(_k_) “He adds further, that ‘as the end is necessary, so are the means; and when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another, it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen.’ All which is truth, but not the whole truth; for as God ordains means for all ends, so he adapts and fits the means to their respective ends, free means to free ends, contingent means to contingent ends, necessary means to necessary ends, whereas T. H. would have all means, all ends, to be necessary. If God hath so ordered the world, that a man ought to use, and may freely use, those means of God, which he doth neglect, not by virtue of God’s decree, but by his own fault; if a man use those means of evil, which he ought not to use, and which by God’s decree he had power to forbear; if God have left to man in part the free managery of human affairs, and to that purpose hath endowed him with understanding: then consultations are of use, then provident care is needful, then it concerns him to use the means. But if God have so ordered this world, that a man cannot, if he would, neglect any means of good, which by virtue of God’s decree it is possible for him to use, and that he cannot possibly use any means of evil, but those which are irresistibly and inevitably imposed upon him by an antecedent decree; then not only consultations are vain, but that noble faculty of reason itself is vain. Do we think that we can help God Almighty to do his proper work? In vain we trouble ourselves, in vain we take care to use those means, which are not in our power to use, or not to use. And this is that which was contained in my prolepsis or prevention of his answer, though he be pleased both to disorder it, and to silence it. We cannot hope by our labours, to alter the course of things set down by God; let him perform his decree, let the necessary causes do their work. If we be those causes, yet we are not in our own disposition; we must do what we are ordained to do, and more we cannot do. Man hath no remedy but patience, and to shrug up the shoulders. This is the doctrine that flows from this opinion of absolute necessity. Let us suppose the great wheel of the clock which sets all the little wheels going, to be as the decree of God, and that the motion of it were perpetually infallible from an intrinsical principle, even as God’s decree is infallible, eternal, all-sufficient. Let us suppose the lesser wheels to be the second causes, and that they do as certainly follow the motion of the great wheel, without missing or swerving in the least degree, as the second causes do pursue the determination of the first cause. I desire to know in this case, what cause there is to call a council of smiths, to consult and order the motion of that which was ordered and determined before to their hands? Are men wiser than God? Yet all men know, that the motion of the lesser wheels is a necessary means to make the clock strike.