A27004:184
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.
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.
3. And as it is a nobler nature which acteth by Volition, or Free-will, than that which hath no Will at all, and so no voluntary choice and complacency; so the first Cause which hath given this noble faculty to Man, hath certainly himself, though not a Will univocally the same with ours, yet a Will of a transcendent excellency, which expresseth it self in ours as its Image, and must be something better and greater, but cannot be lower or less. And though such Indetermination as proceedeth from imperfection, and consequently such Liberty belongeth not to the first Cause, which hath no defects, yet all that Liberty which belongeth to perfection must undoubtedly belong to Him. He that did what we see, hath done it willingly and freely.