_J. D._ (_a_) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI). (_b_) And his two instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining to-morrow, are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us, for two reasons. First, our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed from the liberty of man’s will: both his instances are of contingent actions, which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes. First, that there are free actions which proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens; and he that doubteth of it, may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the nut, or a stone within the olive. A man proportions his time each day, and allots so much to his devotions, so much to his study, so much to his diet, so much to his recreations, so much to necessary or civil visits, so much to his rest; he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself, except that good God who hath given him a reasonable soul, may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian pyramids among the crocodiles of Nilus. (_c_) Secondly, for mixed actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be not free, yet they are not necessary. As, to keep my former instance, a man walking through a street of a city to do his occasions, a tile falls from a house and breaks his head. The breaking of his head was not necessary, for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation; neither was it free, for he did not deliberate of that accident; therefore it was contingent, and by undoubted consequence, there are contingent actions in the world which are not free. Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes, as God, the good and bad angels, and men, with natural agents, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, many events happen, which otherwise had never happened; many effects are produced, which otherwise had never been produced. And admitting such things to be contingent, not necessary, all their consequent effects, not only immediate, but mediate, must likewise be contingent, that is to say, such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes; which is directly contrary to T. H.’s opinion.