A27004:208
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.
He that hath given so great Power to the creatures, as is exercised by them, especially the Sun and fixed Stars in their several Vortices or Orbs; and he that could make such a World of nothing, and uphold the being, and maintain the order, and cause, and continue the rapid motions of all the Vortices or Orbs, (which are to us innumerable, and each of incomprehensible excellency and magnitude) is certainly to be accounted no less than Omnipotent. By his Omnipotency I mean that, by which in it self considered in primo instanti he can do all things possible, that is, which belong not to Impotency, but to Power: And by which in secundo instanti he can do all things, which his Infinite Wisdom judgeth congruous and meet to be done: And in tertio instanti, can do all that he will do, and are pleasing to him.
§. 17. The understanding of the first Cause must needs be Omniscient, and infinite Wisdom.
1. He that hath given so much wisdom to such a Worm as Man, must have more than all the men in the World! Whatever knowledge is in the whole Creation, being given by Him, doth prove that formally or eminently he hath more. Were it all contracted into one Intelligence, it must be less than His that caused it. He hath not given more wisdom than he had to give: nor so much as he had (or is) himself. For if he should make any thing equal to Himself, there would be two Infinites, and there would be a perfect self-sufficient being, which yet had lately no sufficiency or being, and there would be a being independent in facto esse, which was dependent in fieri: which are Contradictions.