“T. H. hath one plea more. As a drowning man catcheth at every bulrush, so he lays hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause. But first, it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this one particular. (_g_) First, he told us, that it was the irresistible power of God that justifies all his actions, though he command one thing openly, and plot another thing secretly, though he be the cause not only of the action, but also of the irregularity; though he both give man power to act, and determine this power to evil as well as good; though he punish the creatures, for doing that which he himself did necessitate them to do. But being pressed with reason, that this is tyrannical, first to necessitate a man to do his will, and then to punish him for doing of it, he leaves this pretence in the plain field, and flies to a second; that therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was necessitated to do, because the act was voluntary on his part. This hath more show of reason than the former, if he did make the will of man to be in his own disposition; but maintaining that the will is irresistibly determined to will whatsoever it doth will, the injustice and absurdity is the same, first to necessitate a man to will, and then to punish him for willing. The dog only bites the stone which is thrown at him with a strange hand, but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for that which is his own proper act. Wherefore not being satisfied with this, he casts it off and flies to his third shift. ‘Men are not punished,’ saith he, ‘therefore, because their theft proceeded from election,’ (that is, because it was willingly done, for to elect and will, saith he, are both one; is not this to blow hot and cold with the same breath?) ‘but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s preservation.’ Thus far he saith true, that every creature by the instinct of nature seeks to preserve itself: cast water into a dusty place, and it contracts itself into little globes, that is to preserve itself. And those who are noxious in the eye of the law, are justly punished by them to whom the execution of the law is committed; but the law accounts no persons noxious, but those who are noxious by their own fault. It punisheth not a thorn for pricking, because it is the nature of the thorn, and it can do no otherwise, nor a child, before it have the use of reason. If one should take my hand perforce and give another a box on the ear with it, my hand is noxious, but the law punisheth the other who is faulty. And therefore he hath reason to propose the question, ‘how it is just to kill one man to amend another, if he who killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do.’ He might as well demand, how it is lawful to murder a company of innocent infants, to make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the leprosy. It had been a more rational way, first to have demonstrated that it is so, and then to have questioned why it is so.