as greedily desirous to see the book,
he sent him one of them, containing the four first books of twelve
which he intended then to publish. "When I had read," says Dr.
Sanderson, in the following words of the same letter, "his Epistle
Dedicatory to the Pope (Gregory XV.), he spake so highly of his own
invention, that I then began rather to suspect him for a mountebank,
than to hope I should find satisfaction from his performances. I found
much confidence and great pomp of words, but little matter as to the
main knot of the business, other than had been said an hundred times
before, to wit, of the co-existence of all things past, present, and
future [Latin] _in mente divina realiter ab aeterno_, which is
the subject of his whole third book: only he interpreteth the word
_realiter_ so as to import not only _praesentialitatem objectivam,_ (as
others held before him,) but _propriam et actualem existentiam_; yet
confesseth it is hard to make this intelligible. In his fourth book
he endeavours to declare a twofold manner of God's working _ad extra_;
the one _sub ordine praedestinationis_, of which eternity is the proper
measure: the other _sub ordine gratia_, whereof time is the
measure; and that God worketh _fortiter_ in the one (though not
_irresistibiliter_) as well _suamter_ in the other, wherein the
free will hath his proper working also. From the result of his whole
performance I was confirmed in this opinion; that we must acknowledge
the work of both grace and free will in the conversion of a
sinner; and so likewise in all other events, the consistency of the
infallibility of God's foreknowledge at least (though not with any
absolute, but conditional predestination) with the liberty of man's
will, and the contingency of inferior causes and effects. These, I
say, we must acknowledge for the [Greek: hoti] but for the [Greek: to
pos], I thought it bootless for me to think of comprehending it. And
so came the two _Acta Synodalia Dordrechtana_ to stand in my study,
only to fill up a room to this day."

[Sidenote: "Vindiciae Gratiae" discussed]

And yet see the restless curiosity of man. Not many years after, to
wit, A.D. 1632, out cometh Dr. Twiss's[3] _Vindiciae Gratiae_, a large
volume, purposely writ against Arminius: and then, notwithstanding my
former resolution, I must need be meddling again. The respect I bore
to his person and great learning, and the acquaintance I had had with
him in Oxford, drew me to the readin