said the nature of sin consisteth in this, that ‘it is an action proceeding from our will and against the law’, he alloweth it for true; and therefore he must allow also, that the formal reason of sin lieth not in the liberty or necessity of willing, but in the will itself, necessary or unnecessary, in relation to the law. And whereas he limits this truth which he allowed, to this, that _the law be just_, and _the will a free rational will_, it serves to no purpose; for I have shown before, that no law can be unjust. And it seemeth to me that a rational will, if it be not meant of a will after deliberation, whether he that deliberateth reasoneth aright or not, signifieth nothing. A _rational man_ is rightly said; but a _rational will_, in other sense than I have mentioned, is insignificant. (_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 no sin,” &c. “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.” He mistakes me in this. For I say not the law enjoins things impossible in themselves; for so I should say it enjoined contradictories. But I say the law sometimes, the law-makers not knowing the secret necessities of things to come, enjoins things made impossible by secret and extrinsical causes from all eternity. From this his error he infers, that the laws must be unjust and tyrannical, and the transgression of them no sin. But he who holds that laws can be unjust and tyrannical, will easily find pretence enough, under any government in the world, to deny obedience to the laws, unless they be such as he himself maketh, or adviseth to be made. He says also, that I suppose the will is inevitably determined by special influence from the first cause. It is true; saving that senseless word _influence_, which I never used. But his consequence, “then it is not man’s will, but God’s will”, is not true; for it may be the will both of the one and of the other, and yet not by concurrence, as in a league, but by subjection of the will of man to the will of God.