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
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
Substance and then we know the Solution and Texture of Bodies cannot reach the Soul being of a different Nature Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is that should keep the Parts of a material Soul together after it is separated from the Body yet it will be always as easie to give an account of it as to give an account what it is which shall keep together a material and immaterial Substance And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that I hope does not with your Lordship weaken the Credibility of the inseparable Union of Soul and Body to Eternity And I perswade my self that the Men of Sense to whom your Lordship appeals in the Case do not find their belief of this Fundamental Point much weakened by that difficulty I thought heretofore and by your Lordship's Permission would think so still that the Union of Parts of Matter one with another is as much in the Hands of God as the Union of a material and immaterial Substance and that it does not take off very much or at all from the Evidence of Immortality which depends on that Union that it is no easie matter to give an account what it is that should keep them together Though its depending wholly upon the Gift and good Pleasure of God where the manner creates great difficulty in the understanding and our Reason cannot discover in the Nature of things how it is be that which your Lordship so positively says lessens the Credibility of the Fundamental Articles of the Resurrection and Immortality But my Lord to remove this Objection a little and to shew of how small force it is even with your self give me leave to presume That your Lordship as firmly believes the Immortality of the Body after the Resurrection as any other Article of Faith If so then it being no easie matter to give an account what it is that shall keep together the Parts of a material Soul to one that belives it is material can no more weaken the Credibility of its Immortality than the like difficulty weakens the Credibility of the Immortality of the Body For when your Lordship shall find it an easie matter to give an account what it is besides the good Pleasure of God which shall keep together the Parts of our material Bodies to Eternity or even Soul and Body I doubt not but any one who shall think the Soul material will also find it as easie to give an account what it is that shall keep those Parts of Matter also together to Eternity Were it not that the Warmth of Controversie is apt to make Men so far forget as to take up those Principles themselves when they will serve their turn which they have highly condemned in others I should wonder to find your Lordship to argue That because it is a difficulty to understand what should keep together the minute Parts of a material Soul when Life is gone and because it is not an easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial Substance Therefore it is not so credible as if it were easie to give an account by Natural Reason how it could be For to this it is that all this your Discourse tends as is evident by what is already set down out of Page 55 and will be more fully made out by what your Lordship says in other places though there needs no such Proofs since it would all be nothing against me in any other Sense I thought your Lordship had in other places asserted and insisted on this Truth That no part of Divine Revelation was the less to be believed because the thing it self oreated great difficulty in the understanding and the manner of it was hard to be explained and it was no easie matter to give an account how it was This as I take it your Lordship condemned in others as a very unreaonable Principle and such as would subvert all the Articles of the Christian Religion that were mere matters of Faith as I think it will And is it possible that you should make use of it here your self against the Article of Life and Immortality that Christ hath brought to light through the Gospel and neither was nor could be made out by Natural Reason without Revelation But you will say you speak only of the Soul and your Words are That it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial Substance I grant it but crave leave to say That there is not any one of those Difficulties that are or can be raised about the manner how a material Soul can be immortal which do not as well reach the Immortality of the Body But if it were not so I am sure this Principle of your Lordship's would reach other Articles of Faith wherein our natural Reason finds it not so easy to give an Account how those Mysteries are And which therefore according to your Principles must be less credible than other Articles that create less difficulty to the Vnderstanding For your Lordship says That you appeal to any Man of Sense whether to a Man who thought by his Principles he could from natural Grounds demonstrate the Immortality of the Soul the finding the uncertainty of those Principles he went upon in point of Reason i. e. the finding he could not certainly prove it by natural Reason doth not weaken the credibility of that fundamental Article when it is considered purely as a Matter of Faith Which in effect I humbly conceive amounts to this That a Proposition divinely revealed that cannot be proved by natural Reason is less credible than one that can Which seems to me to come very little short of this with due reverence be it spoken That God is less to be believed when he affirms a Proposition that cannot be proved by natural Reason than when he proposes what can be proved by it The direct contrary to which is my Opinion though you endeavour to make good by these following Words If the evidence of Faith falls so much short of that of Reason it must needs have less effect upon Men's Minds when the subserviency of Reason is taken away as it must be when the Grounds of Certainty by Reason are vanished Is it at all probable that he who finds his Reason deceive him in such fundamental Points should have his Faith stand firm and unmoveable on the account of Revelation Than which I think there are hardly plainer Words to be found out to declare that the credibility of God's Testimony depends on the natural evidence or probability of the things we receive from Revelation and rises and falls with it And that the Truths of God or the Articles of meer Faith lose so much of their credibility as they want Proof from Reason Which if true Revelation may come to have no credibility at all
Matter so disposed a thinking immaterial Substance It being in respect of our Notions not much more remote from our Comprehensions to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to our Idea of Matter a Faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking From my saying thus That God whom I have proved to be an immaterial Being by his Omnipotency may for ought we know superadd to some parts of Matter a faculty of Thinking it requires some skill for any one to represent me as your Lordship does here as one ignorant or doubtful whether Matter may not think to that degree that I am not certain or I do not believe that there is a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently all Revelation may be nothing but the effects of an exalted Fancy or the heats of a disordered Imagination as Spinosa affirm'd For thus I or some Body else whom I desire your Lordship to produce stands painted in this your Lordship's Argument from the supposition of a Divine Revelation which your Lordship brings here to prove That the defining of Knowledge as I do to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the Credibility of the Articles of the Christian Faith But if your Lordship thinks it so dangerous a Position to say It is not much harder for us to conceive that God can if he pleases superadd to Matter a faculty of Thinking than that he should superadd to it another Substance with a faculty of Thinking which is the utmost I have said concerning the faculty of Thinking in Matter I humbly conceive it would be more to your purpose to prove That the infinite omnipotent Creator of all Things out of nothing cannot if he pleases superadd to some parcels of Matter disposed as he sees fit a faculty of Thinking which the rest of Matter has not rather than to represent me with that Candour your Lordship does as one who so far makes Matter a Thinking thing as thereby to question the being of a Principle above Matter and Motion in the World and consequently to take away all Revelation which how natural and genuine a Representation it is of my Sense expressed in the Passages of my Essay which I have above set down I humbly submit to the Reader 's Judgment and your Lordship's Zeal for Truth to determine and shall not stay to examin whether Man may not have an exalted Phancy and the heats of a disorder'd Imagination equally overthrowing Divine Revelation tho' the power of Thinking be placed only in an immaterial Substance I come now to the sequel of your Major which is this If one who places Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas does not know but Matter may Think then whoever places Certainty so cannot believe there is an immaterial intelligent Being in the World The consequence here is from does not to cannot which I cannot but wonder to find in an Argument of your Lordships For he that does not to Day believe or know that Matter cannot be so ordered by God's Omnipotency as to think if that subverts the belief of an immaterial intelligent Being in the World may know or believe it to Morrow or if he should never know or believe it yet others who define Knowledge as he does may know or believe it Unless your Lordship can prove that it is impossible for any one who defines Knowledge to consist in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of Ideas to know or believe that Matter cannot Think But this as I remember your Lordship has not any where attempted to prove And yet without this your Lordship's way of Reasoning is no more than to argue that one cannot do a thing because another does not do it And yet upon this strange consequence is built all that your Lordship brings here to prove that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of Articles of Faith v. g. It weakens the credibility of this fundamental Article of Faith that there is a God! How so Because I who have so defined Knowledge say in my Essay That the Knowledge of the Existence of any other thing but of God we can have only by Sensation For there being no necessary connexion of real Existence with any Idea a Man hath in his Memory nor of any other Existence but that of God with the Existence of any particular Man no particular Man can know the Existence of any other Being but only when by actual operating upon him it makes it self perceived by him For the having the Idea of any thing in our Mind no more proves the Existence of that thing than the Picture of a Man evidences his Being in the World or the Visions of a Dream make thereby a true History For so are the Words of my Book and not as your Lordship has been pleased to set them down here and they were well chosen by your Lordship to shew that the way of Ideas would not do i. e. In my way by Ideas I cannot prove there is a God But supposing I had said in that place or any other that which would hinder the proof of a God as I have not might I not see my Error and alter or renounce that Opinion without changing my definition of Knowledge Or could not another Man who defined Knowledge as I do avoid Thinking as your Lordship says I say That no Idea proves the Existence of the thing without it self and so able notwithstanding my saying so to prove that there is a God Again your Lordship argues that my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of the Articles of Faith Because it takes away Revelation and your Proof of that is because I do not know whether Matter may not Think The same sort of Argumentation your Lordship goes on with in the next Page where you say Again before there can be any such thing as assurance of Faith upon divine Revelation there must be a Certainty as to Sense and Tradition for there can be no Revelation pretended now without immediate Inspiration and the Basis of our Faith is a Revelation contained in an antient Book whereof the parts were delivered at distant times but conveyed down to us by an universal Tradition But now what if my grounds of Certainty can give us no assurance as to these Things Your Lordship says you do not mean That they cannot demonstrate matters of Fact which it were most unreasonable to expect but that these Grounds of Certainty make all things uncertain for your Lordship thinks you have proved That this way of Ideas cannot give a satisfactory Account as to the Existence of the plainest Objects of the Sense because Reason cannot perceive the connection between the Objects and the Ideas How then can we arrive to any Certainty in perceiving those Objects by their Ideas All the force of which Argument lies in this that I have said
less skilful in this Art of Fencing Who can believe that upon so slight an account your Lordship should neglect your Design of writing against me The great Motives of your Concern for an Article of the Christian Faith and of that Duty which you profess has made you do what you have done will be believed to work more uniformly in your Lordship than to let a Father of the Church and a Teacher in Israel not tell one who asks him which is the right and safe Way if he knows it No no my Lord a Character so much to the Prejudice of your Charity no-body will receive of your Lordship no not from your self Whatever your Lordship may say the World will believe That you would have given a better Method of Certainty if you had had one when thereby you would have secured Men from the danger of running into Errors in Articles of Faith and effectually have recalled them from my way of Certainty which leads as your Lordship says to Scepticism and Infidelity For to turn Men from a way they are in the bare telling them it is dangerous puts but a short stop to their going on in it There is nothing effectual to set them a going right but to shew them which is the safe and sure way a piece of Humanity which when asked no body as far as he knows refuses another and this I have earnestly asked of your Lordship Your Lordship represents to me the Vnsatisfactoriness and Inconsistency of my way of Certainty by telling me That it seems still a strange thing to you that I should talk so much of a new Method of Certainty by Ideas and yet allow as I do such a want of Ideas so much Imperfection in them and such a want of Connection between our Ideas and the things themselves Answer This Objection being so visibly against the Extent of our Knowledge and not the Certainty of it by Ideas would need no other Answer but this that it proved nothing to the point which was to shew that my way by Ideas was no way to Certainty at all not to True Certainty which is a Term your Lordship uses here which I shall be able to conceive what you mean by when you shall be pleased to tell me what false Certainty is But because what you say here is in short what you ground your Charge of Scepticism on in your former Letter I Shall here according to my Promise consider what your Lordship says there and hope you will allow this to be no unfit place Your Charge of Scepticism in your former Letter is as followeth Your Lordship's first Argument consists in these Propositions viz. 1. That I say P. 125 That Knowledge is the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas 2. That I go about to prove That there are very many more Beings of which we have no Ideas than those of which we have from whence your Lordship draws this Conclusion That we are excluded from attaining any Knowledge as to the far greatest part of the Vniverse Which I agree to But with Submission this is not the Proposition to be proved but this viz. That my way by Ideas or my way of Certainty by Ideas for to that your Lordship reduces it i. e. my placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas leads to Scepticism Farther from my saying that the Intellectual World is greater and more beautiful certainly than the material your Lordship argues That if Certainty may be had by general Reasons without particular Ideas in one it may also in other Cases Answer It may no doubt But this is nothing against any thing I have said for I have neither said nor suppose That Certainty by general Reasons or any Reasons can be had without Ideas no more than I say or suppose that we can reason without thinking or think without immediate Objects of our Minds in thinking i. e. think without Ideas But your Lordship asks Whence comes this Certainty for I say certainly where there be no particular Ideas if Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas I answer we have Ideas as far as we are certain and beyond that we have neither Certainty no nor Probability every thing which we either know or believe is some Proposition Now no Proposition can be framed as the Object of our Knowledge or Assent wherein two Ideas are not joined to or separated from one another As for Example when I affirm that something exists in the World whereof I have no Idea Existence is affirmed of something some Being And I have as clear an Idea of Existence and something the two things joined in that Proposition as I have of them in this Proposition something exists in the World whereof I have an Idea When therefore I affirm that the intellectual World is greater and more beautiful than the material Whether I should know the truth of this Proposition either by Divine Revelation or should assert it as highly probable which is all I do in that Chapter out of which this Instance is brought it means no more but this viz. That there are more and more beautiful Beings whereof we have no Ideas than there are of which we have Ideas of which Beings whereof we have no Ideas we can for want of Ideas have no farther Knowledge but that such Beings do exist If your Lordship shall now ask me how I know there are such Beings I answer that in that Chapter of the Extent of our Knowledge I do not say I know but I endeavour to shew that it is most highly probable But yet a Man is capable of knowing it to be true because he is capable of having it revealed to him by God that this Proposition is true viz. That in the Works of God there are more and more beautiful Beings whereof we have no Ideas than there are whereof we have Ideas If God instead of shewing the very things to St. Paul had only revealed to him that this Proposition was true viz. That there were things in Heaven which neither Eye had seen nor Ear had heard nor had entred into the Heart of Man to conceive would he not have known the Truth of that Proposition of whose Terms he had Ideas viz. of Beings whereof he had no other Ideas but barely as something and of Existence though in the want of other Ideas of them he could attain no other Knowledge of them but barely that they existed So that in what I have there said there is no Contradiction nor Shadow of a Contradiction to my placing Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas But if I should any where mistake and say any thing inconsistent with that way of Certainty of mine how I beseech your Lordship could you conclude from thence that the placing Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement of Disagreement of Ideas tends to Scepticism That which
to have other Titles than bare Scepticism bestowed upon it and would have raised no small Out-cry against any one who is not to be supposed to be in the right in all that he says and so may securely say what he pleases Such as I the Prophanum Vulgus who take too much upon us if we would examine have nothing to do but to hearken and believe though what he said should subvert the very Foundations of the Christian Faith What I have above observed is so visibly contained in your Lordship's Argument That when I met with it in your Answer to my first Letter it seemed so strange from a Man of your Lordship's Character and in a Dispute in defence of the Doctrin of the Trinity that I could hardly perswade my self but it was a slip of your Pen But when I found it in your second Letter made use of again and seriously enlarged as an Argument of Weight to be insisted upon I was convinced that it was a Principle that you heartily imbraced how little favourable soever it was to the Articles of the Christian Religion and particularly those which you undertook to defend I desire my Reader to peruse the Passages as they stand in your Letters themselves and see whether what you say in them does not amount to this That a Revelation from God is more or less credible according as it has a stronger or weaker confirmation from Humane Reason For 1. Your Lordship says You do not question whether God can give Immortality to a material Substance but you say it takes off very much from the evidence of Immortality if it depends wholly upon God's giving that which of its own Nature it is not capable of To which I reply any ones not being able to demonstrate the Soul to be Immaterial takes off not very much nor at all from the evidence of its Immortality if God has revealed that it shall be Immortal because the Veracity of God is a Demonstration of the Truth of what he has revealed and the want of an other Demonstration of a Proposition that is demonstratively true takes not off from the Evidence of it For where there is a clear Demonstration there is as much Evidence as any Truth can have that is not Self-evident God has revealed that the Souls of Men shall live for ever But says your Lordship from this Evidence it takes off very much if it depends wholly upon God's giving that which of its own Nature it is not capable of i. e. The Revelation and Testimony of God loses much of its Evidence if this depends wholly upon the good Pleasure of God and cannot be demonstratively made out by natural Reason that the Soul is immaterial and consequently in its own Nature immortal For that is all that here is or can be meant by these Words which of its own Nature it is not capable of to make them to the purpose For the whole of your Lordship's Discourse here is to prove That the Soul cannot be material because then the Evidence of its being immortal would be very much lessened Which is to say That 't is not as credible upon divine Revelation that a material Substance should be immortal as an immaterial or which is all one That God is not equally to be believed when he declares that a material Substance shall be immortal as when he declares that an immaterial shall be so because the Immortality of a material Substance cannot be demonstrated from natural Reason Let us try this Rule of your Lordship 's a little farther God hath revealed that the Bodies Men shall have after the Resurrection as well as their Souls shall live to Eternity Does your Lordship believe the eternal Life of the one of these more than of the other because you think you can prove it of one of them by natural Reason and of the other not Or can any one who admits of divine Revelation in the Case doubt of one of them more than the other Or think this Proposition less credible the Bodies of Men after the Resurrection shall live for ever than this That the Souls of Men shall after the Resurrection live for ever For that he must do if he thinks either of them is less credible than the other If this be so Reason is to be consulted how far God is to be believed and the credit of divine Testimony must receive its force from the Evidence of Reason which is evidently to take away the credibility of divine Revelation in all supernatural Truths wherein the Evidence of Reason fails And how much such a Principle as this tends to the support of the Doctrin of the Trinity or the promoting the Christian Religion I shall leave it to your Lordship to consider I am not so well read in Hobbes or Spinoza as to be able to say what were their Opinions in this Matter But possibly there be those who will think your Lordship's Authority of more use to them in the Case than those justly decried Names And be glad to find your Lordship a Patron of the Oracles of Reason so little to the Advantage of the Oracles of Divine Revelation This at least I think may be subjoined to the Words at the bottom of the next Page That those who have gone about to lessen the Credibility of Articles of Faith which evidently they do who say they are less credible because they cannot be made out demonstratively by Natural Reason have not been thought to secure several of the Articles of the Christian Faith especially those of the Trinity Inoarnation and Resurrection of the Body which are those upon the account of which I am brought by your Lordship into this Dispute I shall not trouble the Reader with your Lordship's Endeavours in the following Words to prove That if the Soul be not an immaterial Substance it can be nothing but Life your very first Words visibly confuting all that you alledge to that purpose They are If the Soul be immaterial Substance it is really nothing but Life which is to say That if the Soul be really a Substance it is not really a Substance but really nothing else but an affection of a Substance for the Life whether of a material or immaterial Substance is not the Substance it self but an affection of it 2. You say Although we think the separate State of the Soul after Death is sufficiently revealed in the Scripture yet it creates a great difficulty in understanding it if the Soul be nothing but Life or a material Substance which must be dissolved when Life is ended For if the Soul be a material Substance it must be made up as others are of the Cohesion of solid and separate Parts how minute and invisible soever they be And what is it which should keep them together when Life is gone So that it is no easie matter to give an account how the Soul should be capable of Immortality unless it be an immaterial
For if in this present Case the credibility of this Proposition The Souls of Men shall five for ever revealed in the Scripture be lessened by confessing it cannot be demonstratively proved from Reason though it be asserted to be most highly probable Must not by the same Rule its credibility dwindle away to nothing if natural Reason should not be able to make it out to be so much as probable or should place the probability from natural Principles on the other side For if meer want of Demonstration lessens the credibility of any Proposition divinely revealed must not want of probability or contrary probability from natural Reason quite take away its credibility Here at last it must end if in any one Case the Veracity of God and the credibility of the Truths we receive from him by Revelation be subjected to the verdicts of humane Reason and be allowed to receive any accession or diminution from other Proofs or want of other Proofs of its Certainty or Probability If this be your Lordship's way to promote Religion or defend its Articles I know not what Argument the greatest Enemies of it could use more effectual for the Subversion of those you have undertaken to defend this being to resolve all Revelation perfectly and purely into Natural Reason to bound its Credibility by that and leave no room for Faith in other things than what can be accounted for by Natural Reason without Revelation Your Lordship insists much upon it as if I had contradicted what I had said in my Essay by saying That upon my Principles it cannot be demonstratively proved that it is an immaterial Substance in us that Thinks however probable it be He that will be at the pains to read that Chapter of mine and consider it will find that my Business there was to shew that it was no harder to conceive an immaterial than a material Substance and that from the Ideas of Thought and a Power of moving of Matter which we experienced in out selves Ideas originally not belonging to Matter as Matter there was no more difficulty to conclude there was an immaterial Substance in us than that we had material Parts These Ideas of Thinking and Power of moving of Matter I in another place shew'd did demonstratively lead us to the certain knowledge of the Existence of an immaterial Thinking Being in whom we have the Idea of Spirit in the strictest Sense in which Sense I also applyed it to the Soul in that 23d Chapter of my Essay the easily conceivable possibility nay great probability that that thinking Substance in us is immaterial giving me sufficient Ground for it In which Sense I shall think I may safely attribute it to the thinking Substance in us till your Lordship shall have better proved from my Words That it is impossible it should be immaterial For I only say That it is possible i. e. involves no Contradiction that God the omnipotent immaterial Spirit should if he pleases give to some parcels of Matter disposed as he thinks fit a Power of Thinking and Moving Which parcels of Matter so endued with a Power of Thinking and Motion might properly be called Spirits in contradistinction to unthinking Matter In all which I presume there is no manner of Contradiction I justified my use of the word Spirit in that Sense from the Authorities of Cicero and Virgil applying the Latin word Spiritus from whence Spirit is derived to the Soul as a thinking Thing without excluding Materiality out of it To which your Lordship replies That Cicero in his Tusculan Questions supposes the Soul not to be a finer sort of Body but of a different Nature from the Body That he calls the Body the Prison of the Soul And says That a wise Man's Business is to draw off his Soul from his Body And then your Lordship concludes as is usual with a Question Is it possible now to think so great a Man look'd on the Soul but as a modification of the Body which must be at an end with Life Answ. No it is impossible that a Man of so good Sense as Tully when he uses the word Corpus or Body for the gross and visible parts of a Man which he acknowledges to be mortal should look on the Soul to be a modification of that Body in a Discourse wherein he was endeavouring to persuade another that it was immortal It is to be acknowledge'd that truly great Men such as he was are not wont so manifestly to contradict themselves He had therefore no Thought concerning the modification of the Body of Man in the Case He was not such a Trifler as to examin whether the modification of the Body of a Man was immortal when that Body it self was mortal And therefore that which he reports as Dicoearchus's Opinion he dismisses in the beginning without any more ado c. 11. But Cicero's was a direct plain and sensible Enquiry viz. What the Soul was to see whether from thence he could discover its Immortality But in all that Discourse in his first Book of Tusculan Questions where he lays out so much of his Reading and Reason there is not one Syllable shewing the least Thought that the Soul was an immaterial Substance but many Things directly to the contrary Indeed 1. he shuts out the Body taken in the Sense he uses Corpus all-a-long for the sensible organical parts of a Man and is positive that is not the Soul And Body in this Sense taken for the Humane Body he calls the Prison of the Soul and says a wise Man instancing in Socrates and Cato is glad of a fair opportunity to get out of it But he no where says any such thing of Matter He calls not Matter in general the Prison of the Soul nor talks a Word of being separate from it 2. He concludes That the Soul is not like other Things here below made up of a Composition of the Elements c. 27. 3. He excludes the two gross Elements Earth and Water from being the Soul c. 26. So far he is clear and positive But beyond this he is uncertain beyond this he could not get For in some Places he speaks doubtfully whether the Soul be not Air or Fire Anima sit animus ignisve nescio c. 25. And therefore he agrees with Panoetius that if it be at all Elementary it is as he calls it Inflammata Anima inflamed Air and for this he gives several Reasons c. 18 19. And though he thinks it to be of a peculiar Nature of its own yet he is so far from thinking it immaterial that he says c. 19. That the admitting it to be of an aereal or igneous Nature would not be inconsistent with any thing he had said That which he seems most to incline to is That the Soul was not at all Elementary but was of the same Substance with the Heavens which Aristotle to distinguish from the four Elements and the changeable Bodies here below which he supposed made up of