_J. D._ “Thus he hath laboured in vain to satisfy my reasons, and to prove his own assertion. But for demonstration, there is nothing like it among his arguments. Now he saith, (_a_) he could add other arguments, if he thought it good logic. There is no impediment in logic, why a man may not press his adversary with those absurdities which flow from his opinion; _argumentum ducens ad impossibile_ or _ad absurdum_, is a good form of reasoning. But there is another reason of his forbearance, though he be loath to express it. _Hæret lateri læthalis arundo._ The arguments drawn from the attributes of God do stick so close in the sides of his cause, that he hath no mind to treat of that subject. By the way, take notice of his own confession, that ‘he could add other reasons, if he thought it good logic’. If it were predetermined in the outward causes, that he must make this very defence and no other, how could it be in his power to add or subtract any thing: just as if a blind man should say in earnest, _I could see if I had mine eyes_? Truth often breaks out whilst men seek to smother it. (_b_) But let us view his argument: ‘if a man have liberty from necessitation, he may frustrate the decrees of God, and make his prescience false’. First, for the decrees of God, this is his decree that man should be a free agent; if he did consider God as a most simple act, without priority or posteriority of time, or any composition; he would not conceive of his decrees, as of the laws of the Medes and Persians, long since enacted and passed before we were born, but as coexistent with ourselves, and with the acts which we do by virtue of those decrees. Decrees and attributes are but notions to help the weakness of our understanding to conceive of God. The decrees of God are God himself, and therefore justly said to be before the foundation of the world was laid: and yet coexistent with ourselves, because of the infinite and eternal being of God. The sum is this, the decree of God, or God himself eternally, constitutes or ordains all effects which come to pass in time, according to the distinct natures or capacities of his creatures. An eternal ordination is neither past nor to come, but always present. So free actions do proceed as well from the eternal decree of God, as necessary; and from that order which he hath set in the world.