Het regt gebruik der werelt beschouwingen, ter overtuiginge van ongodisten en ongelovigen

allow: but whether this eternal Being is also Wise, Powerful and Benevolent, and has made everything according to the pleasure of His will for certain ends, and still governs it.

It is true that these unfortunate ones could in some way admit His power, only because they see such great structures, with such unimaginably fast movements, carried forth daily in the Heavens with their own eyes; and they would perhaps also recognize His benevolence, when they explain this word themselves, and may attribute this benevolence of this Being only to the happy properties of things; being helped therein by their own understanding, which they think to be powerful enough to be able to turn most things that meet them in the world to their benefit, and make them serve their necessities and pleasure. But with difficulty will they, while maintaining their grounds and tranquility, be able to admit that this Eternal Being is Wise, and does everything according to His pleasure; since this is completely opposite and contrary as well to a loose chance as to all unconscious nature or laws of fate: also this is the single ground of their continual restlessness and terror; as those who, if this Being is Wise, and knows that one mockingly tries to rob Him of His perfections, can easily conclude what their portion and expectation must one day be.

That this was also the old question in the past centuries can be gathered from the title of what Cicero has written about it: where the disputes of the philosophers introduced there are not so much about the existence of a God (such an Eternal being being understood thereby) as about the NATURA DEORUM Nature of the Gods, or of what nature this divinity was.

If anyone from his youth on has been so happy that, with conviction of God's adorable perfections, he has always recognized and honored Him as his sovereign Lord, his Maker and Sustainer; it will perhaps appear strange to him that people can be found who, recognizing an eternal being or a God in His presence, can yet regard Him as being stripped of all the aforementioned properties. That however both the past and the present times have produced a multitude of such pitiable understandings is all too well known to the world to enlarge this book with the histories of the same. This we say here only, that these following contemplations are aimed at this end: to bring, if it is possible, these unfortunate ones to better thoughts.

§. 2. So that we may take the right path to this great objective; it seems necessary first to trace with seriousness what the true causes may be why many have fallen into such disastrous and wrong thoughts of this awesome and eternal Supreme Being; and that one, knowing these,

should try to find suitable remedies against them.

One should not think, however, that we shall speak here of the same with all that extensiveness with which this material could be treated. It shall be enough for us to bring forward only such causes of modern Ongodifterye atheism which have appeared to us by experience to take place in many of these unhappy reasoners: and therewith to propose those remedies which the same experience has taught us to have been used with fruit and blessing against this pitiable evil in some: leaving other causes, of which many more can be besides those cited, to be added here by those who have experimentally tested or seen the sad effects of the same, either in themselves or in others.

§. 3. The first cause then, and that which is mostly found by nature in all, is often a drive of a too far-reaching and wrong self-love.

Through this their desire goes only to this, that they may satisfy their inclinations and be subject to no one; or if they cannot escape this last, that this one might be no other than one who approved of their fleshly drives. Therefore, hearing that there is a God who is Just and Holy; who wants to be obeyed by them in everything, and will certainly punish a creature which refuses to keep Him in recognition; they wish to be outside His power.

This sets them to close their ears to everything that can convince them of such a God; and because their confcientie conscience, in spite of all their efforts, leaves them no rest, this pushes them incessantly to seek reasons of proof by which they could somewhat make themselves believe the opposite; so as to be able to escape the troublesome stings of this continually contradicting conscience. For this reason blind Heathendom has attributed similar drives as they themselves felt to their Gods: and fabled that the same took pleasure in drunkenness, whoredom, adultery, and even worse irregularities.

To seek no further proof of this stated matter; let everyone who has ever been so far miserable that he has advocated and sought reasons which could serve to cloud and erase the recognizability of the virtues of his Creator in him, go and investigate within himself: if that which is accepted among Christians as God's Word, and in which His will is contained, allowed him to follow his drives unbridled in this life; and promised to make him enjoy this pleasure in eternity; whether he would not try to trace proofs with as much zeal and diligence to demonstrate so certainly to himself and all others that there is a God and the Bible is His revealed word, as he now tries to make himself and others believe that this is false. In every natural man is indeed inborn an extensive desire to be happy. He thinks this in the knowledge of a—