YOUR Lordship , in the beginning of the last Letter you honoured me with , seems so uneasie and displeased at my having said too much already in the Question between us , that I think I may conclude , you would be well enough pleas'd if I should say no more ; and you would dispense with me for not keeping my Promise I made you * * 2d Letter , p. 167. to answer the other parts of your first Letter . If this proceeds from any tenderness in your Lordship for my Reputation , that you would not have me expose my self by an overflow of Words , in many places void of Clearness , Coherence and Argument , and that therefore might have been spared ; I must acknowledge it is a piece of great Charity , and such wherein you will have a lasting Advantage over me , since good Manners will not permit me to return you the like . Or should I in the Ebullition of Thoughts , which in me your Lordship finds as impetuous as the Springs of Modena mentioned by Ramazzini , be in danger to forget my self , and to think , I had some right to return the general Complaint of length and intricacy without Force , yet you have secured your self from the Suspition of any such Trash on your side , by making * * p 4. Cobwebs the easie Product of those who write out of their own Thoughts , which it might be a Crime in me to impute to your Lordship .

If this Complaint of yours be not a Charitable Warning to me , I cannot well guess at the design of it ; for I would not think that in a Controversie , which you , my Lord , have dragg'd me into , you would assume it as a Priviledge due to your self to be as copious as you please , and say what you think fit , and expect I should reply only so , and so much , as would just suit your good liking , and serve to set the Cause right on that side which your Lordship contends for .

My Lord , I shall always acknowledge the great distance that is between your Lordship and my self , and pay that Deference that is due to your Dignity and Person . But Controversie , though it excludes not good Manners , will not be managed with all that Submission which one is ready to pay in other Cases . Truth , which is inflexible , has here its Interest , which must not be given up in a Complement . Plato and Aristotle , and other great Names must give way , rather than make us renounce Truth , or the Friendship we have for her .

This possibly your Lordship will allow , for it is not spun out of my own Thoughts ; I have the Authority of others for it : And I think it was in Print before I was born . But you will say however , I am too long in my Replies . It is not impossible but it may be so . But with all due Respect to your Lordship's Authority ( the greatness whereof I shall always readily acknowledge ) I must crave leave to say , That in this Case you are by no means a proper Judge . We are now , as well your Lordship as my self , before a Tribunal to which you have appealed , and before which you have brought me : 'T is the Publick must be judge , whether your Lordship has enlarged too far in accusing me , or I in defending my self . Common Justice makes great allowance to a Man pleading in his own Defence , and a little length ( if he should be guilty of it ) finds excuse in the Compassion of by-standers , when they see a Man causelesly attacked , after a new way , by a potent Adversary ; and under various Pretences , Occasions sought , and Words wrested to his disadvantage .

This , my Lord , you must give me leave to think to be my Case , whilst this strange way your Lordship has brought me into this Controversie ; your gradual Accusations of my Book , and the different Causes your Lordship has assigned of them ; together with Quotations out of it , which I cannot find there , and other Things I have complained of ( to some of which your Lordship has not vouchsafed any Answer ) shall remain unaccounted for , as I humbly conceive they do .

I confess my Answers are long , and I wish they could have been shorter . But the Difficulty I have to find out , and set before others your Lordship's meaning , that they may see what I am answering to ; and so be able to judge of the Pertinency of what I say , has unavoidably enlarged them . Whether this be wholly owing to my dulness , or whether a little perplexedness both as to Grammar and Coherence , caused by those numbers of Thoughts , whether of your own or others , that crowd from all parts to be set down , when you write , may not be allow'd to have some share in it , I shall not presume to say . I am at the Mercy of your Lordship and my other Readers in the Point , and know not how to avoid a Fault that has no Remedy .

Your Lordship says , * * p. 4. The World soon grows weary of Controversies , especially when they are about Personal Matters , which made your Lordship wonder that one who understands the World so well , should spend above 50. Pages in renewing and enlarging a Complaint wholly concerning himself .

To which give me leave to say , That if your Lordship had so much considered the World , and what it is not much pleased with , when you published your Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity , perhaps your Lordship had not so personally concerned me in that Controversie , as it appears now you have , and continue still to do .

Your Lordship wonders * * p. 4. that I spend above 50 Pages in renewing and enlarging my Complaint concerning my self . Your Wonder , I humbly conceive , will not be so great , when you recollect , That your Answer to my Complaint , and the Satisfaction you proposed to give me and others in that Personal Matter , began the first Letter you honoured me with , and ended in the 47th Page of it , where you said , You suppose the Reason of your mentioning my Words so often was now no longer a Riddle to me ; and so you proceeded to other Particulars of my Vindication . If therefore I have spent 50 Pages of my Answer in shewing that what you offered in 47 Pages for my Satisfaction was none , but that the Riddle was a Riddle still ; the disproportion in the number of Pages is not so great as to be the Subject of much wonder ; especially to those who consider that in what you call Personal Matter I was shewing , that my Essay , having in it nothing contrary to the Doctrin of the Trinity , was yet brought into that Dispute ; and that therefore I had reason to complain of it , and of the manner of its being brought in : And if you had pleas'd not to have moved other Questions , nor brought other Charges against my Book till this , which was the Occasion and Subject of my First Letter , had been cleared , by making out that the Passages , you had in your Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity quoted out of my Book , had something in them against the Doctrin of the Trinity , and so were with just reason brought by you , as they were , into that Dispute : there had been no other but that Personal Matter , as you call it , between us .

In the Examination of those Pages meant , as you said , for my Satisfaction , 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 set 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 Satisfaction , 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 should not grow weary of this Controversie , and the Fault you find of my mis-imploying Fifty Pages of my Letter , reduces it self at last in effect to no more but this , That your Lordship should have a liberty to say what you please , pay me in what Coin you think fit ; my part should be to be satisfied with it , rest content and say nothing . This indeed might be a way not to weary the World , and to save 50 Pages of clean Paper ; and put such an end to the Controversie , as your Lordship would not dislike .

I learn from your Lordship , * * p. 178. that it is the first part of Wisdom , in some Mens Opinions , not to begin in such Disputes : What the knowledge of the World ( which is a sort of Wisdom ) should 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 , so far as he judges his Defence and the Matter requires , but as your Lordship is pleased to allow ; which some 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 instructs me what I should have answer'd , * * p. 4. That I should have clear'd my self by declaring to the World , that I owned the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church .

This , as I take it , is a meer Personal Matter of the same Woof with a Spanish Sant Benito , and , as it seems to me , designed to sit close to me . What must I do now , my Lord ? Must I silently put on and wear this Badge of your Lordship's Favour , and as one well understanding the World say not a Word of it , because the World soon grows weary of Personal Matters ? If in Gratitude for this Personal Favour I ought to be silent , yet I am forced to tell you , That in what you require of me here , you possibly have cut out too much Work for a poor ordinary Layman , for whom it is too hard to know , how a Doctrin so disputed has been received in the Christian Church , and who might have thought it enough to own it as delivered in the Scriptures . Your Lordship herein lays upon me what I cannot do , without owning to know what I am sure I do not know . For how the Doctrin of the Trinity has been always received in the Christian Church , I confess my self ignorant . I have not had time to examine the History of it , and to read those Controversies that have been writ about it : And to own a Doctrin as received by others , when I do not know how those others received it , is perhaps a short way to Orthodoxy , that may satisfie some Men : But he that takes this way to give Satisfaction , in my Opinion makes a little bold with Truth ; and it may be questioned whether such a Profession be pleasing to that God who requires Truth in the inward Parts , however acceptable it may in any Man be to his Diocesan .

I presume your Lordship , in your Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity , intends to give it us as it has been received in the Christian Church . And I think your Words , * * p. 87. viz. It is the Sense of the Christian Church which you are bound to defend , and no particular Opinions of your own , authorize one to think so . But if I am to own it as your Lordship has there delivered it , I must own what I do not understand : For I confess your Exposition of the Sense of the Church , wholly transcends my Capacity .

If you require me to own it with an implicit Faith , I shall pay that Deference as soon to your Lordship's Exposition of the Doctrin of the Church , as any ones . But if I must understand and know what I own , it is my Misfortune , and I cannot deny it , that I am as far from owning what you in that Discourse deliver , as I can be from professing the most unintelligible thing that ever I read , to be the Doctrin that I own .

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 such an Understanding as God has given me is the best I have , and that which I must use in the apprehending what others say , before I can own the Truth of it ; and for this there is no help that I know .

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 those of neither the lowest Reputation nor Rank , find their Understandings fail them on this occasion ; and stick not to own , That they understand not your Lordship in that Discourse , and particularly that your 6th Chapter is unintelligible to them as well as me ; whether the fault be in their and my Understandings , the World must be judge . But this is only by the by , for this is not the Answer I here intend your Lordship .

Your Lordship tells me , That to clear my self I should have owned to the World the Doctrin of the Trinity as it has been received , &c. Answer , I know not whether in a Dispute managed after a new way , wherein one Man is argued against , 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 so , 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 Controversie , and such as the learnedst of them will not be able to find in all Antiquity ; and therefore must be imputed to something else than your Lordship's great Learning .

Did your Lordship in the Discourse 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 say , any where object to me , that I did not own the Doctrin of the Trinity , as it has been received in the Christian Church , & c ? If you did , the Objection was so secret , so hidden , so artificial , that your words declared quite the contrary . In the Vindication of the Doctrin of the Trinity , your Lordship says , * * Vindic. p. 239. That my Notions were borrowed to serve other purposes [ whereby , if I understand you right , you meant against the Doctrin of the Trinity ] than I intended them ; which you repeat again † † 1 Ans. p. 35. for my Satisfaction , and insist * * 1b . p. 36 , 37 , 40 , 42 , 46. upon for my Vindication .

You having so solemnly more than once professed to clear me and my Intentions from all suspition of having any part in that Controversie , as appears farther in the close of your first Letter , † † 1 Ans. p. 132 , 133. 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 against , without accusing your Lordship of manifest Prevarication ?

If your Lordship had any thing upon your Mind , any secret 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 Mens 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 passing by those Insinuations , which have been drop'd from your Lordship's Pen ; which from another , who had not professed so much personal Respect , would have shewn no exceeding good disposition of Mind towards me .

When your Lordship shall go on to accuse me of not believing the Doctrin of the Trinity , as received in the Christian Church , or any other Doctrin you shall think fit , I shall answer as I would to an Inquisitor . for tho your Lordship tells me , † † p. 5. That I need not he afraid of the Inquisition , or that you intended to charge me with Heresie in denying the Trinity ; yet he that shall consider your Lordship's proceeding with me from the beginning , as far as it is hitherto gone , may have reason to think , that the Methods and Management of that Holy Office are not wholly unknown to your Lordship , nor have scaped your great reading . Your Proceedings with me have had these steps ,

1. Several Passages of my Essay of Humane Vnderstanding , and some 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 Doctrin 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 that was given as the great reason why my Essay was brought into that Controversie , ( viz. ) because in it Certainty was founded upon clear and distinct Ideas , was found to fail , and was only a supposition of your own ; other Accusations were sought out against it in relation to the Doctrin of the Trinity . viz. That * * 1 Ans. p. 133. it might be of dangerous consequence , to that Doctrin , to introduce the new term of Ideas , and to place Certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our Ideas . What are become of these Charges , we shall see in the progress of this Letter , when we come to consider what your Lordship has reply'd to my Answer upon these Points .

3. These Accusations not having , it seems , weight enough to effect what you intended , my Book has been rumaged again to find new and more important Faults in it ; and now at last at the third Effort † † 2 Ans. Title . page . my Notions of Ideas are found inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith . This indeed , carries some sound in it , and may be thought worthy the Name and Pains of so 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 presume my Book has upon this occasion been look'd over again , to see what could be found in it capable to bear a deeper Accusation , that might look like something in a Title-Page . Your Lordship , by your Station in the Church , and the Zeal you have shewn in defending its Articles , could not be supposed , when you first brought my Book into this Controversie , to have omitted these great Enormities , that it now stands accused of , and to have cited it for smaller Mistakes , some whereof were not found , but only imagin'd 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 apprised of its being guilty of such dangerous Errors , you would not certainly have pass'd them by : And therefore I think one may reasonably conclude , that my Essay was new looked into on purpose .

Your Lordship says , * * p. 177. That what you have done herein you thought it your Duty to do , not with respect to your Self , but to some of the Mysteries of our Faith , which you do not charge me with opposing , but by laying such Foundations 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 inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith , if your Lordship had then known it . Though the excessive Respect and Tenderness you express towards me Personally 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 you tell me , * * p. 177. That these things laid together made your Lordship think it necessary to do that which you was unwilling to do till I had driven you to it , which was to shew the Reason you had , why you looked on my Notion of Ideas and of Certainty by them , as inconsistent with it self , and with some important Articles of the Christian Faith .

What must I think now , my Lord , of these Words ? Must I take them as a meer Complement , which is never to be interpreted rigorously , according to the precise meaning of the Words ? Or must I believe that your unwillingness , to do so hard a thing to me , restrained your Duty , and you could not prevail on your self ( how much soever the Mysteries of Faith were in danger to be overthrown ) to get out these harsh Words , viz. That my Notions were inconsistent with the Articles of the Christian Faith , till your third Onset , after I had forced you to your Duty by two Replies of mine ?

It will not become me , my Lord , to make my self a Complement from your Words , which you did not intend me in them . But on the other side , I would not willingly neglect to acknowledge any Civility from your Lordship in the full extent of it . The Business is a little nice , because what is contain'd in those two Passages , * * p. 177. cannot by a less skilful Hand than yours be well put together , though they immediately follow one another . This , I am sure , falls out very untowardly , that your Lordship should drive me , ( who had much rather have been otherwise imployed ) to drive your Lordship to do that which you were unwilling to do . The World sees how much I was driven : For what Censures , what Imputations must my Book have lain under , if I had not cleared it from those Accusations your Lordship brought against it ; when I am charged now with Evasions , for not clearing my self from an Accusation which you never brought against me ? But if it be an Evasion , not to answer to an Objection that has not been made , what is it I beseech you , my Lord , to make no reply to Objections that have been made ? Of which I promise to give your Lordship a List , 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 Accusation , it would be more than would suit with your Lordship's liking ; and you should complain again that you have opened a Passage which brings to your mind Ramazzini and his Springs of Modena . But your Lordship need not be afraid of being overwhelmed with the Ebullition of my Thoughts , nor much trouble your self to find a way to give check to it : Meer Ebullition of Thoughts never overwhelms or sinks any one but the Author himself ; but if it carries Truth with it , that I confess has force , and it may be troublesome to those that stand in its way .

Your Lordship says , p. 3. You see how dangerous it is to give occasion to one of such a fruitful Invention as I am , to write .