(_b_) “My assertion is most true, that we ought not to desert a certain truth, because we are not able to comprehend the certain manner.” To this I answered, that it was true; and as he alleged it for a reason why he should not be of my opinion, so I alleged it for a reason why I should not be of his. But now in his reply he saith, that his opinion is “a truth demonstrable in reason, received and believed by all the world. And therefore, though he be not able to comprehend or express exactly the certain manner how this liberty of will consists with God’s eternal prescience and decrees, yet he ought to adhere to that truth which is manifest.” But why should he adhere to it, unless it be manifest to himself? And if it be manifest to himself, why does he deny that he is able to comprehend it? And if he be not able to comprehend it, how knows he that it is demonstrable? Or why says he that so confidently, which he does not know? Methinks that which I have said, namely, that “that which God foreknows shall be hereafter, cannot but be hereafter, and at the same time that he foreknew it should be; but that which cannot but be, is necessary; therefore what God foreknows, shall be necessarily, and at the time foreknown”: this I say looketh somewhat liker to a demonstration, than any thing that he hath hitherto brought to prove free will. Another reason why I should be of his opinion, is that he is “in possession of an old truth derived to him by inheritance or succession from his ancestors”. To which I answer, first, that I am in possession of a truth derived to me from the light of reason. Secondly, that whereas he knoweth not whether it be the truth that he possesseth, or not; because he confesseth he knows not how it can consist with God’s prescience and decrees; I have sufficiently shewn that my opinion of necessity not only agrees with, but necessarily followeth from the eternal prescience and decrees of God. Besides, it is an unhandsome thing for a man to derive his opinion concerning truth by succession from his ancestors; for our ancestors, the first Christians, derived not therefore their truth from the Gentiles, because they were their ancestors. (_c_) “To pass by all the other great imperfections which are to be found in this sorite, it is just like an old philosophical piece: he that drinks well, sleeps well; he that sleeps well, thinks no hurt; he that thinks no hurt, lives well; therefore he that drinks well, lives well.” My argument was thus: “election is always from the memory of good and evil sequels; memory is always from the sense; and sense always from the action of external bodies; and all action from God; therefore all actions, even of free and voluntary agents, are from God, and consequently necessary”. Let the Bishop compare now his scurrilous argumentation with this of mine; and tell me, whether he that sleeps well, doth all his lifetime think no hurt.