A27004:1040
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…
The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural evidence the being of God ... : the second part, of Christianity, proving by evidence supernatural and natural, the certain truth of the Christian belief ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; also an appendix defending the soul's immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other pseudo-philosophers.
London: printed by R. White for Fran. Titon, 1667
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.
§. 14. And it is man's great advantage for his recovery, that Vanity and Vexation are so legibly written on all things here below; and that frustrated expectations, and unsatisfied minds, and the fore-knowledge of the end of all, and bodily pains which find no ease, with multitudes of bitter experiences, do so abundantly help him to escape the snare (the love) of present things.
For all men that perish are condemned for loving the creature above the Creator: and therefore such a world, which appeareth so evidently to be vain, and empty,* and deceitful, and vexatious, and which all men know will turn them off at last with as little comfort, as if they had never seen a day of pleasure in it; I say, such a world, one would think, should give us an antidote against its own deceit, and sufficiently wean us from its inordinate love. At least this is a very great advantage.
- *Quotidie morimur, quotidie enim demitur aliqua pars vitae: & tunc quoque cum crescimus vita decrescit. Hunc ipsum quem agimus diem, cum morte dividimus. Sen. ep. 24. Natura nihil hominibus brevitate vitae praestitit melius. Id. Nihil aeque tibi proficiet ad temperantiam omnium rerum, quàm frequens cogitatio brevis aevi & hujus incerti. Quicquid facis respice ad mortem. Sen. ep. 25.
§. 15. It is also a common and great advantage for man's recovery, that his life here is so short, and his death so certain, as that reason must needs tell him, that the pleasures of sin are also short, and that he should always live as parting with this world, and ready to enter into another.