A27004:161
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.
§. 8. It remaineth therefore most certain, that something is a first Cause to all things else, and that he is the Creator of all things.
For if the world be not uncaused and independent, it hath a Cause; and if it have a Cause it hath a Creator: For when there was nothing but himself, he must make all things of Himself, or of Nothing: not of Himself, for He is not Material, and they are not parts of God (who is indivisible:) He that thinks otherwise, should not kill a Flea or a Toad, nor blame any man that beateth, or robbeth, or wrongeth him, nor eat any creature; because he doth kill, and blame, and eat a part of God, who is unblameable, and can injure none, and is to be more reverenced.
§. 9. If there were any doubt whether the Sun, or Fire, 1or passive matter had a first Cause, there can be no doubt at all concerning MAN, which is the thing which I am enquiring into at the present.
- 1Quid enim potest esse tam apertum, tamque perspicuum, cum coelum suspeximus, coelestiaque contemplati sumus, quàm esse aliquod numen, praestantissimae mentis, quo haec regantur. Cicer. l. 2. de Nat Deor.