you meant not that I was one of the gentlemen of this new way of reasoning? And if you did mean that I was, your lordship did me a manifest injury. For I nowhere make clear and distinct ideas necessary to certainty; which is the new way of reasoning which your lordship opposes in the Unitarians, as contrary to the doctrine of the Trinity. Your lordship says, you took care not to be misunderstood. And the words wherein you took that care, are these: "I must do that right to the ingenious author of the Essay of Human Understanding, (from whence these notions are borrowed, to serve other purposes than he intended them) that he makes the case of spiritual and corporeal substances to be alike." But which of these words are they, my lord, I beseech you, which are to hinder people from taking me to be one of the gentlemen of that new way of reasoning, wherewith they overturn the doctrine of the Trinity? I confess, my lord, I cannot see any of them that do: and that I did not see any of them that could hinder men from that mistake, I showed your lordship, in my first letter to your lordship, where I take notice of that passage in your lordship's book. My words are: "I return my acknowledgment to your lordship for the good opinion you are here pleased to express of the author of the Essay of Human Understanding; and that you do not impute to him the ill use some may have made of his notions. But he craves leave to say, that he should have been better preserved from the hard and sinister thoughts which some men are always ready for; if, in what you have here published, your lordship had been pleased to have shown where you directed your discourse against him, and where against others. Nothing but my words and my book being quoted, the world will be apt to think that I am the person who argue against the Trinity and deny mysteries, against whom your lordship directs those pages. And indeed, my lord, though I have read them over with great attention, yet in many places I cannot discern whether it be against me, or any body else, that your lordship is arguing. That which often

makes the difficulty is, that I do not see how what I say does at all concern the controversy your lordship is engaged in, and yet I alone am quoted." To which complaint of mine your lordship returns no other answer, but refers me to the same passage again for satisfaction; and tells me, that therein you took care not to be misunderstood. Your lordship might see that those words did not satisfy me in that point, when I did myself the honour to write to your lordship; and how your lordship should think the repetition of them in your answer should satisfy me better, I confess I cannot tell.

I make the like complaint, in these words: "This paragraph, which continues to prove, that we may have certainty without clear and distinct ideas, I would flatter myself is not meant against me, because it opposes nothing that I have said, and so shall not say any thing to it; but only set it down to do your lordship right, that the reader may judge. Though I do not find how he will easily overlook me, and think I am not at all concerned in it, since my words alone are quoted in several pages immediately preceding and following and in the very next paragraph it is said, how they come to know; which word, they, must signify somebody besides the author of Christianity not mysterious; and then, I think, by the whole tenor of your lordship's discourse, nobody will be left but me, possible to be taken to be the other; for in the same paragraph your lordship says, the same persons say, that, notwithstanding their ideas, it is possible for matter to think.

"I know not what other person says so but I; but if any one does, I am sure no person but I say so in my book, which your lordship has quoted for them, viz. Human Understanding, B. iv. c. 3. This, which is a riddle to me, the more amazes me, because I find it in a treatise of your lordship's, who so perfectly understands the rules and methods of writing, whether in controversy or any other way: but this, which seems wholly new to me, I shall better understand, when your lordship pleases to explain it. In the mean

time, I mention it as an apology for myself, if sometimes I mistake your lordship's aim, and so misapply my answer."

To this also your lordship answers nothing, but for satisfaction refers me to the care you took to prevent being misunderstood; which, you say, appears by those words of yours above-recited. But what there is in those words that can prevent the mistake I complained I was exposed to; what there is in them that can hinder any one from thinking that I am one of the they and them that oppose the doctrine of the Trinity, with arguments in point of reason; that I must confess, my lord, I cannot see, though I have read them over and over again to find it out.

The like might be said in respect of all those other passages, where I make the like complaint, which your lordship takes notice I was frequent in; nor could I avoid it, being almost every leaf perplexed to know whether I was concerned, and how far, in what your lordship said, since my words were quoted, and others argued against. And for satisfaction herein, I am sent to a compliment of your lordship's. I say not this, my lord, that I do not highly value the civility and good opinion your lordship has expressed of me therein; but to let your lordship see, that I was not so rude as to complain of want of civility in your lordship: but my complaint was of something else; and therefore it was something else wherein I wanted satisfaction.

Indeed, your lordship says, in that passage," from the author of the Essay of Human Understanding these notions are borrowed, to serve other purposes than he intended them." But, my lord, how this helps in the case to prevent my being mistaken to be one of those whom your lordship had to do with in this chapter, in answering objections in point of reason against the Trinity, I must own, I do not yet perceive: for these notions, which your lordship is there arguing against, are all taken out of my book, and made use of by nobody that I know, but your lordship, or myself: and which of us two it is, that hath borrowed them to serve other purposes than I intended them, I must leave

to your lordship to determine. I, and I think every body else with me, will be at a loss to know who they are, till their words, and not mine, are produced to prove, that they do use those notions of mine, which your lordship there calls these notions, to purposes to which I intended them not.

But to those words in your lordship's Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, you, in your answer to my letter, for farther satisfaction, add as followeth : "it was too plain that the bold writer against the mysteries of our faith took his notions and expressions from thence: and what could be said more for your vindication, than that he turned them into other purposes than the author intended them?"

With submission, my lord, it is as plain as print can make it, that whatever notions and expressions that writer took from my book; those in question, which your lordship there calls these notions, my book is only quoted for; nor does it appear, that your lordship knew that that writer had anywhere made use of them: or, if your lordship knew them to be anywhere in his writings, the matter of astonishment and complaint is still the greater, that your lordship should know where they were in his writings used to serve other purposes than I intended them; and yet your lordship should quote only my book, where they were used to serve only those purposes I intended them.

How much this is for my vindication we shall presently see but what it can do to give satisfaction to me or others, as to the matters of my complaint, for which it is brought by your lordship, that I confess I do not see. For my complaint was not against those gentlemen, that they had cast any aspersions upon my book, against which I desired your lordship to vindicate me; but my complaint was of your lordship, that you had brought me into a controversy, and so joined me with those against whom you were disputing in defence of the Trinity, that those who read your lordship's book would be apt to mistake me for one of them.

But your lordship asks, "What could be said more "for my vindication?" My lord, I shall always take it

VOL. IV.

I

for a very great honour to be vindicated by your lordship against others. But in the present case, I wanted no vindication against others: if my book or notions had need of any vindication, it was only against your lordship; for it was your lordship, and not others, who had in your book disputed against passages quoted out of mine, for several pages together.

Nevertheless, my lord, I gratefully acknowledge the favour you have done for me, for being guarantee for my intentions, which you have no reason to repent of. For as it was not in my intention to write any thing against truth, much less against any of the sacred truths contained in the scriptures; so I will be answerable for it, that there is nothing in my book, which can be made use of to other purposes, but what may be turned upon them, who so use it, to show their mistake and error. Nobody can hinder but that syllogism, which was intended for the service of truth, will sometimes be made use of against it. But it is nevertheless of truth's side, and always turns upon the adversaries of it.

Your lordship adds, and the true reason why the plural number was so often used by me, was, because he [i. e. the author of Christianity not mysterious] built upon those, which he imagined had been your grounds."

Whether it was your lordship or he, that imagined those to be my grounds, which were not my grounds, I will not pretend to say. Be that as it will, it is plain from what your lordship here says, that all the foundation of your lordship's so positively, and in so many places, making me one of the gentlemen of the new way of reasoning, was but an imagination of an imagination. Your lordship says, "he built upon those, which he imagined had been my grounds;" but it is but an imagination in your lordship, that he did so imagine; and, with all due respect, give me leave to say, a very ill-grounded imagination too. For it appears to me no foundation to think, that because he or anybody agrees with me in things that are in my book, and so appears to be of my opinion; therefore he imagines he agrees with me in other things which are not