A27004:186
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.
§. 8. What ever the first Cause is, it must needs be in absolute Perfection.
It must needs have in it more than the whole world besides, because it giveth all that to the whole Creation, which it hath received, and is. An imperfect cause could never have made such a world as we behold, and partly know. And were the first Cause imperfect, there would be no perfection in being.
§. 9. The perfection of the first Cause in Being requireth that it be Eternal, without Beginning or End of duration.
Nothing in the world can be more evident to reason, than that something must be Eternal, without beginning; nothing being more evident, than that Nothing hath no power, no action, no effects, and so can make nothing. And therefore if ever there had been a time, when Nothing was, Nothing could ever have been: imagine that there were Nothing now, and it is certain there never would be any thing.