(_b_) “‘And if sufficient, then also necessary’. Stay there; by his leave, there is no necessary connexion between sufficiency and efficiency; otherwise God himself should not be all-sufficient.” All-sufficiency signifieth no more, when it is attributed to God, than omnipotence; and omnipotence signifieth no more, than the power to do all things that he will. But to the production of any thing that is produced, the will of God is as requisite as the rest of his power and sufficiency. And consequently, his all-sufficiency signifieth not a sufficiency or power to do those things he will not. But he will deal, he says, so favourably with me, as to grant me all this, which I labour, he saith, so much in vain to prove: and adds, (_c_) “But all this will not advantage his cause the black of a bean; for still it amounts but to an hypothetical necessity”. If it prove no more, it proves no necessity at all; for by hypothetical necessity he means the necessity of this proposition, _the effect is, then when it is_; whereas necessity is only said truly of somewhat in future. For _necessary_ is that which cannot possibly be otherwise; and _possibility_ is always understood of some future time. But seeing he granteth so favourably that sufficient causes are necessary causes, I shall easily conclude from it, that whatsoever those causes do cause, are necessary antecedently. For if the necessity of the thing produced, when produced, be in the same instant of time with the existence of its immediate cause; then also that immediate cause was in the same instant with the cause by which it was immediately produced; the same may be said of the cause of this cause, and so backward eternally. From whence it will follow, that all the connexion of the causes of any effect from the beginning of the world, were altogether existent in one and the same instant; and consequently, all the time from the beginning of the world, or from eternity to this day, is but one instant, or a _nunc stans_; which he knows by this time is not so. NO. XXXVI. _T. H._ And thus you see how the inconveniences, which he objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity, are avoided, and the necessity itself demonstratively proved. To which I could add, if I thought it good logic, the inconvenience of denying necessity; as that it destroys both the decrees and prescience of God Almighty. For whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument, or foreseeth shall come to pass, a man, if he have liberty, such as he affirmeth from necessitation, might frustrate and make not to come to pass: and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it, or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be, and decree that which shall never come to pass. [Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]