A27004:157
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.
If such there be, its inactivity and passiveness showeth it to want the excellency of independency: and the ordination of it into its several beings, and the disposals of it there, is done by a principle of infinite power, activity and wisdom: on which having this dependence in its ordination and use,1 it must be dependent also in its being.
If such there be, its inactivity and passiveness sheweth it to want the excellency of independency: and the ordination of it into its several beings, and the disposals of it there, is done by a principle of infinite power, activity and wisdom: on which having this dependence in its ordination and use,1 it must be dependent also in its being.
- 1The Platonists simile is, As the substance and shadow may be at one time, though one be the cause of the other; so here.
§. 7. If it were doubtful whether the world were eternal, and whether it were the Body of God as the informing Soul, yet it would be past doubt that it is not uncaused or independent, but caused by God.
That the world is not eternal we want not natural evidence: for,1 saith Lullius, then there would be two Eternals, the Cause and its Effects; and then all things would be caused by natural necessity, and not by free will, and consequently always alike: and then there hath been Evil eternally, and both the caused Good and the Evil would in all other aggravations be answerable to Eternity, and the Evil would be as soon, as great, as durable as the good. The same world which is finite in good and evil, and other respects, would be infinite in Eternity; and the evil would have an infiniteness in point of Eternity, and this necessitated by the eternity of the world: And seeing no individuals are eternal, the supposed eternity of the world must be but of some common matter,