Particles that made it up are wanting For example A Sinner has acted here in his Body an hundred Years he is raised at the last day but with what Body The same says your Lordship That he acted in because St. Paul says he must receive the things done in his Body What therefore must his Body at the Resurrection consist of Must it consist of all the Particles of Matter that have ever been vitally united to his Soul For they in Succession have all of them made up his Body wherein he did these things No says your Lordship That would make his Body too vast it suffices to make the same Body in which the things were done that it consists of some of the Particles and no other but such as were sometime during his life vitally united to his Soul But according to this account his Body at the Resurrection being as your Lordship seems to limit it near the same size it was in some part of his life it will be no more the same Body in which the things were done in the distant parts of his life than that is the same Body in which half or three quarters or more of the individual Matter that made it then up is now wanting For example let his Body at 50 Years old consist of a Million of parts five hundred thousand at least of those parts will be different from those which made up his Body at 10 Years and at an hundred So that to take the numerical Particles that made up his Body at 50 or any other season of his life or to gather them promiscuously out of those which at different times have successively been vitally united to his Soul they will no more make the same Body which was his wherein some of his Actions were done than that is the same Body which has but half the same Particles And yet all your Lordship's Argument here for the same Body is because St. Paul says it must be his Body in which these things were done which it could not be if any other Substance were joined to it i. e. if any other Particles of Matter made up the Body which were not vitally united to the Soul when the Action was done Again your Lordship says That you do not say the same individual Particles shall make up the Body at the Resurrection which were united at the point of death for there must be a great alteration in them of a lingring Disease as if a fat Man falls into a Consumption Because 't is likely your Lordship thinks these Particles of a decrepit wasted withered Body would be too few or unfit to make such a plump strong vigorous well-siz'd Body as it has pleased your Lordship to proportion out in your Thoughts to Men at the Resurrection and therefore some small portion of the Particles formerly united vitally to that Man's Soul shall be re-assumed to make up his Body to the bulk your Lordship judges convenient but the greatest part of them shall be left out to avoid the making his Body more vast than your Lordship thinks will be fit as appears by these your Lordship's words immediately following viz. That you do not say the same Particles the Sinner had at the very time of Commission of his Sins for then a long Sinner must have a vast Body But then pray my Lord what must an Embryo do who dying within a few hours after his Body was vitally united to his Soul has no Particles of Matter which were formerly vitally united to it to make up his Body of that size and proportion which your Lordship seems to require in Bodies at the Resurrection Or must we believe he shall remain content with that small Pittance of Matter and that yet imperfect Body to Eternity because it is an Article of Faith to believe the Resurrection of the very same Body i. e. made up of only such Particles as have been vitally united to the Soul For if it be so as your Lordship says That life is the result of the Vnion of Soul and Body it will follow That the Body of an Embryo dying in the Womb may be very little not the thousandth part of any ordinary Man For since from the first conception and beginning of formation it has life and life is the result of the Vnion of the Soul with the Body an Embryo that shall die either by the untimely death of the Mother or by any other accident presently after it has Life must according to your Lordship's Doctrin remain a Man not an inch long to Eternity because there are not Particles of Matter formerly united to his Soul to make him bigger and no other can be made use of to that purpose Though what greater congruity the Soul hath with any Particles of Matter which were once vitally united to it but are now so no longer than it hath with Particles of Matter which it was never united to would be hard to determine if that should be demanded By these and not a few other the like consequences one may see what service they do to Religion and the Christian Doctrin who raise Questions and make Articles of Faith about the Resurrection of the same Body where the Scripture says nothing of the same Body or if it does it is with no small reprimand to those who make such an enquiry But some Man will say How are the dead raised up And with what Body do they come Thou Fool that which thou sowest is not quickned except it die And that which thou sowest thou sowest not that Body that shall be but bare Grain it may chance of Wheat or of some other Grain But God giveth it a Body as it hath pleased him Words I should think sufficient to deterr us from determining any thing for or against the same Body being raised at the last day It suffices that all the dead shall be raised and every one appear and answer for the things done in this life and receive according to the things he hath done in his Body whether good or bad He that believes this and has said nothing inconsistent herewith I presume may and must be acquitted from being guilty of any thing inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection of the dead But your Lordship to prove the Resurrection of the same Body to be an Article of Faith farther asks How could it be said if any other Substance be joined to the Soul at the Resurrection as its Body that they were the things done in or by the Body Answ. Just as it may be said of a Man at an hundred Years old that hath then an other Substance joined to his Soul than he had at twenty that the Murder or Drunkenness he was guilty of at twenty were things done in the Body How by the Body comes in here I do not see Your Lordship adds And St. Paul 's dispute about the manner of raising the Body might soon have ended if there were no
necessity of the same Body Answ. When I understand what Argument there is in these Words to prove the Resurrection of the same Body without the mixture of one new Atom of Matter I shall know what to say to it In the mean time this I understand That St. Paul would have put as short an end to all disputes about this Matter if he had said That there was a necessity of the same Body or that it should be the same Body The next Text of Scripture you bring for the same Body is If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is not Christ raised From which your Lordship argues It seems then other Bodies are to be raised as his was I grant other dead as certainly raised as Christ was for else his Resurrection would be of no use to Mankind But I do not see how it follows that they shall be raised with the same Body as Christ was raised with the same Body as your Lordship infers in these Words annexed And can there be any doubt whether his Body was the same material Substance which was united to his Soul before I answer none at all nor that it had just the same undistinguish'd Lineaments and Marks yea and the same Wounds that it had at the time of his death If therefore your Lordship will argue from others Bodies being raised as his was That they must keep proportion with his in sameness then we must believe that every Man shall be raised with the same Lineaments and other Notes of distinction he had at the time of his death even with his Wounds yet open if he had any because our Saviour was so raised which seems to me scarce reconcilable with what your Lordship says of a fat Man falling into a Consumption and dying But whether it will consist or no with your Lordship's meaning in that Place this to me seems a consequence that will need to be better proved viz. That our Bodies must be raised the same just as our Saviours was Because St. Paul says If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is not Christ risen For it may be a good consequence Christ is risen and therefore there shall be a Resurrection of the dead and yet this may not be a good consequence Christ was raised with the same Body he had at his Death therefore all Men shall be raised with the same Body they had at their Death contrary to what your Lordship says concerning a fat Man dying of a Consumption But the Case I think far different betwixt our Saviour and those to be raised at the last Day 1. His Body saw not Corruption and therefore to give him another Body new molded mixed with other Particles which were not contained in it as it lay in the Grave whole and entire as it was laid there had been to destroy his Body to frame him a new one without any need But why with the remaining Particles of a Man's Body long since dissolved and molder'd into Dust and Atoms whereof possibly a great part may have undergone variety of changes and entred into other concretions even in the Bodies of other Men other new Particles of Matter mixed with them may not serve to make his Body again as well as the mixture of new and different Particles of Matter with the Old did in the compass of his Life make his Body I think no Reason can be given This may serve to shew why though the Materials of our Saviour's Body were not changed at his Resurrection Yet it does not follow but that the Body of a Man dead and rotten in his Grave or burnt may at the last Day have several new Particles in it and that without any inconvenience Since whatever Matter is vitally united to his Soul is his Body as much as is that which was united to it when he was born or in any other part of his Life 2. In the next place the size shape figure and lineaments of our Saviour's Body even to his Wounds into which doubting Thomas put his Fingers and his Hand were to be kept in the raised Body of our Saviour the same they were at his Death to be a conviction to his Disciples to whom he shew'd himself and who were to be Witnesses of his Resurrection that their Master the very same Man was crucified dead and buried and raised again and therefore he was handled by them and Eat before them after he was risen to give them in all points full Satisfaction that it was really he the same and not another nor a Specter or Apparition of him Though I do not think your Lordship will thence argue that because others are to be raised as he was therefore it is necessary to believe that because he Eat after his Resurrection others at the last Day shall Eat and Drink after they are raised from the dead which seems to me as good an Argument as because his undissolved Body was raised out of the Grave just as it there lay intire without the mixture of any new Particles therefore the corrupted and consumed Bodies of the dead at the Resurrection shall be new framed only out of those scatter'd Particles which were once vitally united to their Souls without the least mixture of any one single Atom of new Matter But at the last Day when all Men are raised there will be no need to be assured of any one particular Man's Resurrection 'T is enough that every one shall appear before the Judgement-seat of Christ to receive according to what he had done in his former Life but in what sort of Body he shall appear or of what Particles made up the Scripture having said nothing but that it shall be a spiritual Body raised in incorruption it is not for me to determine Your Lordship asks were they who saw our Saviour after his Resurrection witnesses only of some material Substance then united to his Soul In Answer I beg your Lordship to consider whether you suppose our Saviour was to be known to be the same Man to the Witnesses that were to see him and testifie his Resurrection by his Soul that could neither be seen nor known to be the same or by his Body that could be seen and by the discernible structure and marks of it be known to be the same When your Lordship has resolved that all that you say in that Page will answer it self But because one Man cannot know another to be the same but by the outward visible lineaments and sensible marks he has been wont to be known and distinguished by will your Lordship therefore argue That the great Judge at the last Day who gives to each Man whom he raises his new Body shall not be able to know who is who unless he give to every one of them a Body just of the same figure size and features and made up of the very same individual Particles he had in his former Life Whether such a way of arguing for
about the Body which could serve only to perplex not to confirm what was material and necessary for them to believe viz. a Day of Judgment and Retribution to Men in a future state and therefore 't is no wonder that mentioning their Bodies he should use a way of speaking suited to vulgar Notions from which it would be hard positively to conclude any thing for the determining of this Question especially against Expressions in the same Discourse that plainly incline to the other side in a matter which as it appears the Apostle thought not necessary to determin And the Spirit of God thought not fit to gratifie any ones curiosity in But your Lordship says The Apostle speaks plainly of that Body which was once quickened and afterwards falls to Corruption and is to be restor'd with more noble Qualities I wish your Lordship had quoted the Words of St. Paul wherein he speaks plainly of that numerical Body that was once quickened they would presently decide this Question But your Lordship proves it by these following Words of St. Paul For this Corruption must put on Incorruption and this Mortal must put on Immortality to which your Lordship adds That you do not see how he could more expresly affirm the identity of this corruptible Body with that after the Resurrection How expressly it is affirmed by the Apostle shall be consider'd by and by In the mean time it is past doubt that your Lordship best knows what you do or do not see But this I will be bold to say that if St. Paul had any where in this Chapter where there are so many occasions for it if it had been necessary to have been believed but said in express Words that the same Bodies should be raised every one else who thinks of it will see he had more expresly affirmed the Identity of the Bodies which Men now have with those they shall have after the Resurrection The remainder of your Lordship's Period is And that without any respect to the principle of Self-consciousness Answ. These Words I doubt not have some meaning but I must own I know not what either towards the Proof of the Resurrection of the same Body or to shew that any thing I have said concerning Self-consciousness is inconsistent For I do not remember that I have any where said That the Identity of Body consisted in Self-consciousness From your preceding Words your Lordship concludes thus And so if the Scripture be the sole Foundation of our Faith this is an Article of it My Lord to make the conclusion unquestionable I humbly conceive the Words must run thus And so if the Scripture and your Lordship's interpretation of it be the sole Foundation of our Faith the Resurrection of the same Body is an Article of it For with submission your Lordship has neither produced express Words of Scripture for it nor so proved that to be the meaning of any of those Words of Scripture which you have produced for it that a Man who reads and sincerely endeavours to understand the Scripture cannot but find himself obliged to believe as expresly that the same Bodies of the dead in your Lordship's Sense shall be raised as that the dead shall be raised And I crave leave to give your Lordship this one Reason for it He who reads with attention this Discourse of St. Paul where he discourses of the Resurrection will see that he plainly distinguishes between the dead that shall be raised and the Bodies of the dead For it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the nominative Cases to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all along and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bodies which one may with Reason think would somewhere or other have been expressed if all this had been said to propose it as an Article of Faith that the very same Bodies should be raised The same manner of speaking the Spirit of God observes all through the New Testament where it is said raise the dead quicken or make alive the dead the Resurrection of the deads Nay these very Words of our Saviour urged by your Lordship for the Resurrection of the same Body run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Would a well-meaning Searcher of the Scriptures be apt to think that if the thing here intended by our Saviour were to teach and propose it as an Article of Faith necessary to be believed by every one that the very same Bodies of the dead should be raised would not I say any one be apt to think that if our Saviour meant so the Words should rather have been 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. all the Bodies that are in the Graves rather than all who are in the Graves which must denote Persons and not precisely Bodies Another Evidence that St. Paul makes a distinction between the dead and the Bodies of the dead so that the dead cannot be taken in this 1 Cor. Ch. 15. to stand precisely for the Bodies of the dead are these Words of the Apostle But some Men will say How are the dead raised and with what Bodies do they come Which words dead and they if supposed to stand precisely for the Bodies of the dead the Question will run thus How are the dead Bodies raised and with what Bodies do the dead Bodies come Which seems to have no very agreeable Sense This therefore being so that the Spirit of God keeps so expresly to this Phrase or form of Speaking in the New Testament of raising quickening rising resurrection c. of the dead where the Resurrection at the last Day is spoken of and that the Body is not mentioned but in Answer to this Question with what Bodies shall those dead who are raised come so that by the dead cannot precisely be meant the dead Bodies I do not see but a good Christian who reads the Scripture with an intention to believe all that is there revealed to him concerning the Resurrection may acquit himself of his Duty therein without entring into the enquiry whether the dead shall have the very same Bodies or no which sort of enquiry the Apostle by the Appellation he bestows here on him that makes it seems not much to incourage Nor if he shall think himself bound to determine concerning the Identity of the Bodies of the dead raised at the last Day will he by the remainder of St. Paul's Answer find the determination of the Apostle to be much in favour of the very same Body unless the being told that the Body sown is not that Body that shall be That the Body raised is as different from that which was laid down as the Flesh of Man is from the Flesh of Beasts Fishes and Birds or as the Sun Moon and Stars are different one from another or as different as a corruptible weak natural mortal Body is from an incorruptible powerful spiritual immortal Body and lastly as different as a Body that is Flesh and Blood is from a Body that is not
Flesh and Blood For Flesh and Blood cannot says St. Paul in this very place inherit the Kingdom of God unless I say all this which is contained in St. Paul's Words can be supposed to be the way to deliver this as an Article of Faith which is required to be believed by every one viz. That the dead should be raised with the very same Bodies that they had before in this Life which Article proposed in these or the like plain and express Words could have left no room for doubt in the meanest Capacities nor for contest in the most perverse Minds Your Lordship adds in the next Words And so it hath been always understood by the Christian Church viz. That the Resurrection of the same Body in your Lordship's Sense of same Body is an Article of Faith Answ. What the Christian Church has always understood is beyond my Knowledge But for those who coming short of your Lordship's great Learning cannot gather their Articles of Faith from the understanding of all the whole Christian Church ever since the Preaching of the Gospel who make the far greater part of Christians I think I may say Nine hundred ninety and nine of a Thousand but are forced to have recourse to the Scripture to find them there I do not see that they will easily find there this proposed as an Article of Faith that there shall be a Resurrection of the same Body but that there shall be a Resurrection of the dead without explicitly determining That they shall be raised with Bodies made up wholly of the same Particles which were once vitally united to their Souls in their former Life without the mixture of any one other Particle of Matter which is that which your Lordship means by the same Body But supposing your Lordship to have demonstrated this to be an Article of Faith though I crave leave to own that I do not see that all that your Lordship has said here makes it so much as probable What is all this to me Yes says your Lordship in the following Words My Idea of personal Identity is inconsistent with it for it makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary to the Doctrin of the Resurrection But any material Substance united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body This is an Argument of your Lordship's which I am obliged to Answer to But is it not fit I should first understand it before I Answer it Now here I do not well know what it is to make a thing not to be necessary to the Doctrin of the Resurrection But to help my self out the best I can with a guess I will conjecture which in disputing with learned Men is not very safe your Lordship's meaning is That my Idea of perpersonal Identity makes it not necessary that for the raising the same Person the Body should be the same Your Lordship's next Word is But to which I am ready to reply But what What does my Idea of personal Identity do For something of that kind the adversative Particle But should in the ordinary construction of our Language introduce to make the Proposition clear and intelligible But here is no such thing But is one of your Lordship's priviledged Particles which I must not medle with for fear your Lordship complain of me again as so severe a Critick that for the least Ambiguity in any Particle fill up Pages in my Answer to make my Book look considerable for the bulk of it But since this Proposition here my Idea of personal Identity makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not necessary to the Doctrin of the Resurrection But any material Substance being united to the same Principle of Consciousness makes the same Body is brought to prove my Idea of personal Identity inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection I must make it out in some direct Sense or other that I may see whether it be both true and conclusive I therefore venture to read it thus my Idea of personal Identity makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary at the Resurrection but allows That any material Substance being united to the same principle of Consciousness makes the same Body Ergo my Idea of personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection of the same Body If this be your Lordship's Sense in this Passage as I here have guessed it to be or else I know not what it is I answer 1. That my Idea of Personal Identity does not allow that any material Substance being united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body I say no such thing in my Book nor any thing from whence it may be infer'd and your Lordship would have done me a favour to have set down the Words where I say so or those from which you infer so and shew'd how it follows from any thing I have said 2. Granting that it were a consequence from my Idea of Personal Identity that any material Substance being united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body this would not prove that my Idea of Personal Identity was inconsistent with this Proposition That the same Body shall be raised but on the contrary affirms it Since if I affirm as I do That the same Persons shall be raised and it be a consequence of my Idea of Personal Identity that any material Substance being united to the same Principle of consciousness makes the same Body it follows that if the same Person be raised the same Body must be raised and so I have herein not only said nothing inconsistent with the Resurrection of the same Body but have said more for it than your Lordship For there can be nothing plainer than that in the Scripture it is reaveled That the same Persons shall be raised and appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ to answer for what they have done in their Bodies If therefore whatever Matter be joined to the same Principle of Consciousness make the same Body it is demonstration That if the same Persons are raised they have the same Bodies How then your Lordship makes this an inconsistency with the Resurrection is beyond my conception Yes says your Lordship it is inconsistent with it for it makes the same Body which was here united to the Soul not to be necessary 3. I answer therefore Thirdly That this is the first time I ever learnt That not necessary was the same with inconsistent I say that a Body made up of the same numerical parts of Matter is not necessary to the making of the same Person from whence it will indeed follow that to the Resurrection of the same Person the same numerical Particles of Matter are not required What does your Lordship infer from hence to wit this Therefore he who thinks that the same Particles of Matter are not necessary to the making of the same
Person cannot believe that the same Persons shall be raised with Bodies made of the very same Particles of Matter if God should reveal that it shall be so viz. That the same Persons shall be raised with the same Bodies they had before Which is all one as to say That he who thought the blowing of Rams Horns was not necessary in it self to the falling down of the Walls of Iericho could not believe that they should fall upon the blowing of Rams Horns when God had declared it should be so Your Lordship says My Idea of Personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection the Reason you ground it on is this because it makes not the same Body necessary to the making the same Person Let us grant your Lordship's consequence to be good what will follow from it No less than this That your Lordship's Notion for I dare not say your Lordship has any so dangerous things as Ideas of Personal Identity is inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection The demonstration of it is thus your Lordship says It is not necessary that the Body to be raised at the last day should consist of the same Particles of Matter which were united at the point of death for there must be a great alteration in them in a lingring Disease as if a fat Man falls into a Consumption You do not say the same Particles which the Sinner had at the very time of Commission of his Sins for then a long Sinner must have a vast Body considering the continual spending of Particles by Perspiration And again here your Lordship says You allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter From which words it is evident That your Lordship supposes a Person in this World may be continued and preserved the same in a Body not consisting of the same individual Particles of Matter and hence it demonstratively follows That let your Lordship's Notion of Personal Identity be what it will it makes the same Body not to be necessary to the same Person and therefore it is by your Lordship's Rule inconsistent with the Article of the Resurrection When your Lordship shall think fit to clear your own Notion of Personal Identity from this inconsistency with the Article of the Resurrection I do not doubt but my Idea of Personal Identity will be thereby cleared too Till then all inconsistency with that Article which your Lordship has here charged on mine will unavoidably fall upon your Lordship 's too But for the clearing of both give me leave to say my Lord That whatsoever is not necessary does not thereby become inconsistent It is not necessary to the same Person that his Body should always consist of the same numerical Particles this is demonstration because the Particles of the Bodies of the same Persons in this life change every moment and your Lordship cannot deny it and yet this makes it not inconsistent with God's preserving if he thinks fit to the same Persons Bodies consisting of the same numerical Particles always from the Resurrection to Eternity And so likewise though I say any thing that supposes it not necessary that the same numerical Particles which were vitally united to the Soul in this life should be reunited to it at the Resurrection and constitute the Body it shall then have yet it is not inconsistent with this That God may if he pleases give to every one a Body consisting only of such Particles as were before vitally united to his Soul And thus I think I have cleared my Book from all that inconsistency which your Lordship charges on it and would perswade the World it has with the Article of the Resurrection of the dead Only before I leave it I will set down the remainder of what your Lordship says upon this Head that though I see not the coherence nor tendency of it nor the force of any Argument in it against me yet nothing may be omitted that your Lordship has thought fit to entertain your Reader with on this new Point nor any one have Reason to suspect that I have passed by any word of your Lordship's on this now first introduced Subject wherein he might find your Lordship had proved what you had promised in your Title-page Your remaining Words are these The Dispute is not how far Personal Identity in it self may consist in the very same material Substance for we allow the Notion of Personal Identity to belong to the same Man under several changes of Matter but whether it doth not depend upon a vital Vnion between the Soul and Body and the Life which is consequent upon it and therefore in the Resurrection the same material Substance must be re-united or else it cannot be called a Resurrection but a Renovation i. e. it may be a new Life but not a raising the Body from the dead I confess I do not see how what is here ushered in by the words and therefore is a consequence from the preceding words but as to the propriety of the Name I think it will not be much questioned that if the same Man rise who was dead it may very properly be called the Resurrection of the dead which is the Language of the Scripture I must not part with this Article of the Resurrection without returning my thanks to your Lordship for making me take notice of a Fault in my Essay When I write that Book I took it for granted as I doubt not but many others have done that the Scripture had mention'd in express terms the Resurrection of the Body But upon the Occasion your Lordship has given me in your last Letter to look a little more narrowly into what Revelation has declar'd concerning the Resurrection and finding no such express words in the Scripture as that the Body shall rise or be raised or the Resurrection of the Body I shall in the next Edition of it change these words of my Book The dead Bodies of Men shall rise into these of the Scripture The dead shall rise Not that I question that the dead shall be raised with Bodies But in Matters of Revelation I think it not only safest but our Duty as far as any one delivers it for Revelation to keep close to the words of the Scripture unless he will assume to himself the Authority of one inspired or make himself wiser than the holy Spirit himself If I had spoke of the Resurrection in precisely Scripture terms I had avoided giving your Lordship the occasion of making here such a verbal Reflection on my Words What not if there be an Idea of Identity as to the Body I come now to your Lordship's second Head of Accusation your Lordship says 2. The next Articles of Faith which my Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with are no less than those of the Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour But all the proof of inconsistency your Lordship here
till one can get to some positive determined Sense of the Speaker If your Lordship had pleased to have condescended so far to my low Capacity as to have delivered your meaning here determined to any one of the Senses above set down or any other that you may have in these Words I gather'd them from it would have saved me a great deal of writing and your Lordship loss of time in reading I should not say this here to your Lordship were it only in this one place that I find this inconvenience It is every where in all your Lordship's Reasonings that my want of Understanding causes me this difficulty and against my Will multiplies the words of my Answer For notwithstanding all that great deal that I have already said to these few Pages of your Lordship's yet my defence is not clear and set in its due light unless I shew in particular of every one of those Propositions some whereof I admit as true others I deny as not so that it will not prove what is to be proved viz. That my placing of Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas lessens the credibility of any Article of Faith which it had before Your Lordship having done with the Fundamental Articles of Natural Religion you come in the next place to those of Revelation to enquire as your Lordship says Whether those who embrace the Articles of Faith in the way of Ideas can retain their Certainty of those Articles when these Ideas are quitted What this Enquiry is I know not very well because I neither understand what it is to imbrace Articles of Faith in the way of Ideas nor know what your Lordship means by retaining their Certainty of those Articles when these Ideas are quitted But 't is no strange thing for my short Sight not always distinctly to discern your Lordship's meaning Yet here I presume to know that this is the thing to be proved viz. That my definition of Knowledge does not leave to the Articles of the Christian Faith the same credibility they had before The Articles your Lordship instances in are 1. The Resurrection of the dead And here your Lordship proceeds just in the same method of arguing as you did in the former your Lordship brings several Passages concerning Identity out of my Essay which you suppose inconsistent with the belief of the Resurrection of the same Body and this is your Argument to prove that my defining of Knowledge to consist in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas alters the Foundations of this Article of Faith and leaves it not the same credibility it had before Now my Lord granting all that your Lordship has here quoted out of my Chapter of Identity and diversity to be as false as your Lordship pleases and as inconsistent as your Lordship would have it with the Article of the Resurrection from the dead nay granting all the rest of my whole Essay to be false how will it follow from thence that the placing Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of this Article of Faith That the dead shall rise Let it be that I who place Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas am guilty of Errors that weaken the credibility of this Article of Faith others who place Certainty in the same Perception may not run into those Errors and so not have their belief of this Article at all shaken Your Lordship therefore by all the long discourse you have made here against my Notion of Personal Identity to prove that it weakens the credibility of the Resurrection of the dead should you have proved it never so clearly has not I humbly conceive said therein any one word towards the proving That my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of this Article of Faith For this my Lord is the Proposition to be proved as your Lordship cannot but remember if you please to recollect what is said in your 21st and following Pages and what in the 95th Page of my second Letter quoted by your Lordship it was designed as an answer to And so I proceed to the next Articles of Faith your Lordship instances in Your Lordship says 2. The next Articles of Faith which my Notion of Ideas is inconsistent with are no less than those of the Trinity and the Incarnation of our Saviour Where I must humbly crave leave to observe to your Lordship that in this second Head here your Lordship has changed the Question from my Notion of Certainty to my Notion of Ideas For the Question as I have often had occasion to observe to your Lordship is Whether my Notion of Certainty i. e. my placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas alters the Foundation and lessens the credibility of any Article of Faith This being the Question between your Lordship and me ought I humbly conceive most especially to have been kept close to in this Article of the Trinity because 't was upon the account of my Notion of Certainty as prejudicial to the Doctrine of the Trinity that my Book was first brought into this Dispute But your Lordship offers nothing that I can find to prove That my definition of Knowledge or Certainty does any way lessen the credibility of either of the Articles here mentioned unless your insisting upon some supposed Errors of mine about Nature and Person must be taken for proofs of this Proposition That my definition of Certainty lessens the credibility of the Articles of the Trinity and our Saviour's Incarnation And then the Answer I have already given to the same way of Argumentation used by your Lordship concerning the Articles of a God Revelation and the Resurrection I think may suffice Having as I beg leave to think shewn that your Lordship has not in the least proved this Proposition That the placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas weakens the credibility of any one Article of Faith which was your former Accusation against this as your Lordship is pleased to call it new Method of Certainty of so dangerous consequence to that Article of Faith which your Lordship has endeavoured to defend and all that your terrible Representation of it being as I humbly conceive come to just nothing I come now to vindicate my Book from your new Accusation in your last Letter and to shew that you no more prove the Passages you alledge out of my Essay to have any inconsistency with the Articles of Christian Faith you oppose them to than you have proved by them That my definition of Knowledge weakens the credibility of any of those Articles 1. The Article of Christian Faith your Lordship begins with is that of the Resurrection of the dead and concerning that you say The Reason of believing the Resurrection of the same Body upon my Grounds is from the Idea of
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
the Resurrection of the same Body to be an Article of Faith contributes much to the strengthening the credibility of the Article of the Resurrection of the dead I shall leave to the Judgment of others Farther for the proving the Resurrection of the same Body to be an Article of Faith your Lordship says But the Apostle insists upon the Resurrection of Christ not meerly as an Argument of the possibility of ours but of the Certainty of it because he rose as the First-fruits Christ the First fruits afterwards they that are Christs at his coming Answ. No doubt the Resurrection of Christ is a Proof of the certainty of our Resurrection But is it therefore a Proof of the Resurrection of the same Body consisting of the same individual Particles which concurr'd to the making up of our Body here without the mixture of any one other Particle of Matter I confess I see no such consequence But your Lordship goes on St. Paul was aware of the Objections in Mens Minds about the Resurrection of the same Body and it is of great consequence as to this Article to shew upon what Grounds he proceeds But some Man will say How are the dead raised up and with what Body do they come First he shews That the seminal parts of Plants are wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God in the manner of their Vegetation Answ. I do not perfectly understand what it is for the seminal parts of Plants to be wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God in the manner of their Vegetation Or else perhaps I should better see how this here tends to the proof of the Resurrection of the same Body in your Lordship's Sense It continues They Sow bare Grain of Wheat or of some other Grain but God giveth it a Body as it hath pleased him and to every Seed his own Body Here says your Lordship is an Identity of the material Substance supposed It may be so But to me a diversity of the material Substance i. e. of the component Particles is here supposed or in direct Words said For the Words of St. Paul taken all together run thus That which thou sowest thou sowest not that Body which shall be but bare Grain and so on as your Lordship has set down the remainder of them From which Words of St. Paul the natural Argument seems to me to stand thus If the Body that is put in the Earth in sowing is not that Body which shall be then the Body that is put in the Grave is not that i. e. the same Body that shall be But your Lordship proves it to be the same Body by these three Greek Words of the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which your Lordship interprets thus That proper Body which belongs to it Answ. Indeed by those Greek Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether our Translators have rightly render'd them his own Body or your Lordship more rightly that proper Body which belongs to it I formerly understood no more but this that in the production of Wheat and other Grain from Seed God continued every Species distinct so that from Grains of Wheat sown root stalk blade ear and grains of Wheat were produced and not those of Barly and so of the rest which I took to be the meaning of to every Seed his own Body No says your Lordship these Words prove That to every Plant of Wheat and to every Grain of Wheat produced in it is given the proper Body that belongs to it is the same Body with the Grain that was sown Answ. This I confess I do not understand Because I do not understand how one individual Grain can be the same with Twenty Fifty or an Hundred individual Grains for such sometimes is the increase But your Lordship proves it For says your Lordship Every Seed having that Body in little which is afterwards so much inlarged and in Grain the Seed is corrupted before its Germination but it hath its proper organical Parts which make it the same Body with that which it grows up to For although Grain be not divided into Lobes as other Seeds are yet it hath been found by the most accurate Observations that upon separating the membranes these seminal parts are discerned in them which afterwards grow up to that Body which we call Corn. In which Words I crave leave to observe that your Lordship supposes that a Body may be enlarged by the addition of a Hundred or a Thousand times as much in bulk as its own matter and yet continue the same Body which I confess I cannot understand But in the next place if that could be so and that the Plant in its full growth at Harvest increased by a Thousand or a Million of times as much new Matter added to it as it had when it lay in little concealed in the Grain that was sown was the very same Body Yet I do not think that your Lordship will say that every minute insensible and inconceivably small Grain of the hundred Grains contained in that little organized senimal Plant is every one of them the very same with that Grain which contains that whole little senimal Plant and all those invisible Grains in it For then it will follow that One Grain is the same with an Hundred and an Hundred distinct Grains the same with one Which I shall be able to assent to when I can conceive that all the Wheat in the World is but one Grain For I beseech you my Lord consider what it is St. Paul here speaks of It is plain he speaks of that which is sown and dies i. e. the Grain that the Husbandman takes out of his Barn to sow in his Field And of this Grain St. Paul says that it is not that Body that shall be These Two viz. That which is sown and that Body that shall be are all the Bodies that St. Paul here speaks of to represent the agreement or difference of Mens Bodies after the Resurrection with those they had before they died Now I crave leave to ask your Lordship which of these Two is that little invisible seminal Plant which your Lordship here speaks of Does your Lordship mean by it the Grain that is sown But that is not what St. Paul speaks of he could not mean this embryonated little Plant for he could not denote it by these Words that which thou sowest for that he says must die But this little embryonated Plant contained in the Seed that is sown dies not Or does your Lordship mean by it the Body that shall be But neither by these Words the Body that shall be can St. Paul be supposed to denote this insensible little embryonated Plant for that is already in being contained in the Seed that is sown and therefore could not be spoke of under the name of the Body that shall be And therefore I confess I cannot see of what use it is to your Lordship to introduce here
is the Proposition here to be proved would remain still unproved For I might say things inconsistent with this Proposition That Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Connection and Agreement or Disagreement and Repugnancy of our Ideas and yet that Proposition be true and very far from tending to Scepticism unless your Lordship will argue that every Proposition that is inconsistent with what a Man any where says tends to Scepticism and then I should be tempted to infer that many Propositions in the Letters your Lordship has honoured me with will tend to Scepticism Your Lordship's second Argument is from my saying We have no Ideas of the mechanical Affections of the minute Particles of Bodies which hinders our certain Knowledge of universal Truths concerning natural Bodies from whence your Lordship concludes That since we can attain to no Science as to Bodies or Spirits our Knowledge must be confin'd to a very narrow compass I grant it but I crave leave to mind your Lordship again That this is not the Proposition to be proved A little Knowledge is still Knowledge and not Scepticism But let me have affirm'd our Knowledge to be comparatively very little How I beseech your Lordship does that any way prove that this Proposition Knowledge consists in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of our Ideas any way tends to Scepticism which was the Proposition to be proved But the Inference your Lordship shuts up this Head with in these Words So that all Certainty is given up in the way of Knowledge as to the visible and invisible World or at least the greatest part of them shewing in the first part of it what your Lordship should have inferred and was willing to infer does at last by these Words in the Close Or at least the greatest part of them I guess come just to nothing I say I guess for what them by Grammatical Construction is to be referred to seems not clear to me Your third Argument being just of the same kind with the former only to shew That I reduce our Knowledge to a very narrow compass in respect of the whole extent of Beings is already answered In the fourth place your Lordship sets down some Words of mine concerning Reasoning and Demonstration and then concludes But if there be no way of coming to Demonstration but this I doubt we must be content without it Which being nothing but a Declaration of your doubt is I grant a very short way of proving any Proposition and I shall leave to your Lordship the Satisfaction you have in such a Proof since I think it will scarce convince others In the last place your Lordship argues that because I say That the Idea in the Mind proves not the Existence of that thing whereof it is an Idea therefore we cannot know the actual Existence of any thing by our Senses because we know nothing but by the perceived Agreement of Ideas But if you had been pleased to have consider'd my Answer there to the Scepticks whose Cause you here seem with no small vigour to manage you would I humbly conceive have found that you mistake one thing for another viz. The Idea that has by a former Sensation been lodged in the Mind for actually receiving any Idea i. e. actual Sensation which I think I need not go about to prove are two distinct things after what you have here quoted out of my Book Now the two Ideas that in this Case are perceived to agree and do thereby produce Knowledge are the Idea of actual Sensation which is an Action whereof I have a clear and distinct Idea and the Idea of actual Existence of something without me that causes that Sensation And what other Certainty your Lordship has by your Senses of the existing of any thing without you but the perceived Connection of those two Ideas I would gladly know When you have destroyed this Certainty which I conceive is the utmost as to this Matter which our infinitely Wise and Bountiful Maker has made us capable of in this State your Lordship will have well assisted the Scepticks in carrying their Arguments against Certainty by Sense beyond what they could have expected I cannot but fear my Lord that what you have said here in favour of Scepticism against Certainty by Sense for it is not at all against me till you shew we can have no Idea of actual Sensation without the Proper Antidote annexed in shewing wherein that Certainty consists if the account I give be not true after you have so strenuously endeavoured to destroy what I have said for it will by your Authority have laid no small Foundation of Scepticism which they will not fail to lay hold of with advantage to their Cause who have any Disposition that way For I desire any one to read this your fifth Argument and then judge which of us two is a promoter of Scepticism I who have endeavoured and as I think proved Certainty by our Senses or your Lordship who has in your Thoughts at least destroyed these Proofs without giving us any other to supply their place All your other Arguments amount to no more but this That I have given Instances to shew that the extent of our Knowledge in comparison of the whole extent of Being is very little and narrow which when your Lordship writ your Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity were very fair and ingenuous Confessions of the shortness of Humane Vnderstanding with respect to the Nature and Manner of such things which we are most certain of the Being of by constant and undoubted Experience Though since you have shewed your dislike of them in more places than one particularly p. 33. and again more at large p. 43. and at last you have thought fit to represent them as Arguments for Scepticism And thus I have acquitted my self I hope to your Lordship's Satisfaction of my promise to answer your Accusation of a tendency to Scepticism But to return to your second Letter where I left off In the following Pages you have another Argument to prove my way of Certainty to be none but to lead to Scepticism which after a serious perusal of it seems to me to amount to no more but this That Des Cartes and I go both in the way of Ideas and we differ Ergo the placing of Certainty in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas is no way of Certainty but leads to Scepticism which is a Consequence I cannot admit And I think is no better than this Your Lordship and I differ and yet we go both in the way of Ideas Ergo the placing of Knowledge in the Perception of the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas is no way of Certainty at all but leads to Scepticism Your Lordship will perhaps think I say more than I can justifie when I say Your Lordship goes in the way of Ideas for you will tell me you do not place
omitted I now come to them and shall endeavour to give your Lordship satisfaction in those Points tho to make room for them I leave out a great deal that I had Writ in Answer to this your Lordship's Second Letter And if after all my Answer seems too long I must beg your Lordship and my Reader to excuse it and impute it to those occasions of length which I have mentioned in more places than one as they have occurred The Original and main Question between your Lordship and me being whether there were any thing in my Essay Repugnant to the Doctrin of the Trinity I endeavoured by Examining the Grounds and manner of your Lordship's bringing my Book into that Controversie to bring that Question to a Decision And therefore in my Answer to your Lordship's First Letter I insisted particularly on what had a Relation to that Point This Method your Lordship in your Second Letter Censured as if it Contained only Personal Matters which were fit to be laid aside And by mixing new Matter and charging my Book with new Accusations before the first was made out avoided the Decision of what was in Debate between us A strong Presumption to me that your Lordship had little to say to support what began the Controversy which you were so willing to have me let fall whilest on the other side my Silence to other Points which I had Promised an Answer to was often Reflected on and I Rebuked for not Answering in the proper Place Your Lordship's calling upon me on this occasion shall not be lost 'T is fit your Expectation should be satisfied and your Objections Considered which for the Reasons above mentioned were not Examined in my former Answer And which whether true or false as I humbly conceive make nothing for or against the Doctrin of the Trinity I shall therefore consider them barely as so many Philosophical Questions and endeavour to shew your Lordship where and upon what Grounds 't is I Stick and what it is that hinders me from the Satisfaction it would be to me to be in every one of them of your mind Your Lordship tells me Whether I do own Substance or not is not the Point before us But whether by Vertue of these Principles I can come to any certainty of Reason about it And your Lordship says the very Places I produce do prove the Contrary which you shall therefore set Down in my own Words both as to Corporeal and Spiritual Substances Here again my Lord I must beg your Pardon that I do not distinctly Comprehend your meaning in these Words viz. That by vertue of these Principles one cannot come to certainty of Reason about Substance For it is not very clear to me whether your Lordship means that we cannot come to certainty that there is such a thing in the World as Substance or whether we cannot make any other Proposition about Substance of which we can be certain or whether we cannot by my Principles Establish any Idea of Substance of which we can be certain For to come to Certainty of Reason about Substance may signifie either of these which are far different Propositions And I shall waste your Lordship's time my Readers and my own neither of which would I willingly do by taking it in one Sense when you mean it in an other lest I should meet with some such Reproof as this That I Misrepresent your meaning or might have understood it if I had a mind to it c. And therefore cannot but wish that you had so far Condescended to the slowness of my Apprehension as to give me your Sense to determined that I might not trouble you with Answers to what was not your Precise meaning To avoid it in the present Case and to find in what Sense I was here to take these words come to no Certainty of Reason about Substance I looked into what followed and when I came to the 13th Page I thought I had there got a clear explication of your Lordship's Meaning and that by no Certainty of Reason about Substance your Lordship here meant no certain Idea of Substance Your Lordship's words are I do not charge them i. e. me as one of the Gentlemen of the new way of Reasoning with Discarding the Notion of Substance because they have but an imperfect Idea of it but because upon those Principles there can be no certain Idea at all of it Here I thought my self sure and that these words plainly Interpreted the meaning of your Proposition p. 7. to be that upon my Principles there can be no certain Idea at all of Substance But before I came to the end of that Paragraph I found my self at a loss again for that Paragraph goes on in these words Whereas your Lordship asserts it to be one of the most natural and certain Ideas in our minds because it is a Repugnance to our first Conception of Things that Modes or Accidents should subsist by themselves and therefore you said the rational Idea of Substance is one of the first Ideas in our Minds and however imperfect and obscure our Notion be yet we are as certain that Substances are and must be as that there are any Beings in the World Here the Certainty which your words seem to mean is Certainty of the Being of Substance In this Sense therefore I shall take it till your Lordship shall determine it otherwise And the reason why I take it so is because what your Lordship goes on to say seems to me to look most that way The Proposition then that your Lordship undertakes to Prove is this That by Vertue of my Principles we cannot come to any Certainty of Reason that there is any such thing as Substance And your Lordship tells me That the very Places I produce do prove the Contrary which you therefore will set down in my own Words both as to Corporeal and Spiritual Substances The First your Lordship brings are these words of mine When we talk or think of any Particular sort of Corporeal Substances as Horse Stone c. Tho' the Idea we have of either of them be but the Complication or Collection of those several simple Ideas of sensible qualities which we use to find United in the thing called Horse or Stone yet because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone nor one in another we suppose them existing in and supported by some common Subject which support we denote by the Name Substance tho' it be certain we have no clear and distinct Idea of that thing we suppose a Support And again The same happens concerning the Operations of the Mind viz. Thinking Reasoning Fearing c. which we considering not to subsist of themselves nor apprehending how they can belong to Body or be produced by it we are apt to think these the Actions of some other Substance which we call Spirit whereby yet it is evident that having no other Idea or Notion of Matter but
this you undertake to prove from my own Principles that we may be certain That the first eternal Thinking Being or Omnipotent Spirit cannot if he would give to certain Systems of created sensible Matter put together as he sees fit some degrees of Sense Perception and Thought For this my Lord is my Proposition and this the utmost that I have said concerning the Power of Thinking in Matter Your first Argument I take to be this That according to me the Knowledge we have being by our Ideas and our Idea of Matter in general being a solid Substance and our Idea of Body a solid extended figured Substance if I admit Matter to be capable of Thinking I confound the Idea of Matter with the Idea of a Spirit To which I answer No no more than I confound the Idea of Matter with the Idea of an Horse when I say that Matter in general is a solid extended Substance and that an Horse is a material Animal or an extended solid Substance with Sense and Spontaneous Motion The Idea of Matter is an extended solid Substance where-ever there is such a Substance there is Matter and the Essence of Matter whatever other Qualities not contained in that Essence it shall please God to superadd to it For example God creates an extended solid Substance without the superadding any thing else to it and so we may consider it at rest To some parts of it he superadds Motion but it has still the Essence of Matter Other parts of it he frames into Plants with all the Excellencies of Vegetation Life and Beauty which is to he found in a Rose or a Peach-tree c. above the Essence of Matter in general but it is still but Matter To other parts he adds Sense and Spontaneous Motion and those other Properties that are to be found in an Elephant Hitherto 't is not doubted but the Power of God may go and that the Properties of a Rose a Peach or an Elephant superadded to Matter change not the Properties of Matter but Matter is in these things Matter still But if one venture to go one step further and say God may give to Matter Thought Reason and Volition as well as Sense and Spontaneous Motion there are Men ready presently to limit the Power of the Omnipotent Creator and tell us he cannot do it because it destroys the Essence or changes the essential Properties of Matter To make good which Assertion they have no more to say but that Thought and Reason are not included in the Essence of Matter I grant it but whatever Excellency not contained in its Essence be superadded to Matter it does not destroy the Essence of Matter if it leaves it an extended solid Substance where-ever that is there is the Essence of Matter and if every thing of greater Perfection superadded to such a Substance destroys the Essence of Matter what will become of the Essence of Matter in a Plant or an Animal whose Properties far exceed those of a meer extended solid Substance But 't is farther urged That we cannot conceive how Matter can Think I grant it but to argue from thence that God therefore cannot give to Matter a Faculty of Thinking is to say God's Omnipotency is limited to a narrow Compass because Man's Understanding is so and brings down God's infinite Power to the size of our Capacities If God can give no Power to any parts of Matter but what Men can account for from the Essence of Matter in general If all such Qualities and Properties must destroy the Essence or change the essential Properties of Matter which are to our Conceptions above it and we cannot conceive to be the natural Consequence of that Essence it is plain that the Essence of Matter is destroyed and its essential Properties changed in most of the sensible parts of this our System For 't is visible that all the Planets have Revolutions about certain remote Centers which I would have any one explain or make conceiveable by the bare Essence or natural Powers depending on the Essence of Matter in general without something added to that Essence which we cannot conceive for the moving of Matter in a crooked Line or the attraction of Matter by Matter is all that can be said in the Case either of which it is above our Reach to derive from the Essence of Matter or Body in general though one of these two must unavoidably be allowed to be superadded in this instance to the Essence of Matter in general The Omnipotent Creator advised not with us in the making of the World and his ways are not the less Excellent because they are past our finding out In the next place the vegetable part of the Creation is not doubted to be wholly Material and yet he that will look into it will observe Excellencies and Operations in this part of Matter which he will not find contained in the Essence of Matter in general nor be able to conceive how they can be produced by it And will he therefore say That the Essence of Matter is destroyed in them because they have Properties and Operations not contained in the essential Properties of Matter as Matter nor explicable by the Essence of Matter in general Let us advance one step farther and we shall in the Animal World meet with yet greater Perfections and Properties no ways explicable by the Essence of Matter in general If the Omnipotent Creator had not superadded to the Earth which produced the irrational Animals Qualities far surpassing those of the dull dead Earth out of which they were made Life Sense and Spontaneous Motion nobler Qualities than were before in it it had still remained rude senseless Matter and if to the Individuals of each Species he had not superadded a Power of Propagation the Species had perished with those Individuals But by these Essences or Properties of each Species superadded to the Matter which they were made of the Essence or Properties of Matter in general were not destroyed or changed any more than any thing that was in the Individuals before was destroyed or changed by the Power of Generation superadded to them by the first Benediction of the Almighty In all such Cases the superinducement of greater Perfections and nobler Qualities destroys nothing of the Essence or Perfections that were there before unless there can be shewed a manifest Repugnancy between them but all the Proof offered for that is only That we cannot conceive how Matter without such superadded Perfections can produce such Effects which is in Truth no more than to say Matter in general or every part of Matter as Matter has them not but is no Reason to prove that God if he pleases cannot superadd them to some parts of Matter unless it can be proved to be a Contradiction that God should give to some parts of Matter Qualities and Perfections which Matter in general has not though we cannot conceive how Matter is invested with them or how it
where it has its Sourse 't is visible must be essentially inseparable from it therefore the actual want of Perception in so great part of the particular parcels of Matter is a Demonstration that the first Being from whom Perception and Knowledge is inseparable is not Matter How far this makes the want of Perception an essential property of Matter I will not dispute it suffices that it shews That Perception is not an essential Property of Matter and therefore Matter cannot be that eternal original Being to which Perception and Knowledge is Essential Matter I say naturally is without Perception Ergo says your Lordship want of Perception is an essential Property of Matter and God doth not change the essential Properties of things their Nature remaining From whence you infer That God cannot bestow on any parcel of Matter the nature of Matter remaining a Faculty of Thinking If the Rules of Logick since my days be not changed I may safely deny this Consequence For an Argument that runs thus God does not Ergo he cannot I was taught when I came first to the University would not hold For I never said God did But That I see no Contradiction in it that he should if he pleased give to some systems of sensless Matter a Faculty of Thinking and I know no Body before Des Cartes that ever pretended to shew that there was any Contradiction in it So that at worst my not being able to see in Matter any such Incapacity as makes it impossible for Omnipotency to bestow on it a Faculty of Thinking makes me opposite only to the Cartesians For as far as I have seen or heard the Fathers of the Christian Church never pretended to domonstrate that Matter was incapable to receive a Power of Sensation Perception and Thinking from the Hand of the omnipotent Creator Let us therefore if you please suppose the form of your Argumentation right and that your Lordship means God cannot And then if your Argument be good it proves That God could not give to Baalam's Ass a Power to speak to his Master as he did for the want of rational Discourse being natural to that Species 't is but for your Lordship to call it an Essential Property and then God cannot change the Essential Properties of things their Nature remaining Whereby it is proved That God cannot with all his Omnipotency give to an Ass a Power to speak as Balaam's did You say my Lord you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency For he may if he please change a Body into an Immaterial Substance i. e. take away from a Substance the Solidity which it had before and which made it Matter and then give it a Faculty of thinking which it had not before and which makes it a Spirit the same Substance remaining For if the same Substance remains not Body is not changed into an Immaterial Substance But the solid Substance and all belonging to it is Annihilated and an Immaterial Substance Created which is not change of one thing into another but the destroying of one and making another de novo In this change therefore of a Body or Material Substance into an immaterial let us observe those distinct Considerations First you say God may if He Pleases take away from a Solid Substance Solidity which is that which makes it a Material Substance or Body and may make it an Immaterial Substance i. e. a Substance without Solidity But this privation of one Quality gives it not another the bare taking away a lower or less Noble Quality does not give it an Higher or Nobler that must be the gift of God For the bare Privation of one and a meaner Quality cannot be the Position of an Higher and better unless any one will say that Cogitation or the Power of thinking results from the Nature of Substance it self which if it do then where ever there is Substance there must be Cogitation or a Power of thinking Here then upon your Lordship 's own Principles is an Immaterial Subâ—ance without the Faculty of thinking In the next place you will not deny but God may give to this Substance thus deprived of Solidity a Faculty of thinking for you suppose it made capable of that by being made Immaterial whereby you allow that the same numerical Substance may be sometimes wholly Incogitative or without a Power of thinking and at other times perfectly Cogitative or indued with a Power of thinking Further you will not deny but God can give it Solidity and make it Material again For I conclude it will not be denied that God can make it again what it was before Now I crave leave to ask your Lordship why God having given to this Substance the Faculty of thinking after Solidity was taken from it cannot restore to it Solidity again without taking away the Faculty of thinking When you have Resolved this my Lord you will have proved it impossible for God's Omnipotence to give to a Solid Substance a Faculty of thinking but till then not having proved it impossible and yet denying that God can do it is to deny that he can do what is in it self Possible which as I humbly conceive is visibly to set Bound's to God's Omnipotency tho' you say here you do not set Bound's to God's Omnipotency If I should imitate your Lordship's way of Writing I should not omit to bring in Epicurus here and take notice that this was his way Deum verbis ponere re tollere And then add that I am certain you do not think he promoted the great ends of Religion and Morality For 't is with such Candid and Kind insinuations as these that you bring in both Hobbes and Spinosa into your Discourse here about God's being able if he please to give to some parcels of Matter ordered as he thinks fit a Faculty of thinking Neither of those Authors having as appears by any Passages you bring out of them said any thing to this Question nor having as it seems any other business here but by their Names skilfully to give that Character to my Book with which you would recommend it to the World I pretend not to enquire what measure of Zeal nor for what guides your Lordships Pen in such a way of Writing as yours has all along been with me Only I cannot but consider what Reputation it would give to the Writings of the Fathers of the Church if they should think Truth required or Religion allowed them to imitate such Patterns But God be thanked there be those amongst them who do not admire such ways of managing the Cause of Truth or Religion They being sensible that if every one who believes or can pretend he has Truth on his side is thereby Authorized without proof to insinuate what ever may serve to prejudice Mens minds against the other side there will be great ravage made on Charity and Practice without any gain to Truth or Knowledge And that the Liberties frequently taken by Disputants