P. 4.

P. 178.

To which give me leave to fay, that if your Lordship had fo much confidered the world, and what it is not much pleased with, when you publifhed your difcourfe in vindication of the Trinity, perhaps your Lordship had not fo perfonally concerned me in that controverfy, as it appears now you have, and continue ftill to do.

:

YOUR Lordship wonders" that I spend above fifty pages in renewing and enlarging my complaint concerning myself." Your wonder, I humbly conceive, will not be fo great, when you recollect, that your answer to my complaint, and the fatisfaction you proposed to give me and others in that perfonal matter, began the first letter you honoured me with, and ended in the 47th page of it; where you faid, “ you fuppofe the reafon of your mentioning my words fo often was now no longer a riddle to me; and so you "proceeded to other particulars of my vindication." If therefore I have spent fifty pages of my anfwer, in fhewing that what you offered in forty-feven pages for my fatisfaction was none, but that the riddle was a riddle ftill; the difproportion in the number of pages is not fo great as to be the subject of much wonder: especially to those who confider, that, in what you call perfonal matter, I was fhewing that my Effay, having in it nothing contrary to the doctrine of the Trinity, was yet brought into that difpute; and that therefore I had reafon to complain of it, and of the manner of its being brought in and if you had pleafed not to have moved other questions, nor brought other charges against my book till this, which was the occafion and fubject of my first letter, had been cleared; by making out that the paffages you had, in your Vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, quoted out of my book, had fomething in them against the doctrine of the Trinity, and fo were, with juft reason, brought by you, as they were, into that difpute; there had been no other but that perfonal matter, as you call it, between us. IN In the examination of thofe pages meant, as you faid, for my fatisfaction, and of other parts of your letter, I found (contrary to what I expected) matter of renewing and enlarging my complaint, and this I took notice of and fet. down in my reply, which it seems I should not have done: the knowledge of the world should have taught me better; and I should have taken that for fatisfaction, which you were pleased to give, in which I could not find any, nor, as I believe, any intelligent or impartial reader. So that your Lordship's care of the world, that it fhould not grow weary of this controverfy, and the fault you find of my mifemploying fifty pages of my letter, reduces itself at laft in effect to no more but this, that your Lordship fhould have a liberty to fay what you pleafe, pay me in what coin you think fit; my part fhould be to be fatisfied with it, reft content, and fay nothing. This indeed might be a way not to weary the world, and to fave fifty pages of clean paper, and put fuch an end to the controverfy, as your Lordfhip would not diflike.

I LEARN from your Lordship, that it is the first part of wisdom, in fome men's opinions, not to begin in fuch difputes. What the knowledge of the world (which is a fort of wisdom) fhould in your Lordship's opinion make a man do, when one of your Lordship's character begins with him, is very plain: he is not to reply, fo far as he judges his defence and the matter requires, but

as

as your Lordship is pleased to allow; which fome may think no better than if one might not reply at all.

AFTER having thus rebuked me for having been too copious in my reply, in the next words your Lordship inftructs me what I should have answered; that I fhould have cleared myfelf by declaring to the world, that I owned P. 4.. "the doctrine of the Trinity, as it hath been received in the chriftian "church.".

THIS, as I take it, is a mere perfonal matter, of the fame woof with a Spanish fan-benito, and, as it seems to me, defigned to fit clofe to me. What muft I do now, my Lord? Muft I filently put on and wear this badge of your Lordship's favour, and, as one well understanding the world, fay not a word of it, because the world foon grows weary of perfonal matters? If in gratitude for this perfonal favour I ought to be filent, yet I am forced to tell you, that, in what you require of me here, you poffibly have cut out too much work for a poor ordinary layman, for whom it is too hard to know. how a doctrine fo difputed has been received in the chriftian church, and who might have thought it enough to own it as delivered in the fcriptures. Your Lordship herein lays upon me what I cannot do, without owning to know what I am fure I do not know: for how the doctrine of the Trinity. has been always received in the chriftian church, I confefs myself ignorant. I have not had time to examine the hiftory of it, and to read thofe controverfies that have been writ about it: and to own a doctrine as received by others, when I do not know how these others received it, is perhaps a short way to orthodoxy, that may fatisfy fome men: but he that takes this way to give satisfaction, in my opinion makes a little bold with truth; and it be queftioned whether fuch a profeffion be pleafing to that God, who requires truth in the inward parts, however acceptable it may in any man be

to his diocefan.

may

I PRESUME your Lordship, in your discourse in vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, intends to give it us as it has been received in the christian church.

And I think your words, viz. " it is the fense of the christian P. 87.. church which you are bound to defend, and no particular opinions of your own," authorize one to think fo. But if I am to own it as your Lordship has there delivered it, I must own what I do not understand; for I confefs your expofition of the sense of the church wholly tranfcends my capacity.. IF you require me to own it with an implicit faith, I fhall pay that deference as foon to your Lordship's expofition of the doctrine of the church, as any one's. But if I must understand and know what I own, it my misfortune, and I cannot deny, that I am as far from owning what you in that difcourfe deliver, as I can be from profeffing the most unintelli-gible thing that ever I read, to be the doctrine that I own.

is

WHETHER I make more use of my poor understanding in the case, than you are willing to allow every one of your readers, I cannot tell; but fuch an understanding as God has given me is the best I have, and that which I must use in the apprehending what others fay, before I can own the truth of it: and for this there is no help that I know..

3

THAT

THAT which keeps me a little in countenance, is, that, if I mistake not, men of no mean parts, even divines of the church of England, and thofe of neither the loweft reputation nor rank, find their understandings fail them on this occafion; and tick not to own that they understand not your Lordship in that difcourfe, and particularly that your fixth chapter is unintelligible to them as well as me; whether the fault be in their or my understanding, the world must be judge. But this is only by the bye, for this is not the answer I here intend your Lordship.

YOUR Lordship tells me, that, "to clear myself, I should have owned to the world the doctrine of the Trinity, as it has been received," &c. Anfwer. I know not whether in a difpute managed after a new way, wherein one man is urged againft, and another man's words all along quoted, it may not also be a good, as well as a new rule, for the answerer to reply to what was never objected, and clear himself from what was never laid to his charge. If this be not fo, and that this new way of attacking requires not this new way of defence, your Lordship's prescription to me here what I should have done, will, amongst the most intelligent and impartial readers, pass for a strange rule in controverfy, and fuch as the learnedeft of them will not be able to find in all antiquity; and therefore must be imputed to fomething elfe than your Lordship's great learning.

DID your Lordship in the difcourfe of the vindication of the Trinity, wherein you first fell upon my book, or in your letter (my answer to which you are here correcting) did your Lordship, I fay, any where object to me, that I did not own the doctrine of the Trinity, as it has been received in "the chriftian church," &c.? If you did, the objection was fo fecret, fo hidden, so artificial, that your words declared quite the contrary. In the Vind.p.239. Vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, your Lordship fays, that my notions were borrowed to ferve other purposes [whereby, if I understand you right, you meant against the doctrine of the Trinity] than I intended them; which you repeat again * for my satisfaction, and infift† upon for my vindication.

Anfw. I.

You having fo folemnly more than once profefled to clear me and my p. 132, 133. intentions from all fufpicion of having any part in that controverfy, as appears farther in the clofe of your first letter, where all you charge on me, is the ill use that others had, or might make of my notions; how could I suppose such an objection made by your Lordship, which you declare againft, without accufing your Lordship of manifeft prevarication?

IF your Lordship had any thing upon your mind, any fecret aims, which you did not think fit to own, but yet would have me divine and answer to, as if I knew them; this, I confess, is too much for me, who look no farther into men's thoughts, than as they appear in their books. Where you have given your thoughts vent in your words, I have not, I think, omitted to take notice of them, not wholly paffing by thofe infinuations, which have been dropped from your Lordship's pen; which from another, who had not profeffed fo much perfonal refpect, would have fhewn no exceeding good difpofition of mind towards me.

* Anfw. 1. P. 35.

+ Ibid. p. 36, 37, 40, 42, 46.

WHEN

A

1

WHEN your Lordship shall go on to accufe me of not believing the doctrine of the Trinity, as received in the chriftian church, or any other doctrine you fhall think fit, I fhall answer as I would to an inquifitor. For though your Lordship tells me, "I need not be afraid of the inquifition, or that you in- P. 3. "tended to charge me with herefy in denying the Trinity;" yet he that fhall confider your Lordship's proceeding with me from the beginning, as far as it is hitherto gone, may have reafon to think, that the methods and management of that holy office are not wholly unknown to your Lordship, nor have escaped your great reading. Your proceedings with me have had these steps:

1. SEVERAL paffages of my Effay of Human Understanding, and fome of them relating barely to the being of a God, and other matters wholly remote from any question about the Trinity, were brought into the Vindication of the doctrine of the Trinity, and there argued against as containing the errors of those and them; which those and them are not known to this day.

2. In your Lordship's answer to my first letter, when what was given as the great reason why my Effay was brought into that controverfy, viz. because in it "certainty was founded upon clear and distinct ideas;" was found to fail, and was only a fuppofition of your own; other accufations were fought against it, in relation to the doctrine of the Trinity: viz. that "it might be Anf. 1. "of dangerous confequence to that doctrine, to introduce the new term of P. 133ideas, and to place certainty in the perception of the agreement or difagreement of our ideas." What are become of these charges, we shall fee in the progrefs of this letter, when we come to confider what your Lordship has replied to my anfwer upon thefe points.

3. THESE accufations not having, it seems, weight enough to effect what you intended, my book has been rummaged again to find new and more important faults in it; and now at laft, at the third effort, "my notions of ideas are found Anfw. 1. "inconfiftent with the articles of the chriftian faith." This indeed carries title-page. fome found in it, and may be thought worthy the name and pains of fo great a man, and zealous a father of the church, as your Lordship.

THAT I may not be too bold in affirming a thing I was not privy to, give: me leave, my Lord, to tell your Lordship why I prefume my book has upon this occafion been looked over again, to fee what could be found in it capable. to bear a deeper accufation, that might look like fomething in a title-page.. Your Lordship, by your station in the church, and the zeal you have fhewn in defending its articles, could not be fuppofed, when you firft brought my book into this controverfy, to have omitted these great enormities that it now ftands accused of, and to have cited it for smaller mistakes, fome whereof were not found, but only imagined to be in it; if you had then known these great faults, which you now charge it with, to have been in it. If your Lordship had been apprized of its being guilty of fuch dangerous errors, you would. not certainly have paffed them by: and therefore I think one may reasonably conclude, that my Effay was new looked into on purpose.

YOUR Lordship fays, "that what you have done herein, you thought it your P. 177. duty to do, not with respect to yourself, but to some of the mysteries of our faith, which you do not charge me with oppofing, but by laying fuch foun

3

"dations

dations as do tend to the overthrow of them." It cannot be doubted but your duty would have made you at the first warn the world, that "my "notions were inconfiftent with the articles of the chriftian faith," if your Lordship had then known it: though the exceffive refpect and tenderness you exprefs towards me perfonally in the immediately preceding words, would be enough utterly to confound me, were I not a little acquainted with your Lordship's civilities in this kind. For tell me, "that these things laid together made your Lordship think it neceffary to do that which you was unwilling to do, until I had driven you to it; which was to fhew the rea"fons you had, why you looked on my notion of ideas and of certainty by them, as inconfiftent with itself, and with fome important articles of the "chriftian faith.'

σε

you

WHAT muft I think now, my Lord, of thefe words? Muft I take them as a mere compliment, which is never to be interpreted rigorously, according to the precife meaning of the words? Or muft I believe that your unwillingness to do so hard a thing to me reftrained your duty, and you could not prevail on yourself (how much foever the mysteries of faith were in danger to be overthrown) to get out thefe harfh words, viz. that " my notions were "inconfiftent with the articles of the christian faith," till your third onfet, after I had forced you to your duty by two replies of mine?

you

7

It will not become me, my Lord, to make myself a compliment from your words, which did not intend me in them. But, on the other fide, I would not willingly neglect to acknowledge any civility from your Lordship in the full extent of it. The bufinefs is a little nice, because what is contained in those paffages cannot by a lefs fkilful hand than yours be well toput gether, though they immediately follow one another. This, I am fure, falls out very untowardly, that your Lordship fhould drive me (who had much rather have been otherwife employed) to drive your Lordship to do that which you were unwilling to do. The world fees how much I was driven: for what cenfures, what imputations muft my book have lain under, if I had not cleared it from thofe accufations your Lordship brought against it; when I am charged now with evafions, for not clearing myself from an accufation which you never brought againft me? But if it be an evafion not to answer to an objection that has not been made, what is it, I befeech you, my Lord, to make no reply to objections that have been made? Of which I promise to give your Lordship a lift, whenever you shall please to call for it.

I FORBEAR it now, for fear that if I should say all that I might upon this new accufation, it would be more than would fuit with your Lordship's liking; and you should complain again that you have opened a paffage which brings to your mind Ramazzini and his fprings of Modena. But your Lordfhip need not be afraid of being overwhelmed with the ebullition of my thoughts, nor much trouble yourself to find a way to give check to it: mere ebullition of thoughts never overwhelms or finks any one but the author himself; but if it carries truth with it, that I confefs has force, and it may be troublesome to those that stand in its way.

YOUR