A27004:142
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.
1And if my Soul did thus fabricate my Body, then what needed it pre-existent Matter to make it of? And why did it not make it sooner, seeing it hath such an inclination to it? Can an independent Mind be ignorant what it was, and what it did it self from all eternity, before it entered into this flesh? And why doth it not amend the infirmities of this Body? or why did it not make it self a Body more excellent, more comely, more sound, more clean, and more durable? Could it choose no better? can it not heal and perfect this? can it not prevent the dissolution of it? Seeing I find it so much in love with it, and so unwilling to be separated from it, if it were an independent mind, and caused it at the first, it would not be unwillingly taken from it, and leave it to rottenness and dust?
1And if my Soul did thus fabricate my Body, then what needed it pre-existent Matter to make it of? And why did it not make it sooner, seeing it hath such an inclination to it? Can an independent Mind be ignorant what it was, and what it did it self from all eternity, before it entred into this flesh? And why doth it not amend the infirmities of this Body? or why did it not make it self a Body more excellent, more comely, more sound, more clean, and more durable? Could it choose no better? can it not heal and perfect this? can it not prevent the dissolution of it? Seeing I find it so much in love with it, and so unwilling to be separated from it, if it were an independent mind, and caused it at the first, it would not be unwillingly taken from it, and leave it to rottenness and dust?
- 1Mundum autem fieti (dicunt Stoici) cum ex igne substantia per aërem versa in humorem fuerit; deinde erassior ipsius pars effecta fuerit terra: porro subtilior in aërem cesserit, eademque magis ac magis extenuata in ignem evaserit. Id. ibid.
And if my Soul did thus independently make my Body, did all other Souls do so by their Bodies, or not? If they did not, then they had a superior Cause; if they did, then it seems that every Worm, and Fly, and Toad hath a Soul, that is an eternal, uncaused, independent being. But why then have they no knowledge, no reason, no speech? why did they not choose a more honourable dwelling? why do they all stoop to the service of man, if they are equally excellent? And then it would follow that there are as many eternal independent beings, as there are Souls or living Wights in all the world. And so instead of one true perfect God, there would be innumerable demi-gods, which all had the perfection of independencies, and none of them had a perfection of being and sufficiency: which would put us upon the further enquiries, whether they do all their business independently, or by a general council and consent, and how they all do to agree, and not fall into perpetual wars; how the soul of an idiot, or a wicked man, or of a Toad or Serpent, came to be so self-denying as to be contented with that part, when the Soul of Aristotle, and Seneca, and Paul were so much better provided for.