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nor error, nor science, in that; though those that take them for things, and not for what they are, bare arbitrary signs of our ideas, make a great deal of ado often about them, as if some great matter lay in the use of this or that sound. All that I know or can imagine of difference about them is, that those words are always best, whose significations are best known in the sense they are used; and so are least apt to breed confusion. My lord, your lordship has been pleased to find fault with my use of the new term, ideas, without telling me a better name for the immediate objects of the mind in thinking. Your lordship has also been pleased to find fault with my definition of knowledge, without doing me the favour to give me a better. For it is only about my definition of knowledge, that all this stir, concerning certainty, is made. For with me, to know and be certain, is the same thing; what I know, that I am certain of; and what I am certain of, that I know. What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be called knowledge; as your lordship could not but observe in § 18. of c. iv. of my fourth book, which you have quoted.

My definition of knowledge, in the beginning of the fourth book of my Essay, stands thus: "knowledge seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas." This definition your fordship dislikes, and apprehends "it may be of dangerous consequence as to that article of christian faith which your lordship has endeavoured to defend." For this there is a very easy remedy: it is but for your lordship to set aside this definition of knowledge by giving us a better, and this danger is over. But your lordship chooses rather to have a controversy with my book, for having it in it, and to put me upon the defence of it; for which I must acknowledge myself obliged to your lordship, for affording me so much of your time, and for allowing me the honour of conversing so much with one so far above me in all respects.

VOL. IV.

L

Your lordship says, " it may be of dangerous consequence to that article of christian faith, which you have endeavoured to defend." Though the laws of disputing allow bare denial as a sufficient answer to sayings, without any offer of a proof; yet, my lord, to show how willing I am to give your lordship all satisfaction, in what you apprehend may be of dangerous consequence in my book, as to that article, I shall not stand still sullenly, and put your lordship upon the difficulty of showing wherein that danger lies; but shall, on the other side, endeavour to show your lordship that that definition of mine, whether true or false, right or wrong, can be of no dangerous consequence to that article of faith. The reason which I shall offer for it is this; because it can be of no consequence to it at all.

That which your lordship is afraid it may be dangerous to, is an article of faith: that which your lordship labours and is concerned for, is the certainty of faith. Now, my lord, I humbly conceive the certainty of faith, if your lordship thinks fit to call it so, has nothing to do with the certainty of knowledge. And to talk of the certainty of faith, seems all one to me, as to talk of the knowledge of believing; a way of speaking not easy to me to understand.

Place knowledge in what you will," start what new methods of certainty you please, that are apt to leave men's minds more doubtful than before;" place certainty on such grounds as will leave little or no knowledge in the world; (for these are the arguments your lordship uses against my definition of knowledge) this shakes not at all, nor in the least concerns the assurance of faith; that is quite distinct from it, neither stands nor falls with knowledge.

Faith stands by itself, and upon grounds of its own; nor can be removed from them, and placed on those of knowledge. Their grounds are so far from being the same, or having any thing common, that when it is brought to certainty, faith is destroyed; it is knowledge then, and faith no longer.

With what assurance soever of believing, I assent to any article of faith, so that I stedfastly venture my all

upon it, it is still but believing. Bring it to certainty, and it ceases to be faith. I believe, that Jesus Christ was crucified, dead and buried, rose again the third day from the dead, and ascended into heaven; let now such methods of knowledge or certainty be started, as leave men's minds more doubtful than before: let the grounds of knowledge be resolved into what any one pleases, it touches not my faith the foundation of that stands as sure as before, and cannot be at all shaken by it: and one may as well say, that any thing that weakens the sight, or casts a mist before the eyes, endangers the hearing; as that any thing which alters the nature of knowledge (if that could be done) should be of dangerous consequence to an article of faith.

Whether then I am or am not mistaken, in the placing certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas; whether this account of knowledge be true or false, enlarges or straitens the bounds of it more than it should; faith still stands upon its own basis, which is not at all altered by it; and every article of that has just the same unmoved foundation, and the very same credibility that it had before. So that, my lord, whatever I have said about certainty, and how much soever I may be out in it; if I am mistaken, your lordship has no reason to apprehend any danger to any article of faith from thence; every one of them stands upon the same bottom it did before, out of the reach of what belongs to knowledge and certainty. And thus much out of my way of certainty by ideas; which, I hope, will satisfy your lordship, how far it is from being dangerous to any article of the christian faith whatsoever.

I find one thing more your lordship charges on me, in reference to the Unitarian controversy; and that is, where your lordship says, that " if these [i. e. my notions of nature and person] hold, your lordship does not see how it is possible to defend the doctrine of the Trinity."

My lord, since I have a great opinion that your lordship sees as far as any one, and I shall be justified to the world, in relying upon your lordship's foresight more

than on any one's; these discomforting words of your lordship's would dishearten me so, that I should be ready to give up what your lordship confesses so untenable; with this acknowledgment however to your lordship, as its great defender:

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"Defendi possint, etiam hâc defensa fuissent."

This, I say, after such a declaration of your lordship's, I should think, out of a due value for your lordship's great penetration and judgment, I had reason to do, were it in any other cause but that of an article of the christian faith. For these, I am sure, shall all be defended and stand firm to the world's end; though we are not always sure what hand shall defend them. I know as much may be expected from your lordship's in the case, as any body's; and therefore I conclude, when you have taken a view of this matter again, out of the heat of dispute, you will have a better opinion of the articles of the christian faith, and of your own ability. to defend them, than to pronounce, that "if my notions of nature and person hold, your lordship cannot see how it is possible to defend that article of the christian faith, which your lordship has endeavoured to defend." For it is, methinks, to put that article upon a very ticklish issue, and to render it as suspected and as doubtful as is possible to men's minds, that your lordship should declare it not possible to be defended, if my notions of nature and person hold; when all that I can find that your lordship excepts against, in my notions of nature and person, is nothing but this, viz. that these are two sounds, which in themselves signify nothing.

But before I come to examine how by nature and person your lordship, at present in your answer, engages me in the Unitarian controversy; it will not be beside the matter to consider, how by them your lordship at first brought my book into it.

In your

Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, your lordship says, " the next thing to be cleared in this dispute, is the distinction between nature and person.

And of this we have no clear and distinct idea from sensation or reflection: and yet all our notions of the doctrine of the Trinity depend upon the right understanding of it. For we must talk unintelligibly about this point, unless we have clear and distinct apprehensions concerning nature and person, and the grounds of identity and distinction: but these come not into our minds by these simple ideas of sensation and reflection."

To this I replied, "if it be so, the inference, I should draw from thence, (if it were fit for me to draw any) would be this; that it concerns those, who write on that subject, to have themselves, and to lay down to others, clear and distinct apprehensions, or notions, or ideas (call them what you please) of what they mean by nature and person, and of the grounds of identity and distinction.

"This appears to me the natural conclusion flowing from your lordship's words; which seem here to suppose clear and distinct apprehensions (something like clear and distinct ideas) necessary for the avoiding unintelligible talk in the doctrine of the Trinity. But I do not see how your lordship can, from the necessity of clear and distinct apprehensions of nature and person, &c. in the dispute of the Trinity, bring in one who has perhaps mistaken the way to clear and distinct notions concerning nature and person, &c. as fit to be answered among those who bring objections against the Trinity in point of reason. I do not see why an Unitarian may not as well bring him in, and argue against his Essay, in a chapter that he should write, to answer objections against the unity of God, in point of reason or revelation: for upon what ground soever any one writes, in this dispute or any other, it is not tolerable to talk unintelligibly on either side.

"If, by the way of ideas, which is that of the author of the Essay of Human Understanding, a man cannot come to clear and distinct apprehensions concerning nature and person; if, as he proposes, from the simple ideas of sensation and reflection, such apprehensions cannot be got, it will follow from thence that he is

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