_J. D._ “If T. H. could divide my forces, and commit them together among themselves, it were his only way to conquer them. But he will find that those imaginary contradictions, which he thinks he hath espied in my discourse, are but fancies, and my supposed impertinences will prove his own real mistakings.” In this fifth number there is nothing of his or mine, pertinent to the question, therefore nothing necessary to be repeated. PROOFS OF LIBERTY OUT OF SCRIPTURE.--NO. VI. [Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.] _J. D._ “First, whosoever have power of election, have true liberty; for the proper act of liberty is election. A spontaneity may consist with determination to one, as we see in children, fools, madmen, brute beasts, whose fancies are determined to those things which they act spontaneously, as the bees make honey, the spiders webs. But none of these have a liberty of election, which is an act of judgment and understanding, and cannot possibly consist with a determination to one. He that is determined by something before himself or without himself, cannot be said to choose or elect, unless it be as the junior of the mess chooseth in Cambridge, whether he will have the least part or nothing. And scarcely so much. “But men have liberty of election. This is plain, (Numbers xxx. 13): _If a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or to make it void_. And (Joshua xxiv. 15): _Choose you this day whom you will serve_, &c. _But I and my house will serve the Lord._ He makes his own choice, and leaves them to the liberty of their election. And (2 Samuel xxiv. 12): _I offer thee three things, choose thee which of them I shall do_. If one of these three things was necessarily determined, and the other two impossible, how was it left to him to choose what should be done? Therefore we have true liberty.” _T. H._ And the first place of Scripture taken from Numbers xxx. 13, is one of them that look another way. The words are, _If a wife make a vow it is left to her husband’s choice, either to establish it or make it void_. For it proves no more but that the husband is a free or voluntary agent, but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes. _J. D._ “My first argument from Scripture is thus formed. “Whosoever have a liberty or power of election, are not determined to one by precedent necessary causes. “But men have liberty of election. “The assumption or _minor_ proposition is proved by three places of Scripture, (Numbers xxx. 13; Joshua xxiv. 15; 2 Samuel xxiv. 12.) I need not insist upon these, because T. H. acknowledgeth ‘that it is clearly proved that there is election in man.’ “But he denieth the _major_ proposition, because, saith he, ‘man is necessitated or determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes.’ I take away this answer three ways.