action itself lawful; for the breaking of a law is always sin. And it is certain that men are obliged to the observation of all positive precepts, though with the loss of their lives, unless the right that a man hath to preserve himself make it, in case of a just fear, to be no law. “The omission of circumcision was no sin,” he says, “whilst the Israelites were travelling through the wilderness.” It is very true, but this has nothing to do with compulsion. And the cause why it was no sin, was this: they were ready to obey it, whensoever God should give them leisure and rest from travel, whereby they might be cured; or at least when God, that daily spake to their conductor in the desert, should appoint him to renew that sacrament. (_g_) “I will propose a case to him,” &c. The case is this. A servant is robbed of his master’s money by the highway, but is acquitted because he was forced. Another servant spends his master’s money in a tavern. Why is he not acquitted also, seeing he was necessitated? “Would,” saith he, “T. H. admit of this excuse?” I answer, no: but I would do that to him, which should necessitate him to behave himself better another time, or at least necessitate another to behave himself better by his example. (_h_) “He talks much of _the motives to do, and the motives to forbear_, how they work upon and determine a man; as if a reasonable man were no more than a tennis-ball, to be tossed to and fro by the rackets of the second causes,” &c. May not great things be produced by second causes, as well as little; and a foot-ball as well as a tennis-ball? But the Bishop can never be driven from this, that the will hath power to move itself; but says it is all one to say, that “an agent can determine itself,” and that “the will is determined by motives extrinsical”. He adds, that “if there be no necessitation before the judgment of right reason doth dictate to the will, then there is no antecedent nor extrinsical necessitation at all”. I say indeed, the effect is not produced before the last dictate of the understanding; but I say not, that the necessity was not before; he knows I say, it is from eternity. When a cannon is planted against a wall, though the battery be not made till the bullet arrive, yet the necessity was present all the while the bullet was going to it, if the wall stood still: and if it slipped away, the hitting of somewhat else was necessary, and that antecedently.