“First, by reason. Election is evermore either of things possible, or at least of things conceived to be possible, that is, efficacious election, when a man hopeth or thinketh of obtaining the object. Whatsoever the will chooseth, it chooseth under the notion of good, either honest, or delightful, or profitable. But there can be no real goodness apprehended in that which is known to be impossible. It is true, there may be some wandering pendulous wishes of known impossibilities, as a man also that hath committed an offence may wish he had not committed it. But to choose efficaciously an impossibility, is as impossible as an impossibility itself. No man can think to obtain that which he knows impossible to be obtained; but he who knows that all things are antecedently determined by necessary causes, knows that it is impossible for anything to be otherwise than it is; therefore to ascribe unto him a power of election to choose this or that indifferently, is to make the same thing to be determined to one, and to be not determined to one, which are contradictories. Again, whosoever hath an elective power, or a liberty to choose, hath also a liberty or power to refuse; (Isaiah vii. 16): _Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good_. He who chooseth this rather than that, refuseth that rather than this. As Moses (Hebrews xi. 25), choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God, did thereby refuse the pleasures of sin. But no man hath any power to refuse that which is necessarily predetermined to be, unless it be as the fox refused the grapes which were beyond his reach. When one thing of two or three is absolutely determined, the others are made thereby simply impossible.