way of painting, come into his exact and lively pictures, but by his pencil; but no simple colours of a ship and a man come into his pictures by his pencil; ergo, "we can come to no certainty about the distinction of a ship and a man, in sir Godfrey Kneller's way of painting."

Your lordship says, "it is not possible for us to have any simple ideas of nature and person by sensation and reflection," and I say so too; as impossible as it is to have a true picture of a rainbow in one simple colour, which consists in the arrangement of many colours. The ideas signified by the sounds nature and person are each of them complex ideas; and therefore it is as impossible to have a simple idea of either of them as to have a multitude in one, or a composition in a simple. But if your lordship means, that by sensation. and reflection we cannot have the simple ideas, of which the complex ones of nature and person are compounded; that I must crave leave to dissent from, till your lordship can produce a definition (in intelligible words) either of nature or person, in which all that is contained cannot ultimately be resolved into simple ideas of sensation and reflection.

Your lordship's definition of person is, “that it is a complete intelligent substance with a peculiar manner of subsistence." And my definition of And my definition of person, which your lordship quotes out of my Essay, is," that person stands for a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places." When your lordship shall show any repugnancy in this my idea (which I denote by the sound person) to the incarnation of our Saviour, with which your lordship's notion of person may not be equally charged; I shall give your lordship an answer to it. This I say in answer to these words, "which is repugnant to the article of the incarnation of our Saviour:" for the preceding reason, to which they refer, I must own I do not understand.

The word person naturally signifies nothing, that you allow; your lordship, in your definition of it, makes it

stand for a general abstract idea. Person then, in your lordship, is liable to the same default which you lay on it in me, viz. "that it is no more than a notion in the mind." The same will be so of the word nature, whenever your lordship pleases to define it; without which you can have no notion of it. And then the consequence, which you there draw from their being no more than notions of the mind, will hold as much in respect of your lordship's notion of nature and person as of mine, viz." that one nature and three persons can be no more." This I crave leave to say in answer to all that your lordship has been pleased to urge from p. 46, to these words of your lordship's, p. 52.

General terms (as nature and person are in their ordinary use in our language) are the signs of general ideas, and general ideas exist only in the mind; but particular things (which are the foundations of these general ideas, if they are abstracted as they should be) do, or may exist conformable to those general ideas, and so fall under those general names; as he that writes this paper is a person to him, i. e. may be denominated a person by him to whose abstract idea of person he bears a conformity; just as what I here write is to him a book or a letter, to whose abstract idea of a book or a letter it agrees. This is what I have said concerning this matter all along, and what, I humbly conceive, will serve for an answer to those words of your lordship, where say, "you affirm that those who make nature and person to be only abstract and complex ideas, can neither defend nor reasonably believe the doctrine of the Trinity;" and to all that you say, p. 52-58. Only give me leave to wish, that what your lordship, out of a mistake of what I say concerning the ideas of nature and person, has urged, as you pretend, against them, do not furnish your adversaries in that dispute with such arguments against you as your lordship will not easily answer.

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Your lordship sets down these words of mine, "person in itself signifies nothing; but as soon as the common use of any language has appropriated it to any idea, then that is the true idea of a person;"

which words your lordship interprets thus: i. e. "men may call a person what they please, for there is nothing but common use required to it: they may call a horse, or a tree, or a stone, a person, if they think fit." Answer. Men, before common use had appropriated this name to that complex idea which they now signify by the sound person, might have denoted it by the sound stone, and vice versa: but can your lordship thence argue, as you do here, men are at the same liberty in a country where those words are already in common use? There he that will speak properly, and so as to be understood, must appropriate each sound used in that language to an idea in his mind (which to himself is defining the word) which is in some degree conformable to the idea that others apply it to.

Your lordship, in the next paragraph, sets down my definition of the word person, viz. " that person stands for a thinking intelligent being that hath reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking being in different times and places;" and then ask many questions upon it. I shall set down your lordship's definition of person, which is this; "a person is a complete intelligent substance with a peculiar manner of subsistence:" and then crave leave to ask your lordship the same questions concerning it, which your lordship here asks me concerning mine: "how comes person to stand for this and nothing else? from whence comes complete substance, or peculiar manner of subsistence, to make up the idea of a person Whether it be true or false, I am not now to inquire; but how it comes into this idea of a person? Has common use of our language appropriated it to this sense? If not, this seems to me a mere arbitrary idea, and may as well be denied as affirmed. And what a fine pass are we come to, in your lordship's way, if a mere arbitrary idea must be taken into the only true method of certainty!-But if this be the true idea of a person, then there can be no union of two natures in one person. For if a complete intelligent substance be the idea of a person, and the divine and

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human natures be complete intelligent substances; then the doctrine of the union of two natures and one person is quite sunk, for here must be two persons in this way of your lordship's. Again, if this be the idea of a person, then where there are three persons, there must be three distinct, complete, intelligent substances; and so there cannot be three persons in the same individual essence. And thus both these doctrines of the Trinity and incarnation are past recovery gone, if this way, of your lordship's, hold." These, my lord, are your lordship's very words; what force there is in them, I will not inquire: but I must beseech your lordship to take them as objections I make against your notion of person, to show the danger of it, and the inconsistency it has with the doctrine of the Trinity and incarnation of our Saviour; and when your lordship has removed the objections that are in them, against your own definition of person, mine also, by the very same answers, will be cleared.

Your lordship's argument, in the following words, to page 65, seems to me (as far as I can collect) to lie thus your lordship tells me, that I say, "that in propositions, whose certainty is built on clear and perfect ideas, and evident deductions of reason, there no proposition can be received for divine revelation which contradicts them." This proposition, not serving your lordship's turn so well, for the conclusion you designed to draw from it, your lordship is pleased to enlarge it. For you ask, "But suppose I have ideas sufficient for certainty, what is to be done then?" From which words and your following discourse, if I can understand it, it seems to me, that your lordship supposes it reasonable for me to hold, that wherever we are any how certain of any propositions, whether their certainty be built on clear and perfect ideas or no, there no proposition can be received for divine revelation, which contradicts them. And thence your lordship concludes, that because I say we may make some propositions, of whose truth we may be certain concerning things, whereof we have not ideas in all their parts perfectly clear and distinct; "therefore my notion of certainty by ideas must overthrow the credibility of a

matter of faith in all such propositions, which are offered to be believed on the account of divine revelation:" a conclusion which I am so unfortunate as not to find how it follows from your lordship's premises, because I cannot any way bring them into mode and figure with such a conclusion. But this being no strange thing to me in my want of skill in your lordship's way of writing, I, in the mean time, crave leave to ask, Whether there be any propositions your lordship can be certain of, that are not divinely revealed? And here I will presume that your lordship is not so sceptical, but that you can allow certainty attainable in many things, by your natural faculties. Give me leave then to ask your lordship, Whether, where there be propositions, of whose truth you have certain knowledge, you can receive any proposition for divine revelation which contradicts that certainty? Whether that certainty be built upon the agreement of ideas, such as we have, or on whatever else your lordship builds it? If you cannot, as I presume your lordship will say you cannot, I make bold to return you your lordship's questions here to me, in your own words: "let us now suppose that you are to judge of a proposition delivered as a matter of faith, where you have a certainty by reason from your grounds, such as they are. Can you, my lord, assent to this as a matter of faith, when you are already certain of the contrary by your way? How is this possible? Can you believe that to be true, which you are certain is not true? Suppose it to be, that there are two natures in one person, the question is, whether you can assent to this as a matter of faith? If you should say, where there are only probabilities on the other side, I grant that you then allow revelation is to prevail. But when you say you have certainty by ideas, or without ideas to the contrary, I do not see how it is possible for you to assent to a matter of faith as true, when you are certain, from your method, that it is not true. For how can you believe against certainty-because the mind is actually determined by certainty. And so your lordship's notion of certainty by ideas, or without ideas, be it what it will,