Postscript. 517

that your Lordship would have been pleased, in this debate, to have keptevery one’s part separate to himself; that what I am concerned in, mightnot have been so mingled with the opinions of others, which are no tenetsof mine, nor, as I think, does what I have written any way relate to; butthat I and every one might have seen whom your Lordship’s argumentsbore upon, and what interest he had in the controversy, and how far. Atleast, my Lord, give me leave to wish, that your Lordsliip had shewn whatconnection any thing I have said about ideas, and particularly about the ideaof substance, about the possibility that God, if he pleased, might endue somesystems of matter with a power of thinking; or what I have said to provea God, &c. has with any objections, that are made by others, against thedoctrine of the Trinity, or against mysteries : for many passages concerningideas, substances, the possibility of God’s bestowing thoughts on some systemsof matter, and the proof of a God, &c. your Lordship has quoted out ofmy book, in a chapter wherein your Lordship professes to answer “ objec-ts lions against the Trinity, in point of reason.” Had I been able to dis-cover in these passages of my book, quoted by your Lordship, what tendencyyour Lordsliip had observed in them to any such objections, I should per-haps have troubled your Lordship with less impertinent answers. But theuncertainty I was very often in, to what purpose your Lordship broughtthem, may have made my explications of myself less apposite, than whatvour Lordsliip might have expected. If your Lordship had shewed me anything in my book, that contained or implied any opposition in it to any thingrevealed in holy writ concerning the Trinity, or any other doctrine containedin the bible, I should have been thereby obliged to your Lordsliip for freeingme from that mistake, and for affording me an opportunity to own to theworld that obligation, by publickly retracting my error. For I know notany thing more disingenuous, than not publickly to own a conviction one hasreceived concerning any thing erroneous in what one has printed; nor canthere, I think, be a greater offence against mankind, than to propagate afalstiood whereof one is convinced, especially in a matter wherein men arehighly concerned not to be misled.

The holy scripture is to me, and always will be, the constant guide ofmy assent; and I shall always hearken to it, as containing infallible truth,relating to things of the highest concernment. And I wish I could say,there were no mysteries in it: I acknowledge there are to me, and I fearalways will be. But where I want the evidence of things, there yet isground enough for me to believe, because God has said it: and I shall pre-sently condemn and quit any opinion of mine, as soon as I am shewn thatit is contrary to any revelation in the holy scripture. But I must confessto your Lordship, that I do not perceive any such contrariety in any thingin my Essay of Human Understanding.

Oates, Jan. 7.1696*7.