Hugo Grotius · 24 of 132

SECT. XIX. And of there being so much wickedness.

SOME men are apt to doubt of a Divine Providence, because they see so much wickedness practised, that the world is in a manner overwhelmed with it, like a deluge: which, they contend, should be the business of Divine Providence, if there were any, to hinder or suppress. But the answer to such is very easy. When God made man a free agent, and at liberty to do well or ill, (reserving to himself alone a necessary and immutable goodness), it was not fit that he should put such a restraint upon evil actions as was inconsistent with this liberty. But whatever means of hindering them were not repugnant to such liberty; as, establishing and promulging a law, external and internal warnings, together with threatenings and promises; none of these were neglected by God: neither would he suffer the effects of wickedness to spread to the furthest; so that government was never utterly subverted, nor the knowledge of the divine laws entirely extinguished. And even those crimes that were permitted, as we hinted before, were not without their advantages, when made use of either to punish those who were equally wicked, or to chastise those who were slipped out of the way of virtue, or else to procure some eminent example of patience and constancy, in those who had made a great progress in virtue. Lastly, even they themselves, whose crimes seemed to be overlooked for a time, were for the most part punished with a proportionable punishment, that the will of God might be executed against them who acted contrary to his will.