Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

5. Nor is it unuseful to those who effectually believe and love him; ^*for those who have had a converse with God, and felt his powerful influences in the secrets of their hearts, to take a prospect of those satisfactory accounts which reason gives of that God they adore and love; to see every Creature justify them in their owning of him, and affections to him: Indeed the Evidences of a God striking upon the Conscience of those who resolve to cleave to sin as their chiefest darling, will dash their pleasures with unwelcome mixtures.

5. Nor is it unuseful to those who effectually beleive and love him; ^*for those who have had a converse with God, and felt his powerful influences in the secrets of their hearts, to take a prospect of those satisfactory accounts which reason gives of that God they adore and love; to see every Creature justifie them in their owning of him, and affections to him: Indeed the Evidences of a God striking upon the Conscience of those who resolve to cleave to sin as their cheifest darling, will dash their pleasures with unwelcome mixtures.

1. *Coccei Sum. Theol. c. 8. § 1.

I shall further premise this.

That the folly of Atheism is evidenced by the light of Reason. Men that will not listen to Scripture, as having no counterpart of it in their Souls, cannot easily deny natural Reason, which riseth up on all sides for the justification of this Truth: There is a natural as well as a revealed Knowledge, and the Book of the Creatures is legible in declaring the Being of a God, as well as the Scriptures are in declaring the Nature of a God; there are outward objects in the World, and common Principles in the Conscience, whence it may be inferred,