but unpublished), brought out a book opposing Bredenburg’s demonstration, entitled:  Certamen Philosophicum Propugnatae Veritatis Divinae ac Naturalis, adversus J.B. principia, Amsterdam, 1684.  M. Aubert de Verse also wrote in opposition to him the same year under the name of Latinus Serbattus Sartensis.  Bredenburg protested that he was convinced of free will and of religion, and that he wished he might be shown a possibility of refuting his own demonstration.

374.  I would desire to see this alleged demonstration, and to know whether it tended to prove that primitive Nature, which produces all, acts without choice and without knowledge.  In this case, I admit that his proof was Spinozistic and dangerous.  But if he meant perhaps that the divine nature is determined toward that which it produces, by its choice and through the motive of the best, there was no need for him to grieve about this so-called immutable, inevitable, irrevocable necessity.  It is only moral, it is a happy necessity; and instead of destroying religion it shows divine perfection to the best advantage.

375.  I take this opportunity to add that M. Bayle quotes (p. 2773) the opinion of those who believe that the book entitled Lucii Antistii Constantis de Jure Ecclesiasticorum Liber Singularis, published in 1665, is by Spinoza.  But I have reason for doubting this, despite that M. Colerus, who has passed on to me an account he wrote of the life of that famous Jew, is also of that opinion.  The initial letters L.A.C. lead me to believe that the author of this book was M. de la Cour or Van den Hoof, famous for works on the Interest of Holland, Political Equipoise, and numerous other books that he published (some of them under the signature V.D.H.) attacking the power of the Governor of Holland, which was at that time considered a danger to the Republic; for the memory of Prince William the Second’s attempt upon the city of Amsterdam was still quite fresh.[351] Most of the ecclesiastics of Holland were on the side of this prince’s son, who was then a minor, and they suspected M. de Witt and what was called the Lowenstein faction of favouring the Arminians, the Cartesians, and other sects that were feared still more, endeavouring to rouse the populace against them, and not without success, as the event proved.  It was thus very natural that M. de la Cour should publish this book.  It is true that people seldom keep to the happy mean in works published to further party interests.  I will say in passing that a French version of the Interest of Holland by M. de la Cour has just been published, under the deceptive title of Memoires de M. le Grand-Pensionnaire de Witt; as if the thoughts of a private individual, who was, to be sure, of de Witt’s party, and a man of talent, but who had not enough acquaintance with public affairs or enough ability to write as that great Minister of State might have written, could pass for the production of one of the first men of his time.