works and has for ought I can see all the Faith necessary to a Christian and requir'd to Salvation My Lord when I consider the length of my Answer here to these few Pages of your Lordship's I cannot but bemoan my own dulness and own my unfitness to deal with so learned an Adversary as your Lordship in Controversie For I know not how to answer but to a Proposition of a determin'd Sense Whilst it is vague and uncertain in a general or equivocal use of any of the Terms I cannot tell what to say to it I know not but such comprehensive ways of expressing ones self may do well enough in declamation but in reasoning there can be no judgment made
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
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
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
about the Body which could serve only to perplex not to confirm what was material and necessary for them to believe viz. a Day of Judgment and Retribution to Men in a future state and therefore 't is no wonder that mentioning their Bodies he should use a way of speaking suited to vulgar Notions from which it would be hard positively to conclude any thing for the determining of this Question especially against Expressions in the same Discourse that plainly incline to the other side in a matter which as it appears the Apostle thought not necessary to determin And the Spirit of God thought not fit to gratifie any ones curiosity in But your Lordship says The Apostle speaks plainly of that Body which was once quickened and afterwards falls to Corruption and is to be restor'd with more noble Qualities I wish your Lordship had quoted the Words of St. Paul wherein he speaks plainly of that numerical Body that was once quickened they would presently decide this Question But your Lordship proves it by these following Words of St. Paul For this Corruption must put on Incorruption and this Mortal must put on Immortality to which your Lordship adds That you do not see how he could more expresly affirm the identity of this corruptible Body with that after the Resurrection How expressly it is affirmed by the Apostle shall be consider'd by and by In the mean time it is past doubt that your Lordship best knows what you do or do not see But this I will be bold to say that if St. Paul had any where in this Chapter where there are so many occasions for it if it had been necessary to have been believed but said in express Words that the same Bodies should be raised every one else who thinks of it will see he had more expresly affirmed the Identity of the Bodies which Men now have with those they shall have after the Resurrection The remainder of your Lordship's Period is And that without any respect to the principle of Self-consciousness Answ. These Words I doubt not have some meaning but I must own I know not what either towards the Proof of the Resurrection of the same Body or to shew that any thing I have said concerning Self-consciousness is inconsistent For I do not remember that I have any where said That the Identity of Body consisted in Self-consciousness From your preceding Words your Lordship concludes thus And so if the Scripture be the sole Foundation of our Faith this is an Article of it My Lord to make the conclusion unquestionable I humbly conceive the Words must run thus And so if the Scripture and your Lordship's interpretation of it be the sole Foundation of our Faith the Resurrection of the same Body is an Article of it For with submission your Lordship has neither produced express Words of Scripture for it nor so proved that to be the meaning of any of those Words of Scripture which you have produced for it that a Man who reads and sincerely endeavours to understand the Scripture cannot but find himself obliged to believe as expresly that the same Bodies of the dead in your Lordship's Sense shall be raised as that the dead shall be raised And I crave leave to give your Lordship this one Reason for it He who reads with attention this Discourse of St. Paul where he discourses of the Resurrection will see that he plainly distinguishes between the dead that shall be raised and the Bodies of the dead For it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the nominative Cases to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all along and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bodies which one may with Reason think would somewhere or other have been expressed if all this had been said to propose it as an Article of Faith that the very same Bodies should be raised The same manner of speaking the Spirit of God observes all through the New Testament where it is said raise the dead quicken or make alive the dead the Resurrection of the deads Nay these very Words of our Saviour urged by your Lordship for the Resurrection of the same Body run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Would a well-meaning Searcher of the Scriptures be apt to think that if the thing here intended by our Saviour were to teach and propose it as an Article of Faith necessary to be believed by every one that the very same Bodies of the dead should be raised would not I say any one be apt to think that if our Saviour meant so the Words should rather have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. all the Bodies that are in the Graves rather than all who are in the Graves which must denote Persons and not precisely Bodies Another Evidence that St. Paul makes a distinction between the dead and the Bodies of the dead so that the dead cannot be taken in this 1 Cor. Ch. 15. to stand precisely for the Bodies of the dead are these Words of the Apostle But some Men will say How are the dead raised and with what Bodies do they come Which words dead and they if supposed to stand precisely for the Bodies of the dead the Question will run thus How are the dead Bodies raised and with what Bodies do the dead Bodies come Which seems to have no very agreeable Sense This therefore being so that the Spirit of God keeps so expresly to this Phrase or form of Speaking in the New Testament of raising quickening rising resurrection c. of the dead where the Resurrection at the last Day is spoken of and that the Body is not mentioned but in Answer to this Question with what Bodies shall those dead who are raised come so that by the dead cannot precisely be meant the dead Bodies I do not see but a good Christian who reads the Scripture with an intention to believe all that is there revealed to him concerning the Resurrection may acquit himself of his Duty therein without entring into the enquiry whether the dead shall have the very same Bodies or no which sort of enquiry the Apostle by the Appellation he bestows here on him that makes it seems not much to incourage Nor if he shall think himself bound to determine concerning the Identity of the Bodies of the dead raised at the last Day will he by the remainder of St. Paul's Answer find the determination of the Apostle to be much in favour of the very same Body unless the being told that the Body sown is not that Body that shall be That the Body raised is as different from that which was laid down as the Flesh of Man is from the Flesh of Beasts Fishes and Birds or as the Sun Moon and Stars are different one from another or as different as a corruptible weak natural mortal Body is from an incorruptible powerful spiritual immortal Body and lastly as different as a Body that is Flesh and Blood is from a Body that is not
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
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
taking them to be as true as if they were the very Words of Divine Revelation the Question then is how must we interpret the Sense of them For supposing them to be Divine Revelation to ask as your Lordship here does what Resolution I or any one can come to about their possibility seems to me to involve a Contradiction in it For whoever admits a Proposition to be of Divine Revelation supposes it not only to be possible but true Your Lordship's Question then can mean only this What Sense can I upon my Principles come to of either of these Propositions but in the way of Ideas And I crave leave to ask your Lordship what Sense of them can your Lordship upon your Principles come to but in the way of Notions Which in plain English amounts to no more than this That your Lordship must understand them according to the Sense you have of those Terms they are made up of and I according to the Sense I have of those Terms Nor can it be otherwise unless your Lorship can take a Term in any Proposition to have one Sense and yet understand it in another And thus we see that in effect Men have differently understood and interpreted the Sense of these Propositions Whether they used the way of Ideas or not i. e. whether they called what any Word stood for Notion or Sense or Meaning or Idea I think my self obliged to return your Lordship my Thanks for the News you write me here of one who has found a secret way how the same Body may be in distant Places at once It making no part that I can see of the Reasoning your Lordship was then upon I can take it only for a piece of News And the Favour was the greater that your Lordship was pleased to stop your self in the midst of so serious an Argument as the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation to tell it me And methinks 't is pity that that Author had not used some of the Words of my Book which might have served to have tied him and me together For his Secret about a Body in two Places at once which he does keep up and my Secret about Certainty which your Lordship thinks had been better kept up too being all your Words bring me into his Company but very untowardly If your Lordship would be pleased to shew That my Secret about Certainty as you think fit to call it is false or erroneous the World would see a good Reason why you should think it better kept up till then perhaps they may be apt to suspect that the Fault is not so much in my published Secret about Certainty as somewhere else But since your Lordship thinks it had been better kept up I promise that as soon as you shall do me the Favour to make publick a better Notion of Certainty than mine I will by a publick Retractation call in mine Which I hope your Lordship will do for I dare say no Body will think it good or Friendly Advice to your Lordship if you have such a Secret that you should keep it up Your Lordship with some Emphasis bids me observe my own Words that I here positively say That the Mind not being certain of the Truth of that it doth not evidently know So that it is plain here that I place Certainty only in evident Knowledge or in clear and distinct Ideas and yet my great Complaint of your Lordship was That you charged this upon me and now your Lordship finds it in my own Words Answ. My own Words in that place are The Mind in not certain of what it doth not evidently know but in them or that Passage as set down by your Lordship there is not the least mention of clear and distinct Ideas and therefore I should wonder to hear your Lordship so solemnly call them my own Words when they are but what your Lordship would have to be a Consequence of my Words were it not as I humbly conceive a way not unfrequent with your Lordship to speak of that which you think a Consequence from any thing said as if it were the very thing said It rests therefore upon your Lordship to prove that evident Knowledge can be only where the Ideas concerning which it is are perfectly clear and distinct I am certain that I have evident Knowledge that the Substance of my Body and Soul exists though I am as certain that I have but a very obscure and confused Idea of any Substance at all So that my Complaint of your Lordship upon that Account remains very well Founded notwithstanding any thing you alledge here Your Lordship summing up the force of what you have said add That you have pleaded 1. That my method of Certainty shakes the belief of Revelation in General 2. That is shakes the belief of particular Propositions or Articles of Faith which depend upon the Sense of Words contained in Scripture That your Lordship has pleaded I grant but with Submission I deny that you have proved 1. That my definition of Knowledge which is that which your Lordship calls my method of Certainty shakes the belief of Revelation in general For all that your Lordship offers for Proof of it is only the alledging some other Passages out of my Book quite different from that my definition of Knowledge which you endeavour to shew do shake the belief of Revelation in General But Indeed have not nor I humbly conceive cannot shew that they do any ways shake the belief of Revelation in general But if they did it does not at all follow from thence that my definition of Knowledge i. e. my method of Certainty at all shakes the belief of Revelation in general which was what your Lordship undertook to prove 2. As to the shaking the belief of particular Propositions or Articles of Faith which depend as you here say upon the Sense of Words I think I have sufficiently cleared my self from that Charge as will yet be more evident from what your Lordship here farther urges Your Lordship says my placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas shakes the Foundations of the Articles of Faith above mentioned which depend upon the Sense of Words contained in the Scripture And the Reason your Lordship gives for it is this Because I do not say we are to believe all that we find there expressed My Lord upon reading these Words I consulted the Errata to see whether the Printer had injured you For I could not easily believe that your Lordship should Reason after a Fashon that would justifie such a conclusion as this viz. Your Lordship in your Letter to me does not say that we are to believe all that we find expressed in Scripture therefore your Notion of Certainty shakes the belief of this Article of Faith that Jesus Christ descended into Hell This I think will scarce hold for a good Consequence till the not saying any Truth be the denying of
it and then if my not saying in my Book That we are to believe all there expressed be to deny That we are to believe all that we find there expressed I fear many of your Lordship's Books will be found to shake the belief of several or all the Articles of our Faith But supposing this Consequence to be good viz. I do not say therefore I deny and thereby I shake the belief of some Articles of Faith how does this prove That my placing of Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas shakes any Article of Faith unless my saying that Certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas in the 301 page of my Essay be a Proof that I do not say in any other part of that Book That we are to believe all that we find expressed in Scripture But perhaps the remaining Words of the period will help us out in your Lordship's Argument which all together stands thus Because I do not say we are to believe all that we find there expressed but I do say in case we have any clear and distinct Ideas which limit the Sense another way than the Words seem to carry it we are to judge that to be the true Sense My Lord I do not remember where I say what in the latter part of this Period your Lordship makes me say And your Lordship would have done me a Favour to have quoted the place Indeed I do say in the Chapter your Lordship seems to be upon That no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation or obtain the assent due to all such if it be contradictory to our clear intuitive Knowledge This is what I there say and all that I there say Which in effect is this That no Proposition can be received for divine Revelation which is contradictory to a self-evident Proposition and if that be it which your Lordship makes me say here in the foregoing Words I agree to it and would be glad to know whether your Lordship differs in Opinion from me in it But this not answering your purpose your Lordship would in the following Words of this Paragraph change self-evident Proposition into a Proposition we have attained Certainty of though by imperfect Ideas In which Sense the Proposition your Lordship argues from as mine will stand thus That no Proposition can be received for Divine Revelation or obtain the assent due to all such if it be contradictory to any Proposition of whose Truth we are by any way certain And then I desire your Lordship to name the Two contradictory Propositions the one of Divine Revelation I do not assent to the other That I have attained to a Certainty of by my imperfect Ideas which makes me reject or not assent to that of Divine Revelation The very setting down of these Two contradictory Propositions will be demonstration against me and if your Lordship cannot as I humbly conceive you cannot name any Two such Propositions 't is an evidence that all this Dust that is raised is only a great deal of Talk about what your Lordship cannot prove For that your Lordship has not yet proved any such thing I am humbly of Opinion I have already shewn Your Lordship's Discourse of Des Cartes in the following Pages is I think as far as I am concerned in it to shew that Certainty cannot be had by Ideas Because Des Cartes using the term Idea missed of it Answ. The Question between your Lordship and me not being about Des Cartes's but my Notion of Certainty your Lordship will put an end to my Notion of Certainty by Ideas whenever your Lordship shall prove That Certainty cannot be attained any way by the immediate Objects of the Mind in Thinking i. e. by Ideas or that Certainty does not consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas or lastly when your Lordship shall shew us what else Certainty does consist in When your Lordship shall do either of these Three I promise your Lordship to renounce my notion or way or method or grounds or whatever else your Lordship has been pleased to call it of Certainty by Ideas The next Paragraph is to shew the Inclination your Lordship has to favour me in the Words it may be I shall be always sorry to have mistaken any ones especially your Lordship's Inclination to favour me But since the Press has published this to the World the World must now be Judge of your Lordship's Inclination to favour me The three or four following Pages are to shew That your Lordship's exception against Ideas was not against the term Ideas and that I mistook you in it Answ. My Lord I must own that there are very few Pages of your Letters when I come to examine what is the precise meaning of your Words either as making distinct Propositions or a continued Discourse wherein I do not think my self in danger to be mistaken but whether in the present Case one much more learned than I would not have understood your Lordship as I did must be left to those who will be at the pains to consider your Words and my Reply to them Your Lordship saying As I have stated my Notion of Ideas it may be of dangerous consequence seemed to me to say no more but that my Book in general might be of dangerous consequence This seeming too general an Accusation I endeavoured to find what it was more particularly in it which your Lordship thought might be of dangerous consequence And the first thing I thought you excepted against was the use of the term Idea But your Lordship tells me here I was mistaken it was not the term Idea you excepted against but the way of Certainty by Ideas To excuse my mistake I have this to say for my self That reading in your first Letter these express Words When new Terms are made use of by ill Men to promote Scepticism and Insidelity and to overthrow the Mysteries of our Faith we have then Reason to enquire into them and to examine the Foundation and Tendency of them it could not be very strange if I understood them to refer to Terms but it seems I was mistaken and should have understood by them my way of Certainty by Ideas and should have read your Lordship's Words thus When new Terms are made use of by ill Men to promote Scepticism and Infidelity and to overthrow the Mysteries of Faith we have then Reason to enquire into them i. e. Mr. L.'s definition of Knowledge for that is my way of Certainty by Ideas and then to examine the Foundation and Tendency of them i. e. this Proposition viz. That Knowledge or Certainty consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas Them in your Lordship's Words as I thought for I am scarce ever sure what your Lordship means by them necessarily refering to what ill Men made use for the promoting of Scepticism and
Lordship's Pray my Lord look over that Chapter again and see whether I bring their Truth and Certainty any more into Question than you your self do and 't is about their Certainty and not Use that the Question here is between your Lordship and me We both agree That they are both undoubtedly Certain all then that you bring in the following Pages about their Use is nothing to the present Question about the Certainty of Principles which your Lordship is upon in this place and you will prove That your way of Certainty by Reason is different from my way of Certainty by Ideas when you can shew That you are certain of the Truth of those or any other Maxims any otherwise than by the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas as expressed in them But your Lordship passing by that wholly endeavours to prove that my saying That the consideration of those two general Maxims can add nothing to the Evidence and Certainty of Knowledge in Identical Predications for that is all that I there say overthrows all that has been accounted Science and Demonstration and must lay the Foundation of Scepticism and 't is by a very remarkable Proof viz. Because our true Grounds of Certainty depend upon some general Principles of Reason which is the very thing I there not only deny but have disproved and therefore should not I humbly conceive have been rested on as a Proof of any thing else till my Arguments against it had been answered But instead of that your Lordship says You will put a Case that shall make it plain which is the Business of the six following Pages which are spent in this Case The Case is founded upon a Supposition which you seem willing to have thought that you borrowed either from I. S. or from me Whereas truly that Supposition is neither that Gentleman 's nor mine but purely your Lordship 's own For however grosly Mr. I. S. has mistaken which he has since acknowledg'd in Print the obvious Sense of those Words of my Essay on which you say you ground your Case yet I must do him Right herein that he himself supposed not that any Man in his Wits ever in earnest questioned whether he himself were a Man or no though by a mistake which I cannot but wonder at in one so much exercised in Controversie as Mr. I. S. he charged me with saying it Your Lordship indeed says That you think my Words there may have an other meaning Would you thereby insinuate That you think it possible they should have that meaning which I. S. once gave them If you do not my Lord Mr. I. S. and his understanding them so is in vain brought in here to countenance your making such a Supposition If you do think those Words of my Essay capable of such a meaning as I. S. gave them there will appear a strange Harmony between your Lordship's and Mr. I. S.'s Understanding when he mistakes what is said in my Book Whether it will continue now Mr. I. S. takes me right I know not but let us come to the Case as you put it Your Words are Let us put the Case That Men did in earnest question whether they were Men or not Your Lordship says You do not then see if I set aside general Maxims how I can convince them that they are Men. Answer And do you my Lord see that with Maxims you can convince them of that or any thing else I confess whatever you should do I should think it scarce worth while to Reason with them about any thing I believe you are the first that ever supposed a Man so much besides himself as to question whether he were a Man or no and yet so rational as to be thought capable of being convinced of that or any thing by Discourse of Reason This methinks is little different from supposing a Man in and out of his Wits at the same time But let us suppose your Lordship so lucky with your Maxims that you do convince a Man that doubts of it that he is a Man what Proof I beseech you my Lord is that of this Proposition That our true Grounds of Certainty depend upon some general Principles of Reason On the contrary suppose it should happen as is the more likely that your setting upon him with your Maxims cannot convince him are we not by this your Case to take this for a Proof That general Principles of Reason are not the Grounds of Certainty For 't is upon the success or not success of your Endeavours to convince such a Man with Maxims that your Lordship puts the Proof of this Proposition That our true Grounds of Certainty depend upon general Principles of Reason The Issue whereof must remain in suspense till you have found such a Man to bring it to Tryal and so the Proof is far enough off unless you think the Case so plain that every one sees such a Man will be presently convinced by your Maxims though I should think it probable that most People may think he will not Your Lordship adds For the way you look on as most apt to prevail upon such extraordinary Sceptical Men is by general Maxims and Principles of Reason Answer This indeed is a Reason why your Lordship should use Maxims when you have to do with such extraordinary Sceptical Men because you look on it as the likeliest way to prevail But pray my Lord is your looking on it as the best way to prevail on such extraordinary Sceptical Men any Proof That our true Grounds of Certainty depend upon some general Principles of Reason for 't was to make this plain that this Case was put Farther my Lord give me leave to ask what have we here to do with the ways of convincing others of what they do not know or assent to Your Lordship and I are not as I think disputing of the Methods of perswading others of what they are ignorant of and do not yet assent to but our debate here is about the Ground of Certainty in what they do know and assent to However you go on to set down several Maxims which you look on as most apt to prevail upon your extraordinary Sceptical Man to convince him that he Exists and that he is a Man The Maxims are That nothing can have no Operations That all different sorts of Being are distinguished by Essential Properties That the Essential Properties of a Man are to Reason Discourse c. That these Properties cannot subsist by themselves without a real Substance I will not question whether a Man cannot know that he exists or be certain for 't is of Knowledge and Certainty the Question here is that he is a Man without the help of these Maxims I will only crave leave to ask how you know that these are Maxims For methinks this That the esential Properties of a Man are Reason Discourse c. an imperfect Proposition with and so forth at
Request That you would be pleased to do that Right to your way of Certainty by Reason as not to conceal it If your Lordship has not why is the want of a Criterion when I have so plain a one objected to my way of Certainty and my way so often accused of a tendency to Scepticism and Infidelity when you your Self have not a better And I think I may take the liberty to say if yours be not the same you have not one so good Perhaps your Lordship will censure me here and think it is more than becomes me to press you so hard concerning your own way and to ask whether your way of Certainty lies in having Antecedents and Consequents and Syllogisms And whether it has any other or better Criterion than what I have given Your Lordship will possibly think it enough that you have laid down the Grounds of Certainty which the ancient Grecians went upon My Lord if you think so I must be satisfied with it Though perhaps others will think it strange that in a Dispute about a Method of Certainty which for its supposed coming short of Certainty you charge with a Tendency to Scepticism and Infidelity you should produce only the different Opinions of other Men concerning Certainty to make good this Charge without declaring any of those different Opinions or Grounds of Certainty to be true or false And some may be apt to suspect that you your self are not yet resolved wherein to place it But my Lord I know too well what your distance above me requires of me to say any such thing to your Lordship Your own Opinions are to your self and your not discovering them must pass for a sufficient Reason for your not discovering them and if you think fit to Over-lay a poor Insant modern Notion with the great and weighty Names of Pythagoras Plato Aristotle Plutarch and the like and heaps of Quotations out of the Ancients who is not presently to think it dead and that there is an end of it Especially when it will have too much Envy for any one to open his Mouth in defence of a Notion which is declared by your Lordship to be different from what those great Men whose Words are to be taken without any more ado and who are not to be thought Ignorant or Mistaken in any thing Though I crave leave to say That however infallible Oracles they were to take things barely upon their or any Man's Authority is barely to believe but not to know or be certain Thus your Lordship has sufficiently proved my way of Certainty by Ideas to be inconsistent with the way of Certainty by Reason by proving it New which you prove only by saying That it is so wholly new that here we have no general Principles no Criterion no Antecedents and Consequents no Syllogistical Methods of Demonstration And yet we are told of a better way of Certainty to be attained meerly by the help of Ideas add if your Lordship pleases signified by words which put into Propositions whereof some are General Principles some are or may be Antecedents and some Consequents and some put together in Mode and Figure Syllogistical Methods of Demonstration For pray my Lord may not Words that stand for Ideas be put into Propositions as well as any other And may not those Propositions wherein the Terms stand for Ideas be as well put into Antecedents and Consequents or Syllogisms and make Maxims as well as any other Propositions whose Terms stand not for Ideas if your Lordship can find any such And if thus Ideas can be brought into Maxims Antecedents and Consequents and Syllogistical Methods of Demonstration what Inconsistency has the way of Certainty by Ideas with those ways of Certainty by Reason if at last your Lordship will say That Certainty consists in Propositions put together as Antecedents and Consequents and in Mode and Figure For as for Principles or Maxims we shall know whether your Principles or Maxims are a way to Certainty when you shall please to tell us what it is that to your Lordship makes a Maxim or Principle and distinguishes it from other Propositions and whether it be any thing but an immediate Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of the Ideas as expressed in that Proposition To conclude by all that your Lordship has alledged out of the Ancients you have not as I humbly conceive proved that my way of Certainty is new or that they had any way of Certainty different from mine much less have you proved that my way of Certainty by Ideas is inconsistent with the way of Certainty by Reason which was the Proposition to be proved Your Lordship having thought it enough against my way of Certainty by Ideas thus to prove its Newness you betake your self presently to your old Topick of obscure and confused Ideas And asks But how comes there to be such a way of Certainty by Ideas and yet the Ideas themselves are so uncertain and obscure Answer No Idea as it is in the Mind is uncertain though to those who use Names uncertainly it may be uncertain what Idea that Name stands for And as to obscure and confused Ideas no Idea is so obscure in all its parts or so confounded with all other Ideas but that one who in a Proposition joins it with another in that part which is clear and distinct may perceive its Agreement or Disagreement as expressed in that Proposition Though when Names are used for Ideas which are in some part obscure or confounded with Ideas there can be no Propositions made which can produce Certainty concerning that wherein the Idea is obscure and confused And therefore to your Lordship's Question How is it possible for us to have a clear Perception of the Agreement of Ideas if the Ideas themselves be not clear and distinct I answer Very well because an obscure or confused Idea i. e. that is not perfectly clear and distinct in all its parts may be compared with another in that part of it which is clear and distinct which will I humbly conceive remove all those Difficulties Inconsistencies and Contradictions which your Lordship seems to be troubled with from my Words quoted in those two Pages Your Lordship having as it seems quite forgot that you were to shew wherein the Certainty of Deductions in the way of Ideas was inconsistent with the Certainty of Deductions in the way of Reason brings here a new Charge upon my way of Certainty viz. That I have no Criterion to distinguish false and doubtful Ideas from true and certain Your Lordship says the Academicks went upon Ideas or Representations of things to their Minds and pray my Lord does not your Lordship do so too Or has Mr. I. S. so won upon your Lordship by his solid Philosophy against the Fancies of the Ideists that you begin to think him in the right in this too where he says That Notions are the Materials of our Knowledge and that a
examine my way of Demonstration Whether you do this to shew That I have no Criterion whereby to distinguish true from false Ideas or to shew That my way of Certainty by Ideas is inconsistent with the Certainty of Deductions by Reason for these were the Things you seemed to me to have undertaken to shew and therefore to be upon in this place does not appear But this appears by the Words wherewith you introduce this Examen that it is to avoid doing me Wrong Your Lordship as if you had been sensible that your former Discourse had led you towards doing me Wrong breaks it off of a suddain and begins this new one of Demonstration by telling me you will do me no Wrong Can it be thought now that you forget this Promise before you get half through your Examen Or is a mis-citing my Words and misrepresenting my Sense no Wrong Your Lordship in this very Examen sets down a long Quotation out of my Essay and in the close you tell me These are my own Words which your Lordship has set down at large that I may not complain that you misrepresent my Sense This one would think Guaranty enough in a less Man than your Lordship And yet my Lord I must crave leave to complain that not only my Sense but my very Words are in that Quotation misrepresented To shew that my Complaint is not groundless give me leave my Lord to set down my Words as I read them in that place of my Book which your Lordship quotes for them And as I find them here in your second Letter If we add all the self-evident Propositions may be made about all our distinct Ideas Principles will be almost infinite at least innumerable which Men arrive to the Knowledge of at different Ages and a great many of these innate Principles they never come to know all their lives But whether they come in view of the Mind earlier or later this is true of them that they are all known by their Native Evidence are wholly independent receive no Light nor are capable of any proof one from another c. By their standing thus together the Reader will without any pains see whether those your Lordship has set down in your Letter are my own Words and whether in that place which speaks only of self-evident Propositions or Principles I have any thing in Words or in Sense like this That our particular distinct Ideas are known by their Native Evidence c. Though your Lordship closes the Quotation with that solemn Declaration above mention'd That they are my own Words which you have set down at large that I may not complain you misrepresent my Sense And yet nothing can more misrepresent my Sense than they do applying all that to particular Ideas which I speak there only of self-evident Propositions or Principles and that so plainly that I think I may venture any one's mistaking it in my own Words And upon this Misrepresentation of my Sense your Lordship raises a Discourse and manages a Dispute for I think a dozen Pages following against my placing Demonstration on self-evident Ideas though self-evident Ideas are things wholly unknown to me and are no where in my Book nor were ever in my Thoughts But let us come to your Exceptions against my way of Demonstration which your Lordship is pleased to call Demonstration without Principles Answer If you mean by Principles self-evident Propositions then you know my Demonstration is not without Principles in that Sense of the Term Principles For your Lordship in the next Page blames my way because I suppose every intermediate Idea in Demonstration to have a self-evident Connection with the other Idea for two such Ideas as have a self-evident Connection joined together in a Proposition make a self-evident Proposition If your Lordship means by Principles those which in the place there quoted by your Lordship I mean viz. Whatever is is and it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be and such other general Propositions as are received under the Name of Maxims I grant that I do say That they are not absolutely requisite in every Demonstration And I think I have shewn That there be Demonstrations which may be made without them though I do not that I remember say That they are excluded and cannot be made use of in Demonstration Your Lordship's first Argument against my way of Demonstration is That it must suppose self-evidence must be in the Ideas of my Mind and that every intermediate Idea which I take to demonstrate any thing by must have a self-evident Connection with the others Answer Taking self-evidence in the Ideas of the Mind to mean in the perceived Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas in the Mind I grant I do not only suppose but say so To prove it not to be so in Demonstration your Lordship says That it is such a way of Demonstration as the old Philosophers never thought of Answer No body I think will question that your Lordship is very well read in the old Philosophers But he that will answer for what the old Philosophers ever did or did not think of must not only understand their extant Writings better than any Man ever did but must have ways to know their Thoughts that other Men have not For all of them thought more than they writ some of them writ not at all and others writ a great deal more than ever came to us But if it should happen that any of them placed the Proof of any Proposition in the Agreement of two things in a third as I think some of them did than it will I humbly conceive appear that they did think of my way of Demonstration unless your Lordship can shew that they could see that two things agreed in a third without perceiving their Agreement with that third and if they did in every Syllogism of a Demonstration perceive that Agreement then there was a self-evident Connection which is that which your Lordship says they never thought of But supposing they never thought of it must we put out our Eyes and not see whatever they overlooked Are all the Discoveries made by Galileo my Lord Bacon Mr. Boyle and Mr. Newton c. to be rejected as false because they teach us what the old Philosophers never thought of Mistake me not my Lord in thinking that I have the vanity here to rank my self on this Occasion with these great discoverers of Truth and advancers of Knowledge On the contrary I contend that my way of Certainty my way of Demonstration which your Lordship so often condemns for its newness is not New but is the very same that has always been used both by Ancients and Moderns I am only considering here your Lordship's Argument of never having been thought of by the old Philosophers which is an Argument that will make nothing for or against the Truth of any Proposition advanced by
the Demonstration proceeds on This distinction therefore here of your Lordship's between Mathematical and other Demonstrations having no Foundation your Inference founded on it falls with it viz. So that although we should grant all that I say about the Intuition of Ideas in Mathematical Demonstrations yet it comes not at all to my Business unless I can prove that we have as clear and distinct Ideas of Beings as we have of Numbers and Figures Though how Beings here and Numbers and Figures come to be opposed against one another I shall not be able to conceive till I am better instructed than hitherto I am that Numbers and Figures are no Beings And that the Mathematicians and Philosophers old ones and all have in all the Pains taken about them imploy'd their Thoughts about nothing And I would be glad to know what those Things are which your Lordship says our Debate goes upon here as really existing that are Beings more then Numbers and Figures Your Lordship's next exception against my way of Demonstration is That in it I am inconsistent with my self For Proof of it you say I design to prove Demonstrations without general Principles and yet every one knows that general Principles are supposed in Mathematicks Answ. Every one may know that general Principles are supposed in Mathematicks without knowing or ever being able to know that I who say also that Mathematicians do often make use of them am inconsistent with my self though I also say That a demonstration about Numbers and Figures may be made without them To prove me Inconsistent with my self you add And that Person would be thought Ridiculous who should go about to prove That general Principles are of little or of dangerous use in Mathematical Demonstrations Answ. A Man may make other Ridiculous Faults in Writing besides Inconsistency and there are Instances enough of it But by good luck I am in this place clear of what would be thought Ridiculous which yet is no proof of Inconsistency For I never went about to prove That general Principles are of little or dangerous use in Mathematical Demonstrations To prove me Inconsistent with my self your Lordship uses one Argument more and that is That I confess that the way of Demonstration in Morality is from Principles as those of Mathematicks by necessary Consequences Answ. With Submission my Lord I do not say in the place quoted by your Lordship That the way of Demonstration in Morality is from Principles as those of the Mathematicks by necessary Consequences But this is that which I say That I doubt not but in Morality from Principles as incontestable as those of the Mathematicks by necessary Consequences the measures of right and wrong might be made out Which Words I humbly conceive have no Inconsistency with my saying there may be Demonstrations without the help of Maxims Whatever Inconsistency the Words which you here set down for mine may have with it My Lord the Words you bring out of my Book are so often different from those I read in the places which you refer to that I am sometimes ready to think you have got some strange Copy of it whereof I know nothing since it so seldom agrees with mine Pardon me my Lord if with some care I examin the Objection of Inconsistency with my self that if I find any I may retract one part or the other of it Humane Frailty I grant and variety of Thoughts in long Discourses may make a Man unwittingly advance Inconsistencies This may consist with Ingenuity and deserve to be excused But for any one to persist in it when it is shewed him is to give himself the Lye which cannot but stick closer to him in the Sense of all rational Men than if he received it from another I own I have said in my Essay That there be Demonstrations which may be made without those general Maxims that I there treated of But I cannot recollect that I ever said that those general Maxims could not be made use of in Demonstration For they are no more shut out of my way of Demonstration than any other self-evident Propositions And therefore there is no Inconsistency in those two Propositions which are mine viz. Some Demonstrations may be made without the help of those general Maxims And Morality I doubt not may be demonstrated from Principles whatever Inconsistency may be in these two following Propositions which are your Lordship's and not mine viz. The way of Demonstration in Morality is from Principles and general Maxims are not the way to proceed on in Demonstration as to other parts of Knowledge For to admit self-evident Propositions which is what I mean by Principles in the place of my Essay which your Lordship quotes for the first of my inconsistent Propositions and to say as I do in the other place quoted by your Lordship That those magnified Maxims are not the Principles and Foundations of all our other Knowledge has no manner of Inconsistency For though I think them not necessary to every Demonstration so neither do I exclude them any more than other self-evident Propositions out of any Demonstration wherein any one should make use of them The next Objection against my way of Demonstration from my placing Demonstration on the self evidence of Ideas having been already answer'd I shall need to say nothing in defence of it or in answer to any thing raised against it in your Twelve or Thirteen following Pages upon that Topick But that your Lordship may not think I do not pay a due respect to all that you say I shall not wholly pass those Pages over in Silence 1. Your Lordship says That I confess that some of the most obvious Ideas are far from being self-evident Answ. Supposing I did say so how I beseech your Lordship does it prove That it is impossible to come to a Demonstration about real Beings in this way of Intuition by Ideas Which is the Proposition you Promise to make appear and you bring this as the first Reason to make it appear For should I confess a Thousand times over That some of the most obvious Ideas are far from being self-evident And should I which I do not make Self-evident Ideas necessary to Demonstration how will it thence follow That it is impossible to come to a Demonstration c Since though I should confess some of the most obvious Ideas not to be Self-evident yet my Confession being but of some it will not follow from my Confession but that there may be also some Self-evident and so still it might be possible to come to Demonstration by Intuition because some in my use of the Word never signifies all In the next place give me leave to ask where it is that I confess That some Ideas are not self-evident Nay where it is that I once mention any such thing as a self-evident Idea For self-evident is an Epithite that I do not remember I ever gave
Material things has been the occasion of great Mistakes in the Philosophy of this Age and that therefore Aristotle's Method is to be followed Yet you make this Complement to the Mathematicians That you leave them to their liberty to go on if they please in their laudable Endeavours to reduce Natural Speculation to Mathematical Certainty And thus we are come to the end of your Lordship's clearing this Passage That you grant that by Sensation and Reflection we come to know the Powers and Properties of Things but our Reason i. e. the Principles of Reason agreed on by Mankind is satisfied that there must be something beyond these because it is impossible they should subsist by themselves so that the Nature of things properly belongs to Reason i. e. the Principles of Reason agreed on by Mankind and not to meer Ideas Which if any one be so lucky as to understand by these your Lordship's fifty Pages spent upon it better than my Friend did when he confessed himself gravelled by it as it stands here recited he ought to enjoy the Advantage of his happy Genius whilst I miss that Satisfaction by the dulness of mine which hinders me also from seeing how the Opposition the way of Certainty by Ideas and the way of Certainty by Reason comes in the Explication of this Passage or at least if it does belong to it yet I must own what is a greater misfortune That I do not see what the Opposition or Difference is which your Lordship has so much talked of between the way of Certainty by Ideas and the Method of Certainty by Reason For my excuse I think others will be as much in the dark as I since you no where tell wherein you your self my Lord place Certainty So that to talk of a Difference between Certainty by Ideas and Certainty that is not by Ideas without declaring in what that other Certainty consists is like to have no better success than might be expected from one who would compare two things together the one whereof is not known You now return to your Discourse of Nature and Person and tell me That to what you said about the general Nature in distinct Individuals I object these three Things 1. That I cannot put together one and the same This I own to be my Objection And consequently there is no Foundation for the distinction of Nature and Person This with Submission I deny to be any Objection of mine either in the place quoted by your Lordship or any where else There may be Foundation enough for Distinction as there is of these two and yet they may be treated of in a way so obscure so confused or perhaps so sublime that an ordinary Capacity may not from thence get as your Lordship expresses it clear and distinct apprehensions of them This was that which my Friend and I complained of in that place want of clearness in your Lordship's discourse not of want of distinction in the things themselves 2. That what your Lordship said about common Nature and particular Substance in Individuals was wholly unintelligible to me and my Friends To which my Lord you may add if you please That it is still so to me 3. That I said That to speak truly and precisely of this Matter as in reality it is there is no such thing as one and the same common Nature in several Individuals for all that in Truth is in them is particular and nothing but particular c. Answer This was said to shew how unapt these Expressions The same common Nature in several Individuals and several Individuals being in the same common Nature were to give true and clear Notions of Nature To this your Lordship answers That other and those very Rational Men have spoken so To which I shall say no more but that it is an Argument with which any thing may be defended and all the Iargon of the Schools be justified but I presume not strong enough to bring it back again let Men never so Rational make use of it Your Lordship adds But now it seems nothing is intelligible but what suits with the new way of Ideas My Lord the new way of Ideas and the old way of speaking intelligibly was always and ever will be the same And if I may take the liberty to declare my Sense of it herein it consists 1. That a Man use no Words but such as he makes the Signs of certain determined Objects of his Mind in Thinking which he can make known to another 2. Next that he use the same Word steadily for the Sign of the same immediate Object of his Mind in Thinking 3. That he join those Words together in Propositions according to the Grammatical Rules of that Language he speaks in 4. That he unite those Sentences in a coherent Discourse Thus and thus only I humbly conceive any one may preserve himself from the Confines and Suspicion of Iargon whether he pleases to call those immediate Objects of his Mind which his Words do or should stand for Ideas or no. You again accuse the way of Ideas to make a common Nature no more than a common Name That my Lord is not my way by Ideas When your Lordship shews me where I have said so I promise your Lordship to strike it out And the like I promise when you shew me where I presume that we are not to judge of things by the general Principles of Reason which you call my Fundamental Mistake These Principles of Reason you say must be the Standard to Mankind If they are of such Consequence would it not have been convenient we should have been instructed something more particularly about them than by barely being told their Name that we might be able to know what are and what are not Principles of Reason But be they what they will because they must be the Standard to Mankind your Lordship says You shall in this Debate proceed upon the following Principles to make it appear that the Difference between Nature and Person is not imaginary and fictitious but grounded upon the real Nature of things With Submission my Lord you need not be at the Pains to draw up your great Artillery of so many Maxims where you meet with no Opposition The thing in Debate whether in this Debate or no I know not but what led into this Debate was about these Expressions One common Nature in several Individuals and several Individuals in one common Nature and the Question I thought was whether a general or common Nature could be in Particulars i. e. Exist in Individuals But since your Lordship turns your Artillery against those who deny That there is any Foundation of Distinction between Nature and Person I am out of Gun-shot for I am none of those who ever said or thought there was no Foundation of distinction between Nature and Person The Maxims you lay down in the following Paragraph are to make me understand how
omitted I now come to them and shall endeavour to give your Lordship satisfaction in those Points tho to make room for them I leave out a great deal that I had Writ in Answer to this your Lordship's Second Letter And if after all my Answer seems too long I must beg your Lordship and my Reader to excuse it and impute it to those occasions of length which I have mentioned in more places than one as they have occurred The Original and main Question between your Lordship and me being whether there were any thing in my Essay Repugnant to the Doctrin of the Trinity I endeavoured by Examining the Grounds and manner of your Lordship's bringing my Book into that Controversie to bring that Question to a Decision And therefore in my Answer to your Lordship's First Letter I insisted particularly on what had a Relation to that Point This Method your Lordship in your Second Letter Censured as if it Contained only Personal Matters which were fit to be laid aside And by mixing new Matter and charging my Book with new Accusations before the first was made out avoided the Decision of what was in Debate between us A strong Presumption to me that your Lordship had little to say to support what began the Controversy which you were so willing to have me let fall whilest on the other side my Silence to other Points which I had Promised an Answer to was often Reflected on and I Rebuked for not Answering in the proper Place Your Lordship's calling upon me on this occasion shall not be lost 'T is fit your Expectation should be satisfied and your Objections Considered which for the Reasons above mentioned were not Examined in my former Answer And which whether true or false as I humbly conceive make nothing for or against the Doctrin of the Trinity I shall therefore consider them barely as so many Philosophical Questions and endeavour to shew your Lordship where and upon what Grounds 't is I Stick and what it is that hinders me from the Satisfaction it would be to me to be in every one of them of your mind Your Lordship tells me Whether I do own Substance or not is not the Point before us But whether by Vertue of these Principles I can come to any certainty of Reason about it And your Lordship says the very Places I produce do prove the Contrary which you shall therefore set Down in my own Words both as to Corporeal and Spiritual Substances Here again my Lord I must beg your Pardon that I do not distinctly Comprehend your meaning in these Words viz. That by vertue of these Principles one cannot come to certainty of Reason about Substance For it is not very clear to me whether your Lordship means that we cannot come to certainty that there is such a thing in the World as Substance or whether we cannot make any other Proposition about Substance of which we can be certain or whether we cannot by my Principles Establish any Idea of Substance of which we can be certain For to come to Certainty of Reason about Substance may signifie either of these which are far different Propositions And I shall waste your Lordship's time my Readers and my own neither of which would I willingly do by taking it in one Sense when you mean it in an other lest I should meet with some such Reproof as this That I Misrepresent your meaning or might have understood it if I had a mind to it c. And therefore cannot but wish that you had so far Condescended to the slowness of my Apprehension as to give me your Sense to determined that I might not trouble you with Answers to what was not your Precise meaning To avoid it in the present Case and to find in what Sense I was here to take these words come to no Certainty of Reason about Substance I looked into what followed and when I came to the 13th Page I thought I had there got a clear explication of your Lordship's Meaning and that by no Certainty of Reason about Substance your Lordship here meant no certain Idea of Substance Your Lordship's words are I do not charge them i. e. me as one of the Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning with Discarding the Notion of Substance because they have but an imperfect Idea of it but because upon those Principles there can be no certain Idea at all of it Here I thought my self sure and that these words plainly Interpreted the meaning of your Proposition p. 7. to be that upon my Principles there can be no certain Idea at all of Substance But before I came to the end of that Paragraph I found my self at a loss again for that Paragraph goes on in these words Whereas your Lordship asserts it to be one of the most natural and certain Ideas in our minds because it is a Repugnance to our first Conception of Things that Modes or Accidents should subsist by themselves and therefore you said the rational Idea of Substance is one of the first Ideas in our Minds and however imperfect and obscure our Notion be yet we are as certain that Substances are and must be as that there are any Beings in the World Here the Certainty which your words seem to mean is Certainty of the Being of Substance In this Sense therefore I shall take it till your Lordship shall determine it otherwise And the reason why I take it so is because what your Lordship goes on to say seems to me to look most that way The Proposition then that your Lordship undertakes to Prove is this That by Vertue of my Principles we cannot come to any Certainty of Reason that there is any such thing as Substance And your Lordship tells me That the very Places I produce do prove the Contrary which you therefore will set down in my own Words both as to Corporeal and Spiritual Substances The First your Lordship brings are these words of mine When we talk or think of any Particular sort of Corporeal Substances as Horse Stone c. Tho' the Idea we have of either of them be but the Complication or Collection of those several simple Ideas of sensible qualities which we use to find United in the thing called Horse or Stone yet because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone nor one in another we suppose them existing in and supported by some common Subject which support we denote by the Name Substance tho' it be certain we have no clear and distinct Idea of that thing we suppose a Support And again The same happens concerning the Operations of the Mind viz. Thinking Reasoning Fearing c. which we considering not to subsist of themselves nor apprehending how they can belong to Body or be produced by it we are apt to think these the Actions of some other Substance which we call Spirit whereby yet it is evident that having no other Idea or Notion of Matter but
because it would be much more for your ease as well as my own For in this case of Substance I find it not easy to know your meaning or what it is I am blamed for For in the beginning of this Dispute it is the being of Substance And here again it is Substance it self is Discarded And in this very Paragraph writ as it seems to explain your self so that in the close of it you tell me that at length I apprehend your meaning to be that the Notion of Substance is Excluded out of Rational Discourse the Explication is such that it renders your Lordship's meaning to me more obscure and uncertain than it was before For in the same Paragraph your Lordship says That upon my Principles there can be no certain Idea at all of Substance and also that however imperfect and obscure our Notions be yet we are as certain that Substances are and must be as that there are any beings in the World So that supposing I did know as I do not what your Lordship means by certain Idea of Substance yet I must own still that what your meaning is by discarding of Substance whether it be the Idea of Substance or the Being of Substance I doe not know But that I think need not much trouble me since your Lordship does not that I see shew how any Position or Principle of mine overthrows either Substance it self or the Idea of it or excludes either of them out of rational Discourse In your next Paragraph you say I declare p. 35. That if any one assert that we can have no Ideas but from Sensation and Reflection it is not my Opinion My Lord I have looked over that 35th Page and find no such Words of mine there But refer my Reader to that and the following Pages for my Opinion concerning Ideas from Sensation and Reflection how far they are the foundation and materials of all our Knowledge And this I do because to those Words which your Lordship has set down as mine out of the 35th Page but are not there you subjoin That you are very glad of it and will do me all the right you can in this Matter which seems to imply That it is a matter of great consequence and therefore I desire my meaning may be taken in my own Words as they are set down at large The Promise your Lordship makes me of doing me all the Right you can I return my humble Thanks for because it is a piece of Justice so seldom done in Controversie And because I suppose you have here made me this Promise to Authorise me to mind you of it if at any time your haste should make you mistake my Words or meaning To have ones Words exactly Quoted and their meaning Interpreted by the plain and visible design of the Author in his whole Discourse being a right which every Writer has a just Claim to and such as a lover of Truth will be very wary of Violating An Instance of some sort of Intrenchment on this I humbly conceive there is in the next Page but one where you Interpret my Words as if I excused a mistake I had made by calling it a slip of my Pen whereas my Lord I do not own any slip of my Pen in that Place but say that the meaning of my Expression there is to be Interpreted by other places and particularly by those where I Treat Professedly of that Subject And that in such cases where an Expression is only incident to the Matter in Hand and may seem not exactly to Quadrate with the Author's Sense where he designedly treats of that Subject it ought rather to be Interpreted as a slip of his Pen than as his meaning I should not have taken so particular a notice of this but that you by having up these Words with an Air that makes me sensible how wary I ought to be shew what use would be made of it if ever I had pleaded the slip of my Pen. In the following Pages I find a Discourse drawn up under several Ranks of Numbers to prove as I guess this Proposition that in my way of Ideas we cannot come to any Certainty as to the Nature of Substance I shall be in a condition to Answer to this Accusation when I shall be told what particular Proposition as to the Nature of Substance it is which in my way of Ideas we cannot come to any Certainty of Because probably it may be such a Proposition concerning the Nature of Substance as I shall readily own that in my way of Ideas we can come to no Certainty of and yet I think the way of Ideas not at all to be blamed till there can be shewn an other way different from that of Ideas whereby we may come to a Certainty of it For 't was never pretended that by Ideas we could come to Certainty concerning every Proposition that could be made concerning Substance or any thing else Besides the doubtfulness visible in the Phrase it self there is another Reason that hinders me from understanding precisely what is meant by these Words to come to a Certainty as to the Nature of Substance viz. Because your Lordship makes Nature and Substance to be the same so that to come to a Certainty as to the Nature of Substance is in your Lordship's Sense of Nature to come to a Certainty as to the Substace of Substance which I own I do not clearly understand An other thing that hinders me from giving particular Answers to the Arguments that may be supposed to be contained in so many Pages is that I do not see how what is Discoursed in those Thirteen or Fourteen Pages is brought to prove this Proposition that in my way of Ideas we cannot come to any Certainty as to the Nature of Substance and it would require too many Words to Examine every one of those Heads Period by Period to see what they Prove when you your self do not apply them to the direct Probation of any Proposition that I understand Indeed you wind up this Discourse with these Words That you leave the Reader to judge whether this be a tolerable account of the Idea of Substance by Sensation and Reflection Answ. That which your Lordshp has given in the precedent Pages I think is not a very tolerable account of my Idea of Substance since the account you give over and over again of my Idea of Substance is that it is nothing but a Complex Idea of Accidents This is your account of my Idea of Substance which you insist so much on and which you say you took out of those places I my self produced in my first Letter But if you had been pleased to have set down this one which is to be found there amongst the rest Produced by me out of B. 2 ch 12. Sect. 6. of my Essay viz. That the Ideas of Substances are such Combinations of simple Ideas as
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
But when you knew what I meant though I expressed it improperly to put Questions in a Word of mine used in a sense different from mine which could not but be apt to insinuate to the Reader that my Notion of Certainty derogated from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full assurance of Faith as the Scripture calls it is what I guess in another would make your Lordship ask again Is this fair and ingenuous dealing My Lord my Bible expresses the highest degree of Faith which the Apostle recommended to Believers in his time by full assurance But assurance of Faith though it be what assurance soever will by no means down with your Lordship in my writing You say I allow assurance of Faith God forbid I should do otherwise but then you ask Why not Certainty as well as Assurance My Lord I think it may be a Reason not misbecoming a poor Lay-man and such as he might presume would satisfie a Bishop of the Church of England that he found his Bible to speak so I find my Bible speaks of the Assurance of Faith but no â—here that I can remember of the Certainty of Faith though in many places it speaks of the Certainty of Knowledge and therefore I speak so too and shall not I think be condemned for keeping close to the Expressions of our Bible though the Scripture Language as it is does not so well serve your Lordship's turn in the present Case When I shall see in an authentick Translation of our Bible the Phrase chang'd it will then be time enough for me to change it too and call it not the Assurance but Certainty of Faith But till then I shall not be ashamed of it notwithstanding you reproach me with it by terming it The Assurance of Faith as I call it when you might as well have term'd it The Assurance of Faith as our Bibles call it It being plain that by Certainty I meant Knowledge and by Faith the act of Believing that these Words where you ask How comes the Certainty of Faith so hard a Point with me And where you tell me I will allow no Certainty of Faith may make no wrong impression in Mens Minds who may be apt to understand them of the Object and not meerly of the act of Believing I crave leave to say with Mr. Chillingworth That I do heartily acknowledge and believe the Articles of our Faith to be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry or Metaphysicks But that there is not required of us a Knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that of Sense or Science and that for this Reason amongst others given both by Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Hooker viz. That Faith is not Knowledge no more than three is four but eminently contained in it So that he that knows believes and something more but he that believes many times does not nay if he doth barely and meerly believe he doth never know These are Mr. Chillingworth's own Words That this Assurance of Faith may approach very near to Certainty and not come short of it in a sure and steady influence on the Mind I have so plainly declar'd that no body I think can question it In my Chapter of Reason which has receiv'd the honour of your Lordship's Animadversions I say of some Propositions wherein Knowledge i. e. in my Sense Certainty fails us That their probability is so clear and strong that Assent as necessarily follows it as Knowledge does Demonstration Does your Lordship ascribe any greater Certainty than this to an Article of meer Faith if you do not we are it seems agreed in the thing and so all that you have so emphatically said about it is but to correct a mistake of mine in the English Tongue if it prove to be one A weighty Point and well worth your Lordship's bestowing so many Pages upon I say meer Faith because though a Man may be a Christian who meerly believes that there is a God yet that is not an Article of meer Faith because it may be demonstrated that there is a God and so may certainly be known Your Lordship goes on to ask Have not all Mankind who have talked of Matters of Faith allowed a Certainty of Faith as well as a Certainty of Knowledge To answer a question concerning what all Mankind who have talked of Faith have done may be within the reach of your great Learning As for me my reading reaches not so far The Apostles and the Evangelists I can answer have talked of Matters of Faith but I do not find in my Bible that they have any where spoke for 't is of speaking here the Question is of the Certainty of Faith and what they allow which they do not speak of I cannot tell I say in my Bible meaning the English Translation used in our Church though what all Mankind who speak not of Faith in English can do towards the deciding of this Question I do not see it being about the signification of an English word And whether in propriety of speech it can be applied to Faith can only be decided by those who understand English which all Mankind who have talked of of Matters of Faith I humbly conceive did not To prove that Certainty in English may be applied to Faith you say That among the Romans it was opposed to doubting and for that you bring this Latin Sentence Nil tam certum est quam quod de dubio certum Answ. Certum among the Romans might be opposed to doubting and yet not be applied to Faith because Knowledge as well as Believing is opposed to doubting and therefore unless it had pleased your Lordship to have quoted the Author out of which this Latin Sentence is taken one cannot tell whether Certum be not in it spoken of a thing known and not of a thing believed though if it were so I humbly conceive it would not prove what you say viz. That it i. e. the word Certainty for to that it must refer here or to nothing that I understand was among the Romans applied to Faith for as I take it they never used the English word Certainty and though it be true that the English word Certainty be taken from the Latin word Certus yet that therefore Certainty in English is used exactly in the same sense that Certus is in Latin that I think you will not say for then Certainty in English must signifie Purpose and Resolution of Mind for to that Certus is applied in Latin You are pleased here to tell me That in my former Letter I said That if we knew the Original of Words we should be much helped to the Ideas they were first applied to and made to stand for I grant it true nor shall I unsay it here For I said not that a Word that had its Original in one Language kept always exactly the same Signification in