An antidote against atheisme, or, An appeal to the natural faculties of the minde of man, whether there be not a God by Henry More ...

CHAP. I.

The seasonable usefulnesse of the present Discourse, or the Motives that put the Authour upon these indeavours of demonstrating that there is a God.

THe grand truth which wee are now to bee im∣ployed about, is the proving that there is a God; And I made choice of this subject as very season∣able for the times wee are in, and are coming on, wherein Divine Providence granting a more large release from Superstition, and permitting a freer perusall of matters of Religion, then in former Ages, the Temp••er would take advantage where hee may, to carry men captive out of one darke prison into another, out of Superstition into Atheisme it self. Which is a thing feasible enough for him to bring about in such men as have adhered to Religion in a meere externall way, either for fashion sake, or in a blind obe∣dience to the Authority of a Church. For when this exter∣nall frame of godlinesse shall breake about their eares, they being really at the bottome devoyd of the true feare and love of God, and destitute of a more free and unprejudic'd use of their facultyes, by reason of the sinfullnesse and corru∣ption of their natures; it will bee an easy thing to allure them to an assent to that, which seemes so much for their present Interest; and so being imboldned by the tot∣tering and falling of what they took for Religion before, they will gladly in their conceipt cast down also the very Ob∣ject of that Religious Worship after it, and conclude that

there is as well no God as no Religion; That is, they have a mind there should be none, that they may be free from all wringings of conscience, trouble of correcting their lives, and feare of being accountable before that great Tribu∣nall.

Wherefore for the reclayming of these if it were possi∣ble, at least for the succouring and extricating of those in whom a greater measure of the love of God doth dwell, (who may probably by some darkening cloud of Melan∣choly or some more then ordinary importunity of the Tempter be dissettled and intangled in their thoughts con∣cerning this weighty matter) I held it sit to bestow mine indeavours upon this so usefull and seasonable an Enter∣prise, a•• to demonstrate that there is a God.