A27004:176
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 5: What this Cause is, in it self. That it is God.
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.
Once for all, by [Eminently] I mean somewhat more excellent, or transcendent, which yet Man hath no better Name for, or fitter Notion of. God is thus a Substance, Life transcendently, if not formally.
§. 5. He that hath made Intelligences, or Spirits, or Minds, more noble and excellent than Bodies, is himself a Mind, Intelligence or Spirit, either formally, or transcendently and eminently.
We find that corporeal, gross and dense Beings are most dull and passive, and have least of excellency: The Body of it self in comparison of the Mind, is a dull and dirty clod. Though we have no adequate conception of a Spirit, we know not only Negatively, that it containeth a freedom from the baseness and inconveniences of corporeity, but also we know by its essential acts, that positively it is a pure active Life, Intelligence and Will, and therefore a more excellent sort of Being, than things merely corporeal which have no such action. So that we have found, as to his Being, that the first Cause is Ens, Substantia, Vita, Spiritus.
We find that corporeal, gross and dense Beings are most dull and passive, and have least of excellency: The Body of it self in comparison of the Mind, is a dull and dirty clod. Though we have no adequate conception of a Spirit, we know not onely Negatively, that it containeth a freedom from the baseness and inconveniences of corporeity, but also we know by its essential acts, that positively it is a pure active Life, Intelligence and Will, and therefore a more excellent sort of Being, than things meerly corporeal which have no such action. So that we have found, as to his Being, that the first Cause is Ens, Substantia, Vita, Spiritus.