own Mind in your former Letter that must guide us in your Notion of Nature and Person where you undertook to explain them For if Nature and Person be abstract and complex Ideas as you say and such are only Acts of the Mind I do not see how it is possible for you to reconcile these Notions with the Articles of the Trinity and Incarnation I do not go about to accuse you of denying these Doctrines I hope you do not But I impute all this Hesitancy and doubting only to your Notions of Ideas which you had been so long forming in your Mind that as it often happens in such Cases one darling favourite Notion proves too hard for some Points of far greater Consequence when they are found inconsistent with it And because you had first fixed your Notion of Ideas and taken much Pains about them you thought all other things were to be entertained as they appear'd consistent with them But you could not but find that the Articles of three Persons and one Nature and two Natures and one Person were not reconcileable with your Ideas of Nature and Person which is that they are complex Ideas which depend upon the Act of the Mind for this were to make the two Natures in Christ to be only two complex Ideas For if Nature as you say be a Collection of several Ideas combined into one complex abstract Idea then two Natures can be nothing else but two such Collections or two abstracted and complex Ideas It may be said that when you make Nature an abstracted and complex Idea you speak of a specifick Idea but the Humane Nature in Christ was a particular Substance and this you assert to be a real thing and not to depend on the Act of the Mind But this doth not clear the Matter For in your former Letter you said that all the Ideas we have of particular distinct Substances are nothing but several Combinations of simple Ideas which in Corporeal Substances are sensible Qualities in Incorporeal are Operations of the Mind The utmost then which the Idea of Humane Nature in Christ comes to is that there were in him the sensible Qualities and Intellectual Operations of a Man with an unknown Substance to support them which belongs not to the simple Ideas but is supposed by them This is all I can make of your way of Ideas and so the Incarnation of Christ is the assuming the sensible Qualities and intellectual Operations of a Man to which a Substratum doth belong but is no Part of the simple Ideas So that we can have no Idea at all of the Humane Nature of Christ but only an Inference that since those are but Accidents there must be a Substratum to support them and consequently there was a particular Substance in him made up of Mind and Body But if this had come in the Way of Ideas yet it cannot make out the Humane Nature of Christ. For if it were in him no otherwise than in other Men then the Mystery of the Incarnation is quite gone and Christ is to be consider'd but like other Men which doth not answer to what the Scripture saith of the Word 's being made Flesh and that God was manifest in the Flesh. There must be therefore something beyond the meer Humane Nature in him and either it must be only some Divine Operation upon and with it and that is no Substance or if it be a Substance it must either cohabit with it or else be united to it If it only co-habits then there are two Persons dwelling together in one Body and the Actions of one cannot be attributed to the other If there be a real Union between them so as the Acts belong to one Person then there must be such a Manner of Existence in the Humane Nature of Christ which is different from it in other Persons For in all others the Acts belong to the Humane Person but if it were so in Christ then the Divine Acts of Christ must flow from the Humane Nature as the Principle of them which is to confound the Divine and Humane Nature and Operations together If they come from the Divine Person then the Humane Nature must have another kind of Subsistence than it hath in others or else there must be two Persons and Person being as you say a Forensick Term there must be two different Capacities of Rewards and Punishments which is so absurd an Opinion as I think no one will assert If there be then but one Person and two Natures how can you possibly reconcile this to your Way of Ideas Person say you in it self signifies nothing but as soon as the common use of any Language has appropriated it to any Idea then that is the true Idea of a Person i. e. Men may call a Person what they please for there is nothing but common use required to it They may call a Horse or a Tree or a Stone a Person if they think fit but since the common use of Language hath appropriated it to an Intelligent Being that is a Person And so you tell us That Person stands for a Thinking Intelligent Being that hath Reason and Reflection and can consider it self as it self the same thinking Being in different times and place How comes Person to stand for this and nothing else From whence comes Self-consciousness in different times and places to make up this 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 Hath the 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 the Way of Ideas if a meer Arbitrary Idea must be taken into the only true Method of Certainty But of that afterwards We now proceed in the Way of Ideas as you give it us But if this be the true Idea of a Person then there can be no Union of two Natures in one Person For if an Intelligent Conscious Being be the Idea of a Person and the Divine and Human Nature be Intelligent Conscious Beings then the Doctrine of the Union of two Natures and one Person is quite sunk for here must be two Persons in this Way of Ideas Again if this be the Idea of a Person then where there are three Persons there must be three distinct Intelligent Beings and so there cannot be three Persons in the same individual Essence And thus both these Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation are past recovery gone if this Way of Ideas hold So great a difference there is between forming Ideas first and then judging of Revelation by them and the believing of Revelation on its proper Grounds and interpreting the Sense of it by the due Measures of Reason You may pretend what you please that you hold the Assurance of Faith and the Certainty by
For the Nature of Man as in Peter is distinct from that same Nature as it is in Iames and Iohn otherwise they would be but One Person as well as One Nature And what Reply is made to this You cannot understand what this is a Proof of It is plain that I meant it of a Particular Subsistence and if you cannot for your Life understand such easie things how can I for my Life help it Read the Words over again which are before them and join them together And this is the Common Nature with a Particular Subsistence proper to each of them for the Nature of Man as in Peter is distinct from that same Nature as it is in Iames and Iohn But I am really ashamed to be put to explain such things I hope Ideas do not give another Turn to Common Sense But you say That otherwise they could not be three Persons is to prove it by a Proposition unintelligible to you because you do not yet apprehend what a Person is Of that in its proper place These Words of mine follow And this Distinction of Persons in them is discerned both by our Senses as to their different Accidents and by our Reason because they have a separate Existence not coming into it at once and in the same manner And is this unintelligible too You say It will hold as well for three Physical Atoms which are three distinct Individuals and have three distinct Natures in them as certainly as three distinct Men. But are three Atoms as much three Persons as three Men But you cannot discern the distinction by our Senses as to their Accidents nor by your Reason as to separate Existence because God might create them at once Therefore we cannot distinguish three Humane Persons that way In this Reasoning in the Way of Ideas Or in any Way Suppose we put the Common Nature of an Animal for the Common Nature of Man What follows Therefore three Animals are three distinct Persons as well as three Men I thought there was some cause for your Disliking the Common Principles and Methods of Reasoning I am forced to give but short touches at such things which I cannot answer more largely without being thought to make Marks of Distinction Come we now therefore to the Second Sense of Nature as it is taken abstractly without Respect to Individual Persons and then I said it makes an entire Notion of it self For however the same Nature may be in different Individuals yet the Nature in it self remains one and the same which appears from this evident Reason that otherwise every Individual must make a different kind Is this to be understood any better No. An entire Notion of it self is an Expression never met with before An entire Idea of it self had been very plain and easie but this is not to talk with Men in their own Dialect But if we put it so the Difficulty remains What Difficulty It then makes no more an entire Notion than the Nature of Peter Is it not the same Nature considered as common to all Individuals distinct from that Nature as in Peter I wish among all the Ways of inlarging Knowledge you could think of some new Way of conveying Notions into Mens Minds for I find your Way of Ideas will never do it For you cannot be brought one step beyond the first Cast of Ideas And you will not allow that which I give for an Evident Reason to prove any thing towards clear Apprehensions of one Common Nature But if Nature be one and the same in different Individuals then there must be one Common Nature which makes an entire Notion of it self If it be not one and the same then every Individual must make a Distinct Kind Can any thing be more evident But you give one common Answer I understand not any thing that is meant in this whole Paragraph as to the right Apprehension of one Common Nature And so I am very well content to leave it to the Reader 's Understanding And now I come at last to the Idea of a Person And here I am glad to find something you do understand Which is great News This say you I understand very well that supposing Peter James and John to be all three Men and Man being a Name for one Kind of Animals they are all of the same Kind Do you mean that they have the same common Essence or have only the same common Name If you mean the former there must be a common Nature if only the latter that cannot make them of the same Kind For Kind signifies nothing but a meer Name without it If it be asked you whether Men and Drills be of the same Kind or not Could you give no other Answer but that the Specifick Name Man stands for one sort and the Specifick Name Drill for the other and therefore they are not of the same Kind Are those Names arbitrary or are they founded on real and distinct Properties If they be arbitrary they have no other Difference but what a Dictionary gives them If they are founded on real and distinct Properties then there must be a real Difference of Kinds founded in Nature which is as much as I desire But to go on You understand too very well that Peter is not James and James is not John but that there is a Difference in these Individuals You understand also that they may be distinguished from each other by our Senses as to different Features and Distance of Place c. But what follows you say You do not understand viz. that supposing there were no such external Difference yet there is a Difference between them as Individuals of the same Nature For all that this comes to as far as you can understand is that the Ground of the Distinction between several Individuals in the same common Nature is that they are several Individuals in the same common Nature You understand it seems that they are several Individuals that Peter is not James and James is not John and the Question is what this Distinction is founded upon Whether upon our observing the Difference of Features Distance of Place c. or on some antecedent Ground I affirm that there is a Ground of the Distinction of Individuals antecedent to such accidental Differences as are liable to our Observation by our Senses And the Ground I go upon is this that the true Reason of Identity in Man is the vital Union of Soul and Body And since every Man hath a different Soul united to different Particles of Matter there must be a real Distinction between them without any respect to what is accidental to them For if Peter have a Soul and Body different from Iames and Iames from Iohn they must have different Principles of Individuation without any respect to Features or Place c. You say You cannot suppose a Contradiction viz. that there is no difference of Place between them But that is
sown in Corruption and Weakness and Dishonour Either therefore he must speak of the same Body or his meaning cannot be comprehended For what doth all this relate to a Conscious Principle The Apostle speaks plainly of that Body which was once quickened and afterwards falls to Corruption and is to be restored with more noble Qualities For this Corruptible must put on Incorruption and this Mortal must put on Immortality I do not see how he could more expressly affirm the Identity of this Corruptible Body with that after the Resurrection and that without any Respect to the Principle of Self-consciousness and so if the Scripture be the sole Foundation of our Faith this is an Article of it and so it hath been always understood by the Christian Church And your Idea of Personal Identity is inconsistent with it for it makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary to the Doctrine of the Resurrection but any Material Substance being united to the same Principle of Consciousness makes the same Body The Dispute is not how far Personal Identity in it self may consist in the very same Material Substance for we allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter but whether it doth not depend upon a Vital Vnion between the Soul and Body and the Life which is consequent upon it and therefore in the Resurrection the same Material Substance must be reunited or else it cannot be called a Resurrection but a Renovation i. e. it may be a New Life but not a raising the Body from the Dead 2. The next Articles of Faith which your Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with are no less than those of the Trinity and of the Incarnation of our Saviour The former by the first Article of our Church is expressed by three Persons in the Vnity of the Divine Nature the latter is said Art 2. to be by the Vnion of the Divine and Humane Nature in one Person Let us now see whether your Ideas of Nature and Person can consist with these But before I come to that I must endeavour to set this Matter right as to the Dispute about the Notion of Nature and Person which you have endeavour'd with all your Art to perplex and confound and have brought in several Interlocutors to make it look more like an Entertainment Of which afterwards The Original Question was whether we could come to any Certainty about the Distinction of Nature and Person in the Way of Ideas and my business was to prove that we could not because we had no simple Ideas by Sensation or Reflection without which you affirm that our Vnderstanding seems to you not to have the least Glimmering of Ideas and that we have nothing in our Minds which did not come in one of these two Ways These are your own Words And then I undertook to shew that it was not possible for us to have any simple Ideas of Nature and Person by Sensation or Reflection and that whether we consider'd Nature as taken for Essential Properties or for that Substance wherein that Property lies whether we consider it in distinct Individuals or abstractly still my Design was to shew that in your Way of Ideas you could come to no Certainty about them And as to Person I shew'd that the Distinction of Individuals is not founded meerly on what occurs to our Senses but upon a different manner of Subsistence which is in one Individual and is not communicable to another And as to this I said that we may find within our selves an intelligent Substance by inward Perception but whether that make a Person or not must be understood some other way for if the meer intelligent Substance make a Person then there cannot be the Union of two such Natures but there must be two Persons Which is repugnant to the Article of the Incarnation of our Saviour That this was the true State of the Question will appear to any one that will vouchsafe to look into it But what said you in your first Letter in Answer to it As to Nature you say That it is a Collection of several Ideas combined into one complex abstract Idea which when they are found united in any Individual existing though joyned in that Existence with several other Ideas that individual or particular Being is truly said to have the Nature of a Man or the Nature of a Man to be in him forasmuch as these simple Ideas are found united in him which answer the â—omplex abstract Idea to which the specifick Name is given by any one which abstract specifick Idea he keeps the same when he applies the specifick Name standing for it to distinct Individuals And as to Person in the way of Ideas you say that the Word Person in it self signifies nothing and so no Idea belonging to it nothing can be said to be the true Idea of it But as soon as the common Vse of any Language has appropriated it to any Idea then that is the true Idea of a Person and so of Nature Against this I objected in my Answer to that Letter that if these Terms really signifie nothing in themselves but are only abstract and complex Ideas which the common Use of Language hath appropriated to be the signs of two Ideas then it is plain that they are only Notions of the Mind as all abstracted and complex Ideas are and so one Nature and three Persons can be no more To this you answer in your second Letter That your Notion of the Terms Nature and Person is that they are two sounds that naturally signifie not one thing more than another nor in themselves signifie any thing at all but have the signification which they have barely by Imposition Whoever imagined that Words signifie any otherwise than by Imposition But the Question is whether these be meer Words and Names or not Or whether there be not a real Foundation in things for such a Distinction between Nature and Person Of which I gave this evident Proof that if it were not the same Nature in different Individuals every Individual must make a different Kind And what Answer do you give to this plain Reason Nothing particular that I can find But in the general you say that all that you can find that I except against in your Notion of Nature and Person is nothing but this viz. that these are two sounds which in themselves signifie nothing And is this all indeed Did not I tell you in these Words which I am forced to repeat on this occasion although I am very unwilling to fill Pages with Repetitions The Question now between us comes to this whether the common Nature or Essence of things lies only in an abstract Idea or a general Name and the real Essence consists only in particular Beings from which that Nature is abstracted The Question is not whether in forming
I have been longer a clearing this Matter than I thought I should have been but it is the main Point as to Certainty by Ideas and what remains will admit of an easier Dispatch I now return to the Difference between Nature and Person and I shall only single out what is material and pertinent and now leave the interlocutory Gentlemen to maintain their Conversation by themselves I had said in my Vindication That Nature may be consider'd two Ways 1. As it is in distinct Individuals 2. Abstractly without respect to individual Persons 1. As it is in distinct Individuals as the Nature of a Man is equally in Peter Iames and Iohn and this is the common Nature with a particular Subsistence belonging to each of them For the Nature of Man as in Peter is distinct from the same Nature as it is in Iames and Iohn otherwise they would be but one Person as well as have the same Nature Which to my understanding is plain and clear Reason And if so then here we have an Identity of Nature and a Distinction of Persons in the same Nature But to this you object these three Things 1. That you cannot put together one and the same and distinct and consequently there is no Foundation for the Distinction of Nature and Person 2. That what I say about common Nature and particular Subsistence and Individuals is wholly unintelligible to you and your Friends 3. That to speak truly and precisely of this Matter as in reality it is there is no such thing as one common Nature in several Individuals for all that is Truth in them is particular and can be nothing but particular But the meaning is that every particular individual Man or Horse c. has such a Nature or Constitution as agrees and is conformable to that Idea which that general Name stands for This is the Substance of what I can gather out of your Discourse in several Pages but as to the general Reflections I pass them over having no other Design but to set Truth in as good a Light as I can And if I have the Misfortune not to be understood I cannot help it I wish it were in my Power to help other Men's Capacities as well as to help my own But you say the Notionists and Ideists as they are called seem to have their apprehensive Faculties very differently turned I do not think that there is any different Turn in their Faculties but there may be a very wrong Turn in the Method of Reasoning in those who go in this Way of Ideas from what there is in those who pursue the general Principles of Reason and from thence draw particular Conclusions If any Man takes it for granted that your Way of Ideas is the only Way to Certainty and he must take it for granted if he will believe it then I cannot see how he can apprehend one and the same common Nature in different Persons or Individuals because all his Ideas are taken from Particulars and therefore a common Nature is no more but one common Name and every Individual is consider'd as ranked under those Names But herein lies the fundamental Mistake that you presume that we are not to judge of things by the general Principles of Reason but by particular Ideas For if Men set aside this new Way of Judging only by these Ideas things would appear in another Light to them But I find it is to very little purpose to argue with such Men who are resolved to stick to this Way of Ideas For they can apprehend nothing but just in their own Way And let us say what we will it is jargon and unintelligible to them although very rational Men have said the same things that we do and have been thought by the rest of Mankind to have spoken intelligibly But now it seems nothing is intelligible but what suits with this new Way of Ideas however repugnant it be to the common Principles of Reason which must be the Standard to Mankind whatever becomes of this Way of Ideas And therefore in this Debate I shall proceed upon these Principles of Reason which have been receiv'd among Mankind and from them I hope to make it appear that the Difference of Nature and Person is not imaginary and fictitious but grounded upon the real Nature of things The Principles of Reason which I go upon are these 1. That Nothing hath no Properties 2. That all Properties being only Modes or Accidents must have a real Subject to subsist in 3. That Properties essentially different must subsist in different Essences 4. That where there is an Agreement in essential Properties and a Difference in Individual there must be both an Identity and Diversity in several Respects Now upon these Principles I build my Assertion that there is one real and common Nature or Essence in Mankind and a Difference of Persons in the several Individuals For that there are such essential Properties in Mankind which are not in Brutes I suppose you will not deny Now these essential Properties must subsist somewhere For Nothing can have no Properties and these Properties cannot subsist where Individuals are multiplied in any one Individual For that is to exclude all the rest from the essential Properties which belong to them and if they have them in common there must be some common Subject wherein they subsist and that can be nothing but the common Essence of Mankind For the Essence of Brutes or Plants have them not and therefore these Essences must be really different from one another But because Individuals of the same kind have something to distinguish as well as to unite them therefore there must be a different Subsistence in every Individual and so one and the same and yet distinct may very easily and intelligibly consist together But you say I have not told you what Nature is I think my Discourse sufficiently shew'd it if you had a mind to understand it for you could not but see that I meant the Subject of the essential Properties whether you call it Nature Substance or Essence Your Objection about Nature and Substance being of equal Extent I hope I have sufficiently removed in the foregoing Discourse You tell me that it is more than you know that the Nature of a Man is equal in Peter James and John I am sorry for it For I thought you had Ideas of particular Substances But they may be Drills or Horses for any thing you know I am again sorry that you know particular Men no better but that for ought you know they may be Drills or Horses But you know a Horse that was called Peter and you do not know but the Master of the same Team might call other of his Horses James and John Suppose all this And could you not in the Way of Ideas distinguish them from those of your Acquaintance who had the same Names I confess this tempts me to think that Ideists as you call
them have a particular Turn of their understandings about these Matters For I cannot but think that those who were not very rational Men might understand the Difference between Men and Horses without being told that although Horses might be called by their Names yet that these were real Men and their Constitution and Nature was conformable to that Idea which the general Name Man stands for But this is no more than to say that he that has the Nature of a Man is a Man or what has the Nature of a Drill is a Drill and what has the Nature of a Horse is a Horse whether it be called Peter or not called Peter If this were really the Discourse of your Friends in private Conversation you have been very obliging to them to publish it to the World For Mankind are not so stupid as not to know a Man from a Horse or a Drill but only by the Specifick Name of Man You may have a Horse called Peter if you please and another Iames and a third Iohn but for all that there is no one that hath the Understanding of a Man but will be able without your Specifick Names to tell the Difference of your Horse Peter from your Man Peter and call them by what Names you please the Difference will not depend upon them but upon the Essential Properties which belong to them and so it will be owned by all that have not this New turn of their Vnderstandings But I plainly see that a new Notion when it hath got deep into a Man's Head doth give a strange Turn to his Understanding so that he cannot see that which every one else can that hath not the same Tincture upon his Mind And I remember an Observation of yours How dangerous it is to a Man's Reason to fix his Fancy long upon one sort of Thoughts These Ideas are a very odd sort of Spectacles to our Understandings if they make them see and understand less than People of very ordinary Capacities do For even the Man who had the Horse with the Name Peter and might have others by the Names of James and John would not a little wonder at a grave Philosopher that should seriously say to him You see Friend that your Horses have the Names of Men how do you know but that they are Men Know saith the Country-man I hope you are wiser than to ask me such a Question Or what do you take me for if I cannot tell the Difference of Men from Horses whatever Names they have Do not tell me of your Specifick Names and Conformity to your Ideas I know well enough the Difference between my Horse Peter and my Man Peter without such Gibberish My Man Peter and I can sit and chop Logick together about our Country Affairs and he can Write and Read and he is a very sharp Fellow at a Bargain but my Horse Peter can do none of these things and I never could find any thing like Reason in him and do you think I do not know the Difference between a Man and a Beast I pursue this no farther lest the Country-man should be too rude to the Gentlemen with whom you had this Learned Conversation about the Difference of Men and Horses and Drills But you or your Friend or both are very hard set again about a Common Nature with a particular Subsistence proper to each Person For such is your Misfortune you say that for your Life you cannot find it out This is a hard Case before for your Life you could not understand Nature and Substance to be the same and now again for your Life you cannot find out this Where lies the monstrous Difficulty of it You say You repeated and this twenty times to your self and your weak Vnderstanding always Rejolts At what My Words are Nature may be considered as it is in distinct Individuals as the Nature of Man is equally in Peter Iames and Iohn And this is the common Nature with a particular Subsistence proper to each of them You say That the Nature of Man in Peter is the Nature of a Man if Peter be supposed to be a Man but if it be the Name of a Horse your Knowledge vanishes Cannot you for your Life know the Difference between a Man and a Horse by their Essential Properties whatever their Names be If so there is a greater turn of Mens Vnderstandings than I imagined But again say you Let it be impossible to give that Name to a Horse who ever said or thought so yet you cannot understand these Words the common Nature of a Man is in Peter for whatsoever is in Peter exists in Peter and whatever exists in Peter is particular but the common Nature of Man is the general Nature of Man or else you understand not what is meant by Common Nature and it confounds your Vnderstanding to make a General a Particular To this I answer That the Common Nature of Man may be taken two ways In the way of Ideas and in the way of Reason In your way of Ideas it is not at all to be wondered at that you cannot understand such a Common Nature as I spake of which subsists in several Persons because you say You can have no Ideas of Real Substances but such as are Particular all others are only Abstract Ideas and made only by the Act of the Mind But I say That in the Way of Reason you may come to a better understanding of this Matter Which is by considering the Nature of Beings and the Causes of the Differences amongst the several kinds of them I had told you before in my Answer to your first Letter that we are to consider Beings as God hath ordered them in their several Sorts and Ranks and that he hath distinguished them by Essential Properties from each other as appears by Mankind and Brutes and Plants And that although the Individuals of the several kinds agree in Essential Properties yet there is a real Difference between them in several Accidents that belong to them as to Time Place Qualities Relations c. Now that wherein they agree is the Common Nature and that wherein they differ is the Particular Subsistence And if this be so hard to be understood why was it not answered here in the proper place for it is not that a Real Nature that is the Subject of Real Properties Is not that Nature really in all those who have the same Essential Properties And therefore the Common Nature of Man must exist in Peter because he is a Man and so in Iames and Iohn and yet every one of these is so distinguished from the other that we may justly say he hath a Particular Subsistence with that Common Nature And this is no making a General a Particular but distinguishing one from the other which is a Distinction so easie and necessary that I cannot but wonder at those who say that for their Lives they cannot find it out I had said
not the Point whether when we consider them with respect to Place there can be such a thing as Identity of Place to two different Bodies But whether we cannot consider two several Individuals of Mankind without particular Regard to Place Which I say we may and for this Reason because Relation to Place is an external Difference but the real Distinction of Individuals doth not relate to any Accident of the Body because the Individual consists of the Union of Soul and Body and you cannot judge of the Existence of the Soul by the Place of the Body You say that when we see any thing to be in any place in any instant of Time we are sure be it what it will that it is that very thing and not another which at that Time exists in another Place how like and undistinguishing soever it may be in all other Respects And in this consists Identity But I think the Identity of Man depends neither upon the Notion of Place for his Body nor upon the Soul consider'd by it self but upon both these as actually united and making one Person Which to me seems so clear and intelligible that I can imagine no Objection against it I am certain you produce none My next Words are And here lies the true Idea of a Person which arises from that Manner of Subsistence which is in one Individual and is not communicable to another In your Answer to this I pass over the trifling Exceptions about the Dissyllable Person and the true Idea and Signification of the articulate Sound and about here and herein c. being resolved to keep to what appears material And the only thing of that kind is that according to my Sense of Person it will as well agree to Bucephalus as to Alexander and the Difference will be as great between Bucephalus and Podargus as between Alexander and Hector all being several Individuals in the same common Nature but for your Part you cannot understand that Bucephalus and Podargus are Persons in the true signification of the Word Person in the English Tongue And whoever desired you should For I expresly say that a Person is a compleat intelligent Substance with a peculiar Manner of Subsistence And again For a Person relates to something which doth distinguish it from another intelligent Substance in the same Nature So that it is impossible to apply my Notion of Person to any irrational Creatures although they be Bucephalus and Podargus And I think a Man must strain hard to make such Objections so directly against that Idea of a Person which I set down And it is very easie to understand the Difference between a Distinction of Individuals as such and of intelligent Individuals and that Manner of Subsistence in them which makes them distinct Persons But you say that I affirm that an individual intelligent Substance is rather supposed to the making of a Person than the proper Definition of it and yet afterwards I make it to be the Definition of a Person that it is a compleat intelligent Substance To this I answer That in the former Place I give an Account of the Reason of Personality which I say lies in the Manner of Subsistence and not in the intelligent individual Substance which is rather supposed to the making of a Person For that which critically distinguishes the Person is the Reason of Personality but when we come to give a common Definition of it there is no such Necessity of insisting upon the Reason of the Difference but upon the common Acception of it Person And upon that Account I call it a complete intelligent Substance because although the Soul be so in it self yet we take Person with Relation to Soul and Body united together And so the Identity of Person must take in both not only here but at the Resurrection And thus I have gone through all that I could find that seem'd material in the Dialogue between you and your Friends as to this Subject and I assure you I have omitted nothing which I apprehended had any Appearance of Difficulty in it And I find not the least Reason to be unsatisfied in the Account I had given of the Difference of Nature and Person but I still think that it doth tend very much to the right Apprehension of the Doctrine of the Trinity as I hope doth farther appear by the foregoing Discourse And now to come to a Conclusion of this whole Debate For I intend not to draw this Saw any longer having done as much as I think sitting for my self to do I saw no Necessity of writing again for my own Vindication as to your first Charge which I was contended to leave to the Reader 's Judgment But in the Conclusion of my former Answer I had said That as you had stated your Notion of Ideas it may be of dangerous Consequence to that Article of the Christian Faith which I endeavour'd to defend This you call a new Charge against your Book and you complain that I do not specifie the Particulars wherein I apprehend it may be of such dangerous Consequence and you blame me for this saying without shewing that it is so and that all the Reason I give is that it is made use of by ill Men to do mischief that when I say it may be it shews only an Inclination to accuse and proves nothing that Danger may be apprehended where no Danger is that if any thing must be laid aside because it may be ill used you do not know what will be innocent enough to be kept and lastly that the Imputation of a Tendency to Scepticism and to the overthrowing any Article of the Christian Faith are no small Charge and that you cannot see any Argument I have brought that your Notion of Ideas tends to Scepticism These things laid together made me think it necessary to do that which I was unwilling 〈◊〉 do till you had driven me to it which was to shew the Reasons I had why I look'd on your Notion of Ideas and of Certainty by them as inconsistent with it self and with some important Articles of the Christian Faith What I have now done I thought it my Duty to do not with respect to my self but to some of the Mysteries of our Faith which I do not charge you with opposing but with laying such Foundations as do tend to the Overthrow of them of which we have had too much Experience already and may have more if your Way of Certainty by Ideas should obtain Which I cannot think it will among such as are capable and willing to judge impartially I have now done with this Matter And as some may think it the first Part of Wisdom not to begin in such Disputes and I am of their Mind if they did not touch the Christian Faith so they cannot but judge it the next as I do to know when to make an End I am Sir Your