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
the Bible to be the Word of God though they imagine God himself in the shape of an Old Man sitting in Heaven which they could not do if they knew i. e. had examined and understood any demonstration whereby he is proved to be immaterial without which they cannot know it 2. If your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation it is necessary to know that there is simply an intelligent Being this also I deny For to suppose a Divine Revelation is not necessary that a Man should know that there is such an intelligent Being in the World I say know i. e. from things that he does know demonstratively deduce the proof of such a Being it is enough for the receiving Divine Revelation to believe that there is such a Being without having by demonstration attained to the Knowledge that there is a God Every one that believes right does not always reason exactly especially in abstract Metaphysical Speculations and if no body can believe the Bible to be of Divine Revelation but he that clearly comprehends the whole deduction and sees the evidence of the demonstration wherein the existence of an intelligent Being on whose Will all other Beings depend is Scientifically proved there are I fear but few Christians among illiterate People to look no farther He that believes there is a God though he does no more than believe it and has not attained to the Certainty of Knowledge i. e. does not see the evident demonstration of it has Ground enough to admit of Divine Revelation The Apostle tells us That he that will come to God must believe that he is But I do not remember the Scripture any where says That he must know that he is 3. In the next place if your Lordship means That to suppose Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. explicitly believe that there is a perfectly immaterial Being I shall leave it to your Lordship's consideration whether it may not be Ground enough for the Supposition of a Revelation to believe that there is an all-knowing unerring Being who can neither deceive nor be deceived without a Man 's precisely determining in his Thoughts whether that unerring omniscient Being be immaterial or no. 'T is past all doubt that every one that examins and reasons right may come to a Certainty that God is perfectly immaterial But it may be a question whether every one who believes a Revelation to be from God may have enter'd into the disquisition of the immateriality of his Being Whether I say every ignorant day Labourer who believes the Bible to be the Word of God has in his mind consider'd materiality and immateriality and does explicitly believe God to be immaterial I shall leave to your Lordship to determine if you think fit more expresly than your Words do here 4. If your Lordship means That to suppose a Divine Revelation a Man must becertain i. e. believe that there is a supreme intelligent Being from whom it comes who can neither deceive nor be deceived I grant it to be true These being the several Propositions either of which may be meant in your Lordship 's so general and to me doubtful way of expressing your self to avoid the length which a particular Answer to each of them would run me into I will venture and it is a venture to answer to an ambiguous Proposition in one Sense when the Author has the liberty of saying he meant it in another a great convenience of general loose and doubtful Expressions I will I say venture to answer to it in the Sense I guess most suited to your Lordship's purpose and see what your Lordship proves by it I will therefore suppose your Lordship's Reasoning to be this That To suppose Divine Revelation a Man must be certain i. e. believe that there is a Principle above Matter and Motion i. e. an immaterial intelligent Being in the World Let it be so what does your Lordship infer Therefore upon the Principles of Certainty by Ideas he i. e. he that places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas cannot be certain of i. e. believe this This consequence seems a little strange but your Lordship proves it thus Because he does not know but Matter may think Which Argument put into form will stand thus If one who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Idea does not know but Matter may think then whoever places Certainty so cannot believe there is an immaterial intelligent Being in the World But there is one who placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may think Ergo whoever places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas cannot believe that there is an intelligent immaterial Being This Argumentation is so defective in every part of it that for fear I should be thought to make an Argument for your Lordship in requital for the Answer your Lordship made for me I must desire the Reader to consider your Lordship says We must be certain He cannot be certain because he doth not know which in short is We cannot because he cannot and he cannot because he doth not This consider'd will justifie the Syllogism I have made to contain your Lordship's Argument in its full force I come therefore to the Syllogism it self and there first I deny the Minor which is this There is one who placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas doth not know but Matter may think I begin with this because this is the Foundation of all your Lordship's Argument and therefore I desire your Lordship would produce any one who placing Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may think The Reason why I press this is because I suppose your Lordship means me here and would have it thought that I say I do not know but that Matter may think But that I do not say so nor any thing else from whence may be infer'd what your Lordship adds in the annexed Words if they can be infer'd from it And consequently all Revelation may be nothing but the effects of an exalted Fancy or the heats of a disorder'd Imagination as Spinosa affirm'd On the contrary I do say It is impossible to conceive that matter either with or without motion could have originally in and from it self Perception and knowledge And having in that Chapter establish'd this Truth That there is an eternal immaterial knowing Being I think no body but your Lordship could have imputed to me the doubting that there was such a Being because I say in another place and to another purpose It is impossible for us by the contemplation of our own Ideas without Revelation to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some Systems of Matter fitly disposed a power to perceive and think or else joined and fixed to
Identity Answ. Give me leave my Lord to say that the Reason of believing any Article of the Christian Faith such as your Lordship is here speaking of to me and upon my Grounds is its being a part of Divine Revelation Upon this Ground I believed it before I either writ that Chapter of Identity and Diversity and before I ever thought of those Propositions which your Lordship quotes out of that Chapter and upon the same Ground I believe it still and not from my Idea of Identity This saying of your Lordship 's therefore being a Proposition neither self-evident nor allowed by me to be true remains to be proved So that your Foundation failing all your large Superstructure built thereon comes to nothing But my Lord before we go any farther I crave leave humbly to represent to your Lordship That I thought you undertook to make out that my Notion of Ideas was inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith But that which your Lordship instances in here is not that I yet know an Article of the Christian Faith The Resurrection of the dead I acknowledge to be an Article of the Christian Faith But that the Resurrection of the Same Body in your Lordship's Sense of the same Body is an Article of the Christian Faith is what I confess I do not yet know In the New Testament wherein I think are contained all the Articles of the Christian Faith I find our Saviour and the Apostles to preach the Resurrection of the Dead and the Resurrection from the dead in many places But I do not remember any place where the Resurrection of the same Body is so much as mentioned Nay which is very remarkable in the Case I do not remember in any place of the New Testament where the general Resurrection at the last Day is spoken of any such Expression as the Resurrection of the Body much less of the same Body I say the general Resurrection at the last Day Because where the Resurrection of some particular Persons presently upon our Saviour's Resurrection is mentioned the Words are The Graves were opened and many Bodies of Saints which slept arose and came out of the Graves after his Resurrection and went into the Holy City and appeared to many Of which peculiar way of speaking of this Resurrection the Passage it self gives a Reason in these Words appeared to many i. e. Those who slept appeared so as to be known to be risen But this could not be known unless they brought with them the Evidence that they were those who had been dead whereof there were these two Proofs their Graves were opened and their Bodies not only gone out of them but appeared to be the same to those who had known them formerly alive and knew them to be dead and buried For if they had been those who had been dead so long that all who knew them once alive were now gone those to whom they appeared might have known them to be Men but could not have known they were risen from the dead Because they never knew they had been dead All that by their appearing they could have known was that they were so many living Strangers of whose Resurrection they knew nothing 'T was necessary therefore that they should come in such Bodies as might in make and size c. appear to be the same they had before that they might be known to those of their Acquaintance whom they appeared to And it is probable they were such as were newly dead whose Bodies were not yet dissolved and dissipated and therefore 't is particularly said here differently from what is said of the general Resurrection that their Bodies arose Because they were the same that were then lying in their Graves the Moment before they rose But your Lordship endeavours to prove it must be the same Body And let us grant that your Lordship nay and others too think you have proved it must be the same Body will you therefore say that he holds what is inconsistent with an Article of Faith who having never seen this your Lordship's interpretation of the Scripture nor your Reasons for the same Body in your sense of same Body or if he has seen them yet not understanding them or not perceiving the force of them believes what the Scripture proposes to him viz. That at the last Day the dead shall be raised without determining whether it shall be with the very same Bodies or no I know your Lordship pretends not to erect your particular interpretations of Scripture into Articles of Faith and if you do not He that believes the dead shall be raised believes that Article of Faith which the Scripture proposes And cannot be accused of holding any thing inconsistent with it if it should happen that what he holds is inconsistent with another Proposition viz. That the dead shall be raised with the same Bodies in you Lordship's Sense which I do not find proposed in Holy Writ as an Article of Faith But your Lordship argues it must be the same Body which as you explain same Body is not the same individual particles of Matter which were united at the point of Death Nor the same particles of Matter that the Sinner had at the time of the Commission of his Sins But that it must be the same material Substance which was vitally united to the Soul here i. e. as I understand it the same individual particles of Matter which were sometime or other during his Life here vitally united to his Soul Your first Argument to prove that it must be the same Body in this Sense of the same Body is taken from these Words of our Saviour All that are in the Graves shall hear his Voice and shall come forth From whence your Lordship argues That these Words all that are in their Graves relates to no other Substance than what was united to the Soul in Life because a different Substance cannot be said to be in the Graves and to come out of them Which Words of your Lordships if they prove any thing prove that the Soul too is lodg'd in the Grave and raised out of it at the last Day For your Lordship says Can a different Substance be said to be in their Graves and come out of them So that according to this interpretation of these Words of our Saviour No other Substance being raised but what hears his Voice and no other Substance hearing his Voice but what being called comes out of the Grave and no other Substance coming out of the Grave but what was in the Grave any one must conclude that the Soul unless it be in the Grave will make no part of the Person that is raised unless as your Lordship argues against me You can make it out that a Substance which never was in the Grave may come out of it or that the Soul is no Substance But setting aside the Substance of the Soul another thing that will make any one doubt
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
this third Body which St. Paul mentions not and to make that the same or not the same with any other when those which St. Paul speaks of are as I humbly conceive these two visible sensible Bodies the Grain sown and the Corn grown up to Ear with neither of which this insensible embryonated Plant can be the same Body unless an insensible Body can be the same Body with a sensible Body and a little Body can be the same Body with one ten thousand or an hundred thousand times as big as its self So that yet I confess I see not the Resurrection of the same Body proved from these words of St. Paul to be an Article of Faith Your Lordship goes on St. Paul indeed saith That we sow not that Body that shall be but he speaks not of the Identity but the Perfection of it Here my Understanding fails me again For I cannot understand St. Paul to say That the same Identical sensible grain of Wheat which was sown at seed-time is the very same with every grain of Wheat in the Ear at Harvest that sprang from it Yet so I must understand it to make it prove That the same sensible Body that is laid in the Grave shall be the very same with that which shall be raised at the Resurrection For I do not know of any seminal Body in little contained in the dead Carcass of any Man or Woman which as your Lordship says in Seeds having its proper Organical parts shall afterwards be enlarged and at the Resurrection grow up into the same Man For I never thought of any Seed or Seminal parts either of Plant or Animal so wonderfully improved by the Providence of God whereby the same Plant or Animal should beget it self nor ever heard that it was by Divine Providence designed to produce the same individual but for the producing of future and distinct individuals for the continuation of the same Species Your Lordship's next Words are And although there be such a difference from the Grain it self when it comes up to be perfect Corn with Root Stalk Blade and Ear that it may be said to outward appearance not to be the same Body yet with regard to the Seminal and Organical parts it is as much the same as a Man grown up is the same with the Embryo in the Womb. Answ. It does not appear by any thing I can find in the Text That St. Paul here compared the Body produced with the Seminal and Organical parts contained in the Grain it sprang from but with the whole sensible Grain that was sown Microscopes had not then discovered the little Embryo plant in the Seed and supposing it should have been reavealed to St. Paul though in the Scripture we find little Revelation of natural Philosophy yet an Argument taken from a thing perfectly unknown to the Corinthians whom he writ to could be of no manner of use to them nor serve at all either to instruct or convince them But granting that those St. Paul writ to knew it as well as Mr. Lewenhooke yet your Lordship thereby proves not the raising of the same Body Your Lordship says it is as much the same I crave leave to add Body as a Man grown up is the same Same what I beseech your Lordship with the Embryo in the Womb. For that the Body of the Embryo in the Womb and Body of the Man grown up is the same Body I think no one will say unless he can perswade himself that a Body that is not the hundredth part of an other is the same with that other which I think no one will do till having renounced this dangerous way by Ideas of Thinking and Reasoning he has learnt to say that a part and the whole are the same Your Lordship goes on And although many Arguments may be used to prove that a Man is not the same because Life which depends upon the course of the Blood and the manner of Respiration and Nutrition is so different in both States yet that Man would be thought ridiculous that should seriously affirm That it was not the same Man And your Lordship says I grant that the variation of great Parcels of Matter in Plants alters not the Identity And that the Organization of the parts in one coherent Body partaking of one common Life makes the Identity of a Plant. Answ. My Lord I think the Question is not about the same Man but the same Body For tho' I do say somewhat differently from what your Lordship sets down as my words here That that which has such an Organization as is fit to receive and distribute Nourishment so as to continue and frame the Wood Bark and Leaves c. of a Plant in which consists the vegetable Life continues to be the same Plant as long as it partakes of the same Life though that Life be communicated to new Particles of Matter vitally united to the living Plant. Yet I do not remember that I any where say That a Plant which was once no bigger than an Oaten straw and afterwards grows to be above a Fathom about is the same Body though it be still the same Plant. The well known Tree in Epping Forest called the King's Oak which from not weighing an Ounce at first grew to have many Tuns of Timber in it was all along the fame Oak the very same Plant but no body I think will say it was the same Body when it weighed a Tun as it was when it weighed but an Ounce unless he has a mind to signalize himself by saying That that is the same Body which has a thousand Particles of different Matter in it for one Particle that is the same which is no better than to say That a thousand different Particles are but one and the same Particle and one and the same Particle is a thousand different Particles a thousand times a greater absurdity than to say half is the whole or the whole is the same with the half which will be improved ten thousand times yet farther if a Man shall say as your Lordship seems to me to argue here That that great Oak is the very same Body with the Acorn it sprang from because there was in that Acorn an Oak in little which was afterwards as your Lordship expresses it so much enlarged as to make that mighty Tree For this Embryo if I may so call it or Oak in little being not the hundredth or perhaps the thousandth part of the Acorn and the Acorn being not the thousandth part of the grown Oak 't will be very extraordinary to prove the Acorn and the grown Oak to be the same Body by a way wherein it cannot be pretended that above one Particle of an hundred Thousand or a Million is the same in the one Body that was in the other From which way of Reasoning it will follow that a Nurse and her Sucking-child have the same Body and be past doubt that a Mother and her
Person cannot believe that the same Persons shall be raised with Bodies made of the very same Particles of Matter if God should reveal that it shall be so viz. That the same Persons shall be raised with the same Bodies they had before Which is all one as to say That he who thought the blowing of Rams Horns was not necessary in it self to the falling down of the Walls of Iericho could not believe that they should fall upon the blowing of Rams Horns when God had declared it should be so Your Lordship says My Idea of Personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection the Reason you ground it on is this because it makes not the same Body necessary to the making the same Person Let us grant your Lordship's consequence to be good what will follow from it No less than this That your Lordship's Notion for I dare not say your Lordship has any so dangerous things as Ideas of Personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection The demonstration of it is thus your Lordship says It is not necessary that the Body to be raised at the last day should consist of the same Particles of Matter which were united at the point of death for there must be a great alteration in them in a lingring Disease as if a fat Man falls into a Consumption You do not say the same Particles which the Sinner had at the very time of Commission of his Sins for then a long Sinner must have a vast Body considering the continual spending of Particles by Perspiration And again here your Lordship says You allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter From which words it is evident That your Lordship supposes a Person in this World may be continued and preserved the same in a Body not consisting of the same individual Particles of Matter and hence it demonstratively follows That let your Lordship's Notion of Personal Identity be what it will it makes the same Body not to be necessary to the same Person and therefore it is by your Lordship's Rule inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection When your Lordship shall think fit to clear your own Notion of Personal Identity from this inconsistency with the Article of the Resurrection I do not doubt but my Idea of Personal Identity will be thereby cleared too Till then all inconsistency with that Article which your Lordship has here charged on mine will unavoidably fall upon your Lordship 's too But for the clearing of both give me leave to say my Lord That whatsoever is not necessary does not thereby become inconsistent It is not necessary to the same Person that his Body should always consist of the same numerical Particles this is demonstration because the Particles of the Bodies of the same Persons in this life change every moment and your Lordship cannot deny it and yet this makes it not inconsistent with God's preserving if he thinks fit to the same Persons Bodies consisting of the same numerical Particles always from the Resurrection to Eternity And so likewise though I say any thing that supposes it not necessary that the same numerical Particles which were vitally united to the Soul in this life should be reunited to it at the Resurrection and constitute the Body it shall then have yet it is not inconsistent with this That God may if he pleases give to every one a Body consisting only of such Particles as were before vitally united to his Soul And thus I think I have cleared my Book from all that inconsistency which your Lordship charges on it and would perswade the World it has with the Article of the Resurrection of the dead Only before I leave it I will set down the remainder of what your Lordship says upon this Head that though I see not the coherence nor tendency of it nor the force of any Argument in it against me yet nothing may be omitted that your Lordship has thought fit to entertain your Reader with on this new Point nor any one have Reason to suspect that I have passed by any word of your Lordship's on this now first introduced Subject wherein he might find your Lordship had proved what you had promised in your Title-page Your remaining Words are these The Dispute is not how far Personal Identity in it self may consist in the very same material Substance for we allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter but whether it doth not depend upon a vital Vnion between the Soul and Body and the Life which is consequent upon it and therefore in the Resurrection the same material Substance must be re-united or else it cannot be called a Resurrection but a Renovation i. e. it may be a new Life but not a raising the Body from the dead I confess I do not see how what is here ushered in by the words and therefore is a consequence from the preceding words but as to the propriety of the Name I think it will not be much questioned that if the same Man rise who was dead it may very properly be called the Resurrection of the dead which is the Language of the Scripture I must not part with this Article of the Resurrection without returning my thanks to your Lordship for making me take notice of a Fault in my Essay When I write that Book I took it for granted as I doubt not but many others have done that the Scripture had mention'd in express terms the Resurrection of the Body But upon the Occasion your Lordship has given me in your last Letter to look a little more narrowly into what Revelation has declar'd concerning the Resurrection and finding no such express words in the Scripture as that the Body shall rise or be raised or the Resurrection of the Body I shall in the next Edition of it change these words of my Book The dead Bodies of Men shall rise into these of the Scripture The dead shall rise Not that I question that the dead shall be raised with Bodies But in Matters of Revelation I think it not only safest but our Duty as far as any one delivers it for Revelation to keep close to the words of the Scripture unless he will assume to himself the Authority of one inspired or make himself wiser than the holy Spirit himself If I had spoke of the Resurrection in precisely Scripture terms I had avoided giving your Lordship the occasion of making here such a verbal Reflection on my Words What not if there be an Idea of Identity as to the Body I come now to your Lordship's second Head of Accusation your Lordship says 2. The next Articles of Faith which my Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with are no less than those of the Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour But all the proof of inconsistency your Lordship here
re obscura affirmare possum sive anima sive ignis sit animus eum jurarem esse divinam c. 23. So that all the Certainty he could attain to about the Soul was That he was confident there was something divine in it i. e. there were Faculties in the Soul that could not result from the Nature of Matter but must have their Original from a Divine Power but yet those Qualities as Divine as they were he acknowledg'd might be placed in Breath or Fire which I think your Lordship will not deny to be material Substances So that all those divine Qualities which he so much and so justly extols in the Soul led him not as appears so much as to any the least Thought of Immateriality This is Demonstration That he built them not upon an exclusion of Materiality out of the Soul for he avowedly professes he does not know but Breath of Fire might be this thinking Thing in us And in all his Considerations about the Substance of the Soul it self he stuck in Air or Fire or Aristotle's Quinta Essentia for beyond those 't is evident he went not But with all his Proofs out of Plato to whose Authority he defers so much with all the Arguments his vast Reading and great Parts could furnish him with for the Immortality of the Soul he was so little satisfied so far from being certain so far from any Thought that he had or could prove it that he over and over again professes his Ignorance and Doubt of it In the beginnig he enumerates the several Opinions of the Philosophers which he had well studied about it And then full of Uncertainty says Harum Sententiarum quae vera sit Deus aliquis viderit quae veri simillima magna quaestio c. 11. And towards the latter end having gone them all over again and one after another examin'd them he professes himself still at a loss not knowing on which to pitch nor what to determin Mentis acies says he seipsam intuens nonnunquam hebescit ob eamque causam contemplandi diligentiam omittimus Itaque disbitans circuspectans haesitans mulia adversa revertens tanquam in rate in mari immenso nostra vehitur or atio c. 30. And to conclude this Argument when the Person he introduces as discoursing with him tells him he is resolved to keep firm to the belief of Immortality Tully answers c. 82. Laudo id quidem etsi nihil animis oportet considere movemur enim saepe aliquo acute concluso labamus mutamusque sententiam clarioribus etiam in rebus in his est enim aliqua obscuritas So unmoveable is that Truth delivered by the Spirit of Truth That though the Light of Nature gave some obscure glimmering some uncertain hopes of a future State yet Human Reason could attain to no Clearness no Certainty about it but that it was JESUS CHRIST alone who had brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel Tho' we are now told That to own the inability of natural Reason to bring Immortality to Light or which passes for the same to own Principles upon which the Immateriality of the Soul and as 't is urged consequently its Immortality cannot be demonstratively proved does lessen the belief of this Article of Revelation which JESUS CHRIST alone has brought to Light and which consequently the Scripture assures us is established and made certain only by Revelation This would not perhaps have seemed strange from those who are justly complained of for slighting the Revelation of the Gospel and therefore would not be much regarded if they should contradict so plain a Text of Scripture in favour of their all-sufficient Reason But what use the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity in an Age so much suspected by your Lordship may make of what comes from one of your great Authority and Learning may deserve your Consideration And thus my Lord I hope I have satisfied you concerning Cicero's Opinion about the Soul in his first Book of Tusculan Questions which though I easily believe as your Lordship says you are no Stranger to yet I humbly conceive you have not shewn and upon a careful perusal of that Treatise again I think I may boldly say you cannot shew one Word in it that expresses any thing like a Notion in Tully of the Souls Immateriality or its being an immaterial Substance From what you bring out of Virgil your Lordship concludes That he no more than Cicero does me any kindness in this Matter being both Assertors of the Souls Immortality My Lord were not the Question of the Souls Immateriality according to Custom changed here into that of its Immortality which I am no less an Assertor of than either of them Cicero and Virgil do me all the kindness I desired of them in this Matter and that was to shew that they attributed the word Spiritus to the Soul of Man without any thought of its Immateriality and this the Verses you your self bring out of Virgil Et cum frigida mors animae deduxerit artus Omnibus umbra locis adero dabis improbe poenas confirm as well as those I quoted out of his 6th Book and for this Monsieur de la Loubere shall be my Witness in the Words above set down out of him where he shews that there be those amongst the Heathens of our days as well as Virgil and others amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans who thought the Souls or Ghosts of Men departed did not die with the Body without thinking them to be perfectly immaterial the latter being much more incomprehensible to them than the former Your Lordship's Answer concerning what is said Eccles. 13. turns wholly upon Solomon's taking the Soul to be Immortal which was not what I questioned All that I quoted that place for was to shew that Spirit in English might properly be applyed to the Soul without any Notion of its Immateriality as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was by Solomon which whether he thought the Souls of Men to be immaterial does little appear in that Passage where he speaks of the Souls of Men and Beasts together as he does But farther what I contended for is evident from that place in that the Word Spirit is there applyed by our Translators to the Souls of Beasts which your Lordship I think does not rank amongst the immaterial and consequently immortal Spirits though they have Sense and Spontaneous Motion But you say If the Soul be not of it self a free thinking Substance you do not see what Foundation there is in Nature for a day of Iudgment Answer Though the Heathen World did not of old nor do to this day see a Foundation in Nature for a day of Iudgment Yet in Revelation if that will fatisfie your Lordship every one may see a Foundation for a day of Iudgment because God has positively declared it tho' God has not by that Revelation taught us what the Substance of the Soul is nor has any where