LEIBNIZ

     "For what greater master can we find than God, the author of the universe? And what more beautiful hymn can we sing to Him than one in which the witness of things themselves expresses His praise. But the more one can give reasons for His love, the more one loves God...Nor should we think that anything is badly arranged in the universe or that God neglects those who honor Him."
(Leibniz, 1976, 280)

     "Therefore power and knowledge are perfections and insofar as they belong to God, have no limits. Hence it follows that God, who possesses supreme and infinite wisdom, acts in the most perfect way and does this not only in a metaphysical but also in a moral sense. With respect to ourselves we can also express this as follows: the more enlightened and informed we are about the works of God, the more we shall be inclined to find them excellent and in entire conformity with everything which might have been desired."
(Leibniz,  304)

     "I hold, instead, that God does nothing for which He does not deserve to be praised."
(Leibniz,  305)

     "That the love of God requires our entire satisfaction with and acquiescence in that which He has done. The general knowledge of this great truth, that God always acts in the most perfect and most desirable way possible, is in my opinion the basis of the love which we owe to God above all things, since he who loves seeks his satisfaction in the felicity or perfection of the object loved and of his actions."
(Leibniz, 305)

     "I believe that it is difficult to love God truly if, having power to change his inclination, one is not inclined to will what He wills. In fact, those who are not satisfied with what He does seem to me like discontented subjects whoce intentions are not very different from those of rebels."
(Leibniz, 305)

     "Since He is the best of all masters, He never demands more than righteous intentions, and it is for Him to know the proper hour and place for making our good designs successful."
(Leibniz, 305)

     "It is enough, then, to have this confidence in God that He does everything for the best and that nothing can harm those who love Him. But to understand the reasons in particular which have moved Him to choose this order of the universe - to allow sin to be committed, to dispense His saving grace in a certain way - this surpasses the powers of a finite mind, especially if this mind has not yet attained the blessedness of the vision of God."
(Leibniz, 305)

     "But it is well to understand that God does nothing without order. So Whatever passes for extraordinary is so only in relation to some particular order established among creatures. For as concerns universal order, everything is in conformity with it. So true is this that not only does nothing happen in the world which is absolutely irregular but one cannot even imagine such an event."
(Leibniz, 306)

      "Thus we may say that no matter how God might have created the world, it would always have been regular and in a certain general order."
(Leibniz, 306)

     "But God has chosen the world which is the most perfect, that is to say, which is at the same time the simplest in its hypotheses and the richest in phenomena."
(Leibniz, 306)

      "Now it is clear, first of all, that the created substances depend on God, who preserves them and indeed even produces them continually by a kind of emanation, as we produce our thoughts."
(Leibniz, 311)

     "Since every person or substance is like a little world which expresses the great one, we can say equally that this extraordinary action of God upon this substance is always miraculous, though it is included in the general order of the universe insofar as that order is expressed by the essence or individual concept of this substance."
(Leibniz, 313)

      "For God always aims at the best and the most perfect."
(Leibniz,  315-316)

      "God is an artisan skillful enough to produce a machine a thousand times more engenious than that of our bodies, by using nothing but rather simple fluids formed expressly in such a way that only the ordinary laws of nature are needed to give them the organization necessary to produce so admirable an effect. But this is true also that this would not happen if God were not the Author of nature. "                                                                       
(Leibniz,  317)

      "For it appears most clearly that all the other substances depend on God as our thoughts emanate from our substance, and that God is all in all, that he is closely united with all his creatures, yet in proportion with their perfection, and that it is he alone who determines them from without through his influence"
(Leibniz,  324)

     "We must consider God, not only as the principle and cause of all substances and all beings, but also as the head of all persons or intelligent substances and the absolute monarch of the most perfect city or state, such as is the universe composed of all spirits together, God Himself being the most perfect of all spirits, as well the greatest of all beings.
(Leibniz,  327)

     "Everything works for the greatest good of those who are good, and the righteous shall be as the suns, so that neither our senses nor our spirit has ever tasted anything approaching the happiness which God has prepared for those who love Him."
(Leibniz,  328)

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Leibniz, G. W. , Philosophical Papers and Letters. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1976.