A27004:183
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.
1. That the first Cause is most powerful is evident by his works: he that gave Man his measure of power, and much more to many other creatures, hath himself much more than any of them: He that made this marvellous frame of all the Orbs, and causeth and continueth their being, and their constant rapid motion, is incomprehensibly potent. Whatsoever Power there is in all the Creatures visible and invisible set together, there must be more or as much in their first Cause alone, because nothing can give more Power than it hath.1
- 1Dicitis nihil esse quod Deus efficere non possit, & quidem sine ullo labore: ut enim hominum membra sine ulla contentione mente ipsa ut moveantur, sic numine Deorum omnia fingi, moveri mutarique posse. Neque id dicitis superstitiose atque aniliter, sed Physicâ constantique ratione: inquit Cotta de Stoicis in Cicer. de Nat. Doer. 3. p 110.
2. His works also prove that the first Cause is an Understanding: for the admirable composure, order, nature, motions, variety and usefulness of all his Creatures, do declare it. He that hath given Understanding to Man, hath formally or eminently more himself, than all men and all his creatures have. If Intellection were not an excellency above mere natural or brutish motion, Man were not better than the inanimates or brutes; but if it be, the Giver of it cannot want it. Not that his Intellection is univocally the same thing with ours. But it is something incomparably more noble, which expresseth it self in humane Intellection as its Image, and is seen by us in this Glass, and can be expressed by us no better than by this name.
2. His works also prove that the first Cause is an Ʋnderstanding: for the admirable composure, order, nature, motions, variety and usefulness of all his Creatures, do declare it. He that hath given Ʋnderstanding to Man, hath formally or eminently more himself, than all men and all his creatures have. If Intellection were not an excellency above meer natural or bruitish motion, Man were not better than the inanimates or bruites; but if it be, the Giver of it cannot want it. Not that his Intellection is univocally the same thing with ours. But it is something incomparably more noble, which expresseth it self in humane Intellection as its Image, and is seen by us in this Glass, and can be expressed by us no better than by this name.