A27004:1057
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.
WHILST I resolved upon a deep and faithful search into the grounds of all Religion, and a review and trial of all that I had my self believed, I thought meet first to pass by Persons, and shut up my Books, and with retired Reason to read the Book of Nature only: and what I have there found, I have justly told you in the former Part; purposely omitting all that might be controverted by any considerable sober reason, that I might neither stop my self nor my Reader in the way; and that I might not deceive my self with plausible consequences of unsound or questionable antecedents; nor discourage my Reader by the casting of some doubtful passages in his way, which ⟨p. 192⟩might tempt him to question all the rest. For I know what a deal of handsome structure may fall through the falseness of some one of the supports, which seemed to stand a great way out of sight: And I have been wearied my self, with subtle discourses of learned men, who in a long series of Ergo's have thought, that they have left all sure behind them, when a few false suppositions were the life of all. And I know that he who interposeth any doubtful things, doth raise a diffidence in the Reader's mind, which maketh him suspect that the ground he standeth on is not firm, and whether all that he readeth be not mere uncertain things.1 Therefore leaving things controvertable for a fitter place and time, I have thus far taken up so much as is plain and sure, (which I find of more importance and usefulness to my own information and confirmation, than any of those controvertible points would be, if I could never so certainly determine them.
WHILST I resolved upon a deep and faithful search into the grounds of all Religion, and a review and trial of all that I had my self believed, I thought meet first to pass by Persons, and shut up my Books, and with retired Reason to read the Book of Nature only: and what I have there found, I have justly told you in the former Part; purposely omitting all that might be controverted by any considerable sober reason, that I might neither stop my self nor my Reader in the way; and that I might not deceive my self with plausible consequences of unsound or questionable antecedents; nor discourage my Reader by the casting of some doubtful passages in his way, which ⟨p. 192⟩