(_d_) “In the very last passage of my discourse I proposed my own private opinion, how it might be made appear that the eternal prescience and decrees of God are consistent with true liberty and contingency, &c.” If he had meant by liberty, as other men do, the liberty of action, that is, of things which are in his power to do which he will, it had been an easy matter to reconcile it with the prescience and decrees of God; but meaning the liberty of will, it was impossible. So likewise, if by contingency he had meant simply coming to pass, it had been reconcilable with the decrees of God; but meaning coming to pass without necessity, it was impossible. And therefore though it be true he says, that “he set it down in as plain terms as he could”, yet it was impossible to set it down in plain terms. Nor ought he to charge me with misunderstanding him, and wresting his words to a wrong sense. For the truth is, I did not understand them at all, nor thought he understood them himself; but was willing to give them the best interpretation they would bear; which he calls wresting them to a wrong sense. And first, I understood not what he meant by the aspect of God. For if he had meant his foreknowledge, which word he had often used before; what needed he in this one place only to call it _aspect_? Or what need he here call it his _view_? Or say that all things are open to the eyes of God not _discursively_, but _intuitively_; which is to expound _eyes_ in that text, Hebr. iv. 13, not figuratively but literally, nevertheless excluding _external species_, which the Schoolmen say are the cause of seeing? But it was well done to exclude such insignificant speeches, upon every occasion whatsoever. And though I do not hold the foreknowledge of God to consist in _discourse_; yet I shall be never driven to say it is by _intuition_, as long as I know that even a man hath foreknowledge of all those things which he intendeth himself to do, not by discourse, but by knowing his own purpose; saving that man hath a superior power over him, that can change his purpose; which God hath not. And whereas he says, I confound this aspect with the will and decrees of God, he accuseth me wrongfully. For how could I so confound it, when I understood not what it meant? (_e_) “Secondly, he chargeth me, that hitherto I have maintained that ‘liberty and the decrees of God are irreconcileable’”. And the reason why I do so is, because he maintained that liberty and the absolute necessity of all things are irreconcileable. If liberty cannot stand with necessity, it cannot stand with the decrees of God, of which decrees necessity is a consequent. I needed not to say, nor did say, that necessity and God’s decrees are all one: though if I had said it, it had not been without authority of learned men, in whose writings are often found this sentence, _voluntas Dei, necessitas rerum_.