A27004:159
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.
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, ⟨p. 15⟩or only intentional and not real. The corporeal part having quantity, is finite as to extension, and therefore cannot be infinite in duration. In Eternity then there is no time, no prius & posterius; but in the world there is. Much more is said by many; but this is not my present task, I shall say more of it afterward.
- 1(Vid.) Raymond. Lullium Arte magna de tabul. cap. 2, 3, 4, 5. ad sin. 23. And Alex. Gill on the Creed, pag. 88, 89, &c. & pag. 96, &c. Lege etiam Disputationem Zachariae Scholast. Epise. Mitilen. cum Ammonio contra mundi aeternitatem, in Bib. Pa. Graecolat. To. 1. pag. 330, &c.
But if it were doubtful whether the world were not eternally the Body of God, yet would it be undoubted still that he caused it. And that there were the difference of a cause and an effect, in order of nature, though not in duration. As if a Tree or a mans body were supposed eternal, yet the root and spirits of the Tree, and the principal parts and spirits in mans body would be the causal parts on which the rest depend.