A27004:1180
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
Part 2 › Chapter 4: Of the Nature and Properties of the Christian Religion.
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.
It maketh man understand the nature of his corrupt depraved state; that it is a falling from GOD to SELF: and that his recovery lieth in returning from SELF to GOD. It showeth him how selfishness is the principle of divisions, enmity, wrath, contentions, envy, malice, covetousness, injustice, oppression, wars, uncharitableness, and all the iniquity of the world. And how self is the grand enemy of God, and Man, and of the Public good and peace; and contrary ⟨p. 232⟩to the love of God and our neighbour, and the Commonwealth. It giveth us so many precepts for self-denial, as no other Religion did ever mention; and such an example against it in Jesus Christ, as is the astonishment of Men and Angels. And therefore all other Religions did in vain attempt the true purifying of heart and life, or the pacifying of the divided minds of men, while they let alone this sin of selfishness, (or lightly touched it) which is the root and heart of all the rest.
It maketh man understand the nature of his corrupt depraved state; that it is a falling from GOD to SELF: and that his recovery lieth in returning from SELF to GOD. It sheweth him how selfishness is the principle of divisions, enmity, wrath, contentions, envy, malice, covetousness, injustice, oppression, wars, uncharitableness, and all the iniquity of the world. And how self is the grand enemy of God, and Man, and of the Publick good and peace; and contrary ⟨p. 232⟩to the love of God and our neighbour, and the Commonwealth. It giveth us so many precepts for self-denial, as no other Religion did ever mention; and such an example against it in Jesus Christ, as is the astonishment of Men and Angels. And therefore all other Religions did in vain attempt the true purifying of heart and life, or the pacifying of the divided minds of men, while they let alone this sin of selfishness, (or lightly touch'd it) which is the root and heart of all the rest.
§. 5. No Religion doth so much reveal to us the Nature of God,