(_f_) “But to cut his argument short: God hath decreed all effects which come to pass in time, yet not all after the same manner, but according to the distinct natures, capacities, and conditions of his creatures; which he doth not destroy by his decree: some he acteth.” Hitherto true. Then he addeth: “with some he co-operateth by special influence; and some he only permitteth; yet this is no idle or bare permission”. This is false. For nothing operateth by its own original power, but God himself. Man operateth not but by special power, (I say special power, not special influence), derived from God. Nor is it by God’s permission only, as I have often already shown, and as the Bishop here contradicting his former words confesseth. For _to permit only_, and _barely to permit_, signify the same thing. And that which he says, that God _concurs by way of general influence_, is jargon. For every concurrence is one singular and individual concurrence; and nothing in the world is general, but the signification of words and other signs. (_g_) “Thirdly, he chargeth me, that ‘I allow all men to be of his opinion, save only those that conceive in their minds a _nunc stans_, or how eternity is an indivisible point, rather than an everlasting succession.’ But I have given no such allowance.” Surely if the reason wherefore my opinion is false, proceed from this, that I conceive not eternity to be _nunc stans_, but an everlasting succession, I am allowed to hold my opinion till I can conceive eternity otherwise: at least he allows men not till then to be of his opinion. For he hath said, “that the main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to that way of his, is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, and not one indivisible point”. As for the many other ways which he says are “proposed by divines for reconciling the eternal prescience and decrees of God with the liberty and contingency of second causes”, if they mean such liberty and contingency as the Bishop meaneth, they are proposed in vain; for truth and error can never be reconciled. But “however,” saith he, “though a man could comprehend none of all these ways, yet we must remember that a certain truth ought not to be rejected, because we are not able to understand the reason of it.” For “he knows,” he says, “the loadstone hath an attractive power to draw the iron to it, and yet he knoweth not how it cometh to have such a power.” I know the load-stone hath no such attractive power; and yet I know that the iron cometh to it, or it to the iron; and therefore wonder not, that the Bishop knoweth not how it cometh to have that power. In the next place he saith, I bring nothing to prove that eternity is not an indivisible point, but my own incapacity “that I cannot conceive it”. The truth is, I cannot dispute neither for nor against (as he can do) the positions I understand not. Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the