discourse. Neither is it material at all whether it proceed immediately from the first cause, or mediately, so as it be by a necessary flux of second and determinate causes, which produce it inevitably. To these proofs he answers nothing, but only by denying the first consequence, as he calls it, and then sings over his old song, ‘that the nature of sin consisteth in this, that the action proceed from our will, and be against the law’, which, in our sense, is most true, if he understand a just law, and a free rational will. (_b_) But supposing, as he doth, that the law enjoins things impossible in themselves to be done, then it is an unjust and tyrannical law; and the transgression of it is no sin, not to do that which never was in our power to do. And supposing, likewise as he doth, that the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause, then it is not man’s will, but God’s will, and flows essentially from the law of goodness. (_c_) “That which he adds of a judge, is altogether impertinent as to his defence. Neither is a civil judge the proper judge, nor the law of the land the proper rule of sin. But it makes strongly against him; for the judge goes upon a good ground; and even this which he confesseth, that ‘the judge looks at no higher cause than the will of the doer’, proves that the will of the doer did determine itself freely, and that the malefactor had liberty to have kept the law, if he would. Certainly, a judge ought to look at all material circumstances, and much more at all essential causes. Whether every sufficient cause be a necessary cause, will come to be examined more properly, No. XXXI. For the present it shall suffice to say, that liberty flows from the sufficiency, and contingency from the debility of the cause. (_d_) Nature never intends the generation of a monster. If all the causes concur sufficiently, a perfect creature is produced; but by reason of the insufficiency, or debility, or contingent aberration of some of the causes, sometimes a monster is produced. Yet the causes of a monster were sufficient for the production of that which was produced, that is a monster: otherwise a monster had not been produced. What is it then? A monster is not produced by virtue of that order which is set in nature, but by the contingent aberration of some of the natural causes in their concurrence. The order set in nature is, that every like should beget its like. But supposing the concurrence of the causes to be such as it is in the generation of a monster, the generation of a monster is necessary; as all the events in the world are when they are, that is, by an hypothetical necessity. (_e_) Then he betakes himself to his old help, that God may punish by right of omnipotence, though there were no sin. The question is not now what God may do, but what God will do, according to that covenant which he hath made with man, _fac hoc et vives_, _do this and thou shalt live_. Neither doth God punish any man