56. A learned physician of Holland named Johan van Beverwyck took the trouble to write _De Termino Vitae_ and to collect sundry answers, [154] letters and discourses of some learned men of his time on this subject. This collection has been printed, and it is astonishing to see there how often people are misled, and how they have confused a problem which, properly speaking, is the easiest in the world. After that it is no wonder that there are very many doubts which the human race cannot abandon. The truth is that people love to lose themselves, and this is a kind of ramble of the mind, which is unwilling to subject itself to attention, to order, to rules. It seems as though we are so accustomed to games and jesting that we play the fool even in the most serious occupations, and when we least think to do so. 57. I fear that in the recent dispute between the theologians of the Augsburg Confession, _De Termino Paenitentiae Peremptorio_, which has called forth so many treatises in Germany, some misunderstanding, though of a different nature, has slipped in. The terms prescribed by the laws are amongst lawyers known as _fatalia_. It may be said, in a sense, that the _peremptory term_, prescribed to man for his repentance and amendment, is certain in the sight of God, with whom all is certain. God knows when a sinner will be so hardened that thereafter nothing can be done for him: not indeed that it would be impossible for him to do penance or that sufficient grace needs must be refused to him after a certain term, a grace that never fails; but because there will be a time whereafter he will no more approach the ways of salvation. But we never have certain marks for recognizing this term, and we are never justified in considering a man utterly abandoned: that would be to pass a rash judgement. It were better always to have room for hope; and this is an occasion, with a thousand others, where our ignorance is beneficial. _Prudens futuri temporis exitum_ _Caliginosa nocte premit Deus_.