(_f_) “He objects that ‘liberty is in no danger, but to be lost; but I say it cannot be lost; therefore’, he infers, ‘that it is in no danger at all.’ I answer, first, that liberty is in more danger to be abused, than lost, &c.; secondly, liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened by vicious habits; thirdly, it may be totally lost.” It is true that a man hath more liberty one time than another, and in one place than another; which is a difference of liberty as to the body. But as to the liberty of doing what we will, in those things we are able to do it cannot be greater one time than another. Consequently outward objects can no ways endanger liberty, further than it destroyeth it. And his answer, that liberty is in more danger to be abused than lost, is not to the question, but a mere shift to be thought not silenced. And whereas he says liberty is diminished by vicious habits, it cannot be understood otherwise than that vicious habits make a man the less free to do vicious actions; which I believe is not his meaning. And lastly, whereas he says that “liberty is lost, when reason is lost; and that they who by excess of study, or by continual gormandising, or by extravagant passion, &c., do become sots, have consequently lost their liberty”: it requireth proof. For, for any thing that I can observe, mad men and fools have the same liberty that other men have, in those things that are in their power to do. NO. XXIII. [Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.] _J. D._ “Fourthly, the natural philosopher doth teach, that the will doth necessarily follow the last dictate of the understanding. It is true indeed the will should follow the direction of the understanding; but I am not satisfied that it doth evermore follow it. Sometimes this saying hath place: _video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor_. As that great Roman said of two suitors, that the one produced the better reasons, but the other must have the office. So reason often lies dejected at the feet of affection. Things nearer to the senses move more powerfully. Do what a man can, he shall sorrow more for the death of his child, than for the sin of his soul; yet appreciatively in the estimation of judgment, he accounts the offence of God a greater evil than any temporal loss.