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 inferred; 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 showed 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 person 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 revealed, 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 makes 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 itself to the falling down of the walls of

* 2d Ans.

Jericho, 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 iden tity, 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 lingering 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, bere your lordship says,† You allow the notion of personal identity to belong to the same man under several change 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 persuade 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 that 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 itself 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; büt whether it doth not depend upon a vital union 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 wrote that book, I took it for granted, as I doubt not but many others have done, that the scripture had mentioned, 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 declared 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?'

* 2d Ans. || 2d Ans.

+ Ibid.

Essay, B. 4. C. 18. §. 7,

tional.

CHAP. XXVIII,

Of other Relations.

Propor- §. 1. BESIDES the before-mentioned occasions of time, place, and causality, of comparing, or referring things one to another, there

are, as I have said, infinite others, some whereof I shall mention.

First, The first I shall name is some one simple idea; which being capable of parts or degrees, affords an occasion of comparing the subjects wherein it is to one another, in respect to that simple idea, v. g. whiter, sweeter, equal, more, &c. These relations depending on the equality and excess of the same simple idea, in several subjects, may be called, if one will, proportional; and that these are only conversant about those simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, is so evident, that nothing need be said to evince it.

Natural.

§. 2. Secondly, Another occasion of comparing things together, or considering one thing, so as to include in that consideration some other thing, is the circumstances of their origin or beginning; which being not afterwards to be altered, make the relations depending thereon as lasting as the subjects to which they belong; v. g. father and son, brothers, cousin-germans, &c. which have their relations by one community of blood, wherein they partake in several degrees: countrymen, i. e. those who were born in the same country, or tract of ground; and these I call natural relations: wherein we may observe, that mankind have fitted their notions and words to the use of common life; and not to the truth and extent of things. For it is certain, that in reality the relation is the same betwixt the begetter and the begotten, in the several races of other animals as well as men: but yet it is seldom said, this bull is the grandfather of such a calf; or that two pigeons are cousin-germans. It is very convenient, that by distinct names these relations should be observed, and marked out in mankind; there being occasion, both in laws, and other communications one with another, to mention and take notice of men under these relations: from whence also arise the obligations of several duties amongst men. Whereas in brutes, men having very little or no cause to mind these relations, they have not thought fit to give them distinct and peculiar names. This, by the way, may give us some light into the different state and growth

of languages; which, being suited only to the convenience of communication, are proportioned to the notions men have, and the commerce of thoughts familiar amongst them; and not to the reality or extent of things, nor to the various respects might be found among them, nor the different abstract considerations might be framed about them. Where they had no philosophical notions, there they had no terms to express them and it is no wonder men should have framed no names for those things they found no occasion to discourse of. From whence it is easy to imagine, why, as in some countries, they may have not so much as the name for a horse; and in others, where they are more careful of the pedigrees of their horses, than of their own, that there they may have not only names for particular horses, but also of their several relations of kindred one to another.

A

Instituted. §. 3. Thirdly, Sometimes the foundation of considering things, with reference to one another, is some act whereby any one comes by a moral right, power, or obligation to do something. Thus a general is one that hath power to command an army; and an army under a general is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. citizen or a burgher, is one who has a right to certain privileges in this or that place. All this sort depending upon men's wills, or agreement in society, I call instituted, or voluntary: and may be distinguished from the natural, in that they are most, if not all of them, some way or other alterable, and separable from the persons to whom they have sometimes belonged, though neither of the substances, so related, be destroyed. Now though these are all reciprocal, as well as the rest, and contain in them a reference of two things one to the other; yet, because one of the two things often wants a relative name, importing that reference, men usually take no notice of it, and the relation is commonly overlooked: v. g. a patron and client are easily allowed to be relations, but a constable or dictator are not so readily, at first hearing, considered as such; because there is no peculiar name for those who are under the