(_a_) “There is nothing said with more show of reason in this cause by the patrons of necessity than this, ‘that the will doth perpetually and infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding, or the last judgment of right reason,’ &c. Yet the common and approved opinion is contrary, and justly; for, first, this very act of the understanding is an effect of the will, &c.” I note here, first, that the Bishop is mistaken in saying that I or any other patron of necessity, are of opinion that the will follows always the last judgment of right reason. For it followeth as well the judgment of an erroneous as of a true reasoning; and the truth in general is that it followeth the last opinion of the goodness or evilness of the object, be the opinion true or false. Secondly, I note, that in making the understanding to be an effect of the will, he thinketh a man may have a will to that which he not so much as thinks on. And in saying, that “it is the will which, affecting some particular good, doth engage and command the understanding to consult,” &c, that he not only thinketh the will affecteth a particular good, before the man understands it to be good; but also he thinketh that these words “doth command the understanding,” and these, “for it belongs to the will as to the general of an army, to move the other powers of the soul to their acts,” and a great many more that follow, are sense, which they are not, but mere confusion and emptiness: as, for example, “the understanding doth determine the will, not naturally, but morally,” and “the will is moved by the understanding,” is unintelligible. “Moved not as by an efficient,” is nonsense. And where he saith, that “it is ridiculous to say the object of the sight is the cause of seeing,” he showeth so clearly that he understandeth nothing at all of natural philosophy, that I am sorry I had the ill fortune to be engaged with him in a dispute of this kind. There is nothing that the simplest countryman could say so absurdly concerning the understanding, as this of the Bishop, “the judgment of the understanding is not always _practice practicum_.” A countryman will acknowledge there is judgment in men, but will as soon say the judgment of the judgment, as the judgment of the understanding. And if _practice practicum_ had been sense, he might have made a shift to put it into English. Much more followeth of this stuff. (_b_) “Lastly, whereas he saith, ‘that the nature of election doth consist in following our hopes and fears,’ I cannot but observe that there is not one word of art in this whole treatise which he useth in the right sense. I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of singularity, nor out of a contempt of former writers,” &c. He might have said, there is not a word of jargon nor nonsense; and that it proceedeth from an affectation of truth, and contempt of metaphysical writers, and a desire to reduce into frame the learning which they have confounded and disordered.