A26888:466
The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls…
The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls of the malice and misery of the devils and the damned : and of the blessedness of the justified, fully evinced by the unquestionable histories of apparitions, operations, witchcrafts, voices &c. / written, as an addition to many other treatises for the conviction of Sadducees and infidels, by Richard Baxter.The certainty of the worlds of spirits and, consequently, of the immortality of souls of the malice and misery of the devils and the damned : and of the blessedness of the justified, fully evinced by the unquestionable histories of apparitions, operations, witchcrafts, voices &c. / written, as an addition to many other treatises for the conviction of Sadduces and infidels, by Richard Baxter.
London: printed for T. Parkhurst, 1691
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.
I know that many excellent Divines do ⟨p. 230⟩that one of these called Angels, was Christ. To which I say, 1. If it were so, that doth not deny, but confirm what I am pleading for: If Christ appearing, made Angels his Companions, it was the more for their Honour.
2. But if this be true, either Christ had a Body, yea many Bodies before his Incarnation by Mary, or not. If not, what were all these Similitudes of Men that did eat and drink, and talk, and act? Were they mere shadows and Delusions? How then could they speak, and act so Potently? If yea, then was the pure God head Hypostatically united to these many appearing Bodies; Or not: Who can prove a difference save as to the Matter and Duration, between his union with these, and with his last assumed Flesh. And yet the Scripture appropriateth Christs Inca•••tion, and coming in the Body to the Fun••• of Time and to those last days. I am ••th to say without proof, that Christ […] Bodies, lest any should infer that there have been many Christs: But if this […] be held, it will introduce Peter Sterr• Doctrine as most probable, that Christ as the Eternal Word […], God first […] the Noblest re•ted Nature ab••e […] (or as Dr ••ore calleth it, an Eternal […], or as he and John Turner a prime Created •e in the pri••e Matter) and did unite ••••lf to this […]| ⟨p. 231⟩lical Nature, and by it cause all the rest: And that this second Nature appeared to the Fathers by such Temporary assumed Bodies, and at last assumed the Body of a Man: being, say some, it self a Soul to it; but as others, assuming both a Human Soul and Body: And so, that Christ hath three Natures, a Divine, a Superangelical, and a Humane: But of this oft elsewhere. This opinion is reconciling as to the Artans, who have affirmed Christ to be a Creature above Angels: And if God made such a Creature, methinks it should be easy to persuade them, that he that is as the Centre, and more than a Soul, maketh all the World to be One (though of unlike parts) doth primarily unite himself with the first and Noblest of his productions.