The _preface_ is a handsome one, but it appeareth even in that, that he hath mistaken the question. For whereas he says thus, _If I be free to write this Discourse, I have obtained the cause_: I deny that to be true, for it is enough to his freedom of writing, that he had not written it, unless he would himself. If he will obtain the cause, he must prove that before he writ it, it was not necessary he should prove it afterward. It may be his Lordship thinks it all one to say, _I was free_ to write it, and, _It was not necessary_ I should write it. But I think otherwise. For he is _free_ to do a thing, that may do it if he have the will to do it, and may forbear, if he have the will to forbear. And yet if there be a _necessity_ that he shall have the _will_ to do it, the action is necessarily to follow: and if there be a _necessity_ that he shall have the _will_ to forbear, the forbearing also will be necessary. The question therefore is not, whether a man be a _free agent_, that is to say, whether he can write or forbear, speak or be silent, according to his _will_; but, whether the _will_ to write, and the _will_ to forbear, come upon him according to his _will_, or according to anything else in his own power. I acknowledge this _liberty_, that I _can_ do if I _will_; but to say, I can _will_ if I _will_, I take to be an absurd speech. Wherefore I cannot grant my Lord the cause upon his _preface_. In the next place, he maketh certain distinctions of _liberty_, and says he meaneth not _liberty_ from sin, nor from _servitude_, nor from _violence_; but, from _necessity_, _necessitation_, _inevitability_, and _determination to one_. It had been better to _define_ liberty, than thus to _distinguish_. For I understand never the more what he means by _liberty_; and though he say he means _liberty_ from _necessitation_, yet I understand not how such a _liberty_ can be, and it is a taking of the question without proof. For what is else the question between us, but whether _such_ a liberty be possible or not? There are in the same place other distinctions: as a liberty of _exercise only_, which he calls a _liberty of contradiction_, namely of doing not good, or evil _simply_, but of doing this or that good, or this or that evil _respectively_, and a _liberty of specification and exercise also_, which he calls a liberty of _contrariety_, namely a liberty not only to do good or evil, but also to do or not do this or that good or evil. And with these _distinctions_ his Lordship says he _clears the coast_, whereas in truth, he darkeneth his own meaning and the question, not only with the jargon of _exercise only_, _specification also_, _contradiction_, _contrariety_, but also with pretending distinction where none is: for how is it possible that the _liberty_ of doing or not doing this or that good or evil, can consist, as he says it does in God and good angels, without a liberty of doing or not doing good or evil?