A27004:138
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 1 › Chapter 4: Of Man, and other things, as produced by their first Cause.
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 is not yet sixty years since I was no man:1 I had a late beginning, and though I now enquire not of what duration my soul is, my present composition is not from eternity: the same I see of others, that are born men, who were lately none: and so of all things that are here generated.
- 1Read Galen's admirations of the Creator, l. de usu part. praecipue l. 3. cap. 10.
§. 2. I did not make my self, 1at least as an independent uncaused being.
- 1Animorum nulla in terris origo est. Nil enim est in animis nostris mistum & concretum, aut quod ex terra natum, humidum, igneum, &c. His enim naturis nihil inest quod vim memoriae, mentis, cogitationis habeat, &c. Nec invenietur unquam unde ad hominem venire possint, nisi à Deo. Cicero.
I could not as I am, make my self what I am: for so my self as the cause should be before my self as the effect, which is a contradiction, unless the word [self] be used equivocally. When I was not I acted not. If it be said by any, that the Soul did fabricate a Body to it self, and so one part of me made the other, I answer, 1. My soul did not make the matter of that Body: for if it did, it made it of something or of nothing; if of something, either it made that something or not; if not, then it made not the first matter of the Body. If it made it of nothing, it must be Omnipotent; but it is conscious of impotency. 2. My soul did not make it self, for then it must be before it self, which is impossible. And if I made neither form nor matter, I did not make my self. If it be said, that my Soul is an eternal uncaused being, and so did fabricate this Body as a dwelling for it self: I answer, 1. As to the supposed