A26879:115
The catechizing of families a teacher of householders how to teach their householdsThe catechizing of families a teacher of housholders how to teach their housholds
The catechizing of families a teacher of householders how to teach their households : useful also to school-masters and tutors of youth : for those that are past the common small catechisms [sic], and would grow to a more rooted faith, and to the fuller understanding of all that is commonly needful to a safe, holy comfortable and profitable life / written by Richard Baxter ...The catechizing of families a teacher of housholders how to teach their housholds : useful also to school-masters and tutors of youth : for those that are past the common small chatechisms [sic], and would grow to a more rooted faith, and to the fuller understanding of all that is commonly needful to a safe, holy comfortable and profitable life / written by Richard Baxter ...
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1683
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
A. By his works; (And I shall afterwards tell it you more fully by his Word.) Man did not make himself; Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Trees and Plants make not themselves: The Earth, and Water, and Air made not themselves: And if the Souls of men have a maker, the Spirits next above them must have a Maker: and so on, till you come to a first Cause that was made by none. There must be a first Cause, and there can be but one.
Q. 7. Why may there not be many Gods, or Spirits, that were made by none, but are Eternally of themselves?
A. Because it is a Contradiction; The same would be both perfect and imperfect: Perfect, because he is of himself Eternally, without a cause, and so dependent upon none: And yet Imperfect, because he hath but a Part of that Being that is ⟨p. 12⟩said to be perfect: For many are more than One, and all make up the absolute, perfect being, and One of them is but a Part of all: And to be a Part is to be Imperfect. However, many subordinate Created Spirits may unfitly be called Gods, there can be but one uncreated God in the first and proper sense.
A. Because it is a Contradiction; The same would be both perfect and imperfect: Perfect, because he is of himself Eternally, without a cause, and so dependent upon none: And yet Imperfect, because he hath but a Part of that Being that is ⟨p. 12⟩said to be perfect: For many are more than One, and all make up the absolute, perfect being, and One of them is but a Part of all: And to be a Part is to be Imperfect. However, many subordinate Created Spirits may unfitly be called Gods, there can be but one uncreated God in the first and proper sence.