us; it renders not him more propitious in himself, but us more capable of mercy. He saith this, ‘that God doth not bless us, except we pray, is a motive to prayer’. Why talks he of motives, who acknowledgeth no liberty, nor admits any cause but absolutely necessary? He saith, ‘prayer is the gift of God, no less than the blessing which we pray for, and contained in the same decree with the blessing’. It is true, the spirit of prayer is the gift of God. Will he conclude from thence, that the good employment of one talent, or of one gift of God, may not procure another? Our Saviour teacheth us otherwise: _Come thou good and faithful servant, thou hast been faithful in little, I will make thee ruler over much_. Too much light is an enemy to the sight, and too much law is an enemy to justice. I could wish we wrangled less about God’s decrees, until we understood them better. But, saith he, ‘thanksgiving is no cause of the blessing past, and prayer is but a thanksgiving’. He might even as well tell me, that when a beggar craves an alms, and when he gives thanks for it, it is all one. Every thanksgiving is a kind of prayer, but every prayer, and namely petition, is not a thanksgiving. In the last place he urgeth, that ‘in our prayers we are bound to submit our wills to God’s will.’ Who ever made any doubt of this? We must submit to the preceptive will of God, or his commandments; we must submit to the effective will of God, when he declares his good pleasure by the event or otherwise. But we deny, and deny again, either that God wills things _ad extra_, without himself, necessarily, or that it is his pleasure that all second causes should act necessarily at all times; which is the question, and that which he allegeth to the contrary comes not near it. ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S REPLY NO. XV. (_a_) “And though his answer consist more of oppositions than of solutions, yet I will not willingly leave one grain of his matter unweighed.”