De betoverde weereld ... in vier boeken

(10.)

to judge it; and it comes to the credibility of someone's better knowledge: so can the Scripture sometimes also report something of such matters. Such is the early and late rain in the Jewish land; original: "Jer. 5:24" the rarity of rain or storms in those lands during harvest; original: "2 Sam. 12:17" and the power of the east wind on the coasts of Asia and Palestine, in the Mediterranean Sea; original: "Psal. 48:8" and more of the same. But the most important is that the Scripture itself instructs us of matters concerning Nature which are too far from reason to reach. Such is the beginning of all things, through God's immediate creation out of nothing, and especially of man: as also the origin of the darkness and perversity which people, or the Understanding, insofar as it is still healthy, perceives in itself.

These are the general grounds that I presuppose, in such a way that no one, of whatever particular opinion he may be, will seriously dispute me: upon which I investigate according to the truth of those things of which I give a faithful account in the first Book, of what all kinds of people say and believe thereof. But I have devised no special grounds for myself: much less that I place the people or Filosofie Philosophy above the Scripture. But he who merely reads my writings as is proper shall find the contrary there as clear as day. For I observe this dispute, like also that of the Hometeren Comets, where I follow the same method (strange that people did not see it there), as twofold; belonging on one hand to Nature, on the other hand to the Scripture. I begin therefore from the people, as the least; to seek in Nature, as in the lowest school, what it truly teaches us of God, of the Geesten Spirits, and especially the Devil. For since the Heathens make so much of the Spirits, and yet have come to know nothing of them from the Scripture, which they do not know: so it was reasonable that I investigated what was grounded therein upon true people: and must have been taken up from there or accepted from elsewhere. But since it is little that I have found after a thorough investigation: I have come to fetch it from there: so I have (as now graduated from the lower school) gone up with the 8th chapter of the 2nd part to the Scripture, the highest Master. And just as I, in the first 7 chapters, moving in Nature, leave the Scripture

(11.)

entirely outside of it; to test how far the human understanding, exerting its powers, can come through itself alone: so I also let the people stand as soon as I have stepped into the sanctuary of God's infallible Word.

To be sure: I let the people stand, so far as they would serve as a ground or rule to interpret the Scripture: but not as a means to trace the understanding of the Scriptures; for that I might not pass by. Without taking the people or the Understanding along, I would be but a beast before God; who speaks to no beasts, but to reasonable men. The people can proceed alone in their affairs without the Scripture: for the sciences and the arts are traced from the people and through the people; that is, man puts his own understanding to work therein, and has no instruction from God's Word for that, and he does not need it. But for higher matters, which concern God's will for the salvation of men, the Scripture is necessary as the ground upon which the certainty rests. But the people must go along here, to understand the sense of the Scriptures under the guidance of God's Spirit. And so I must also, in that second investigation of the second part, where the certainty of the Scripture alone matters, nevertheless take the people along so that they help me investigate what the Scripture says to us. Not as I understand that the matters are: but I must nonetheless understand that the Scripture says that it is so; even if I do not understand how it is.

But here lies most of the knot: everyone cries out that the Scripture says it because he understands it so himself; and then that sense easily falls to him (when it can be understood in more than one way) which best agrees with his conception. Or he has, without sufficient investigation, accepted an opinion of which he wants to be further instructed from the Scripture: then he already leans toward that side, and if that scripture can be pulled there with an appearance, over which the investigation then falls, he does his best for it. Thus he then thinks that he now himself has the Scripture as proof of his opinion, because it seems to say what he wants it to say, in which he always seems to be right.

Daar catchword: There