Quod I than, 'how stant it in love of thilke wil, sithen men 15 loven willing of free choice in herte? Wherfore, if it be thorow necessitè, I praye you, lady, of an answere this question to assoyle.'
'I wol,' quod she, 'answere thee blyvely. Right as men wil not thorow necessitè, right so is not love of wil thorow necessitè; 20 ne thorow necessitè wrought thilke same wil. For if he wolde it not with good wil, it shulde nat have been wrought; although that he doth, it is nedeful to be doon. But if a man do sinne, it is nothing els but to +wilne that he shulde nat; right so sinne of wil is not to be [in] maner necessary don, no more than wil is 25 necessarye. Never-the-later, this is sothe; if a man wol sinne, it is necessarye him to sinne, but th[r]ough thilke necessitè nothing is constrayned ne defended in the wil; right so thilke thing that free-wil wol and may, and not may not wilne; and nedeful is that to wilne he may not wilne. But thilke to wilne nedeful is; for 30 impossible to him it is oon thing and the same to wilne and not to wilne. The werke, forsothe, of wil, to whom it is yeve that it be that he hath in wil, and that he wol not, voluntarie +or spontanye it is; for by spontanye wil it is do, that is to saye, with good wil not constrayned: than by wil not constrayned it is constrayned to 35 be; and that is it may not +togider be. If this necessitè maketh libertè of wil, whiche that, aforn they weren, they might have ben eschewed and shonned: god than, whiche that knoweth al tr[o]uthe, and nothing but tr[o]uthe, al these thinges, as they arn spontanye or necessarie, +seeth; and as he seeth, so they 40 ben. And so with these thinges wel considred, it is open at the ful, that without al maner repugnaunce god beforn wot al maner thinges [that] ben don by free wil, whiche, aforn they weren, [it] might have ben [that] never they shulde be. And yet ben they thorow a maner necessitè from free wil +discended. 45
Hereby may (quod she) lightly ben knowe that not al thinges to be, is of necessitè, though god have hem in his prescience. For som thinges to be, is of libertè of wil. And to make thee to have ful knowinge of goddes beforn-weting, here me (quod she) what I shal say.' 50