A27004:332
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
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.
Otherwise Man should not differ from Inanimates and Bruits.1 A stone is to be moved Physically, and a Brute by the necessitating objects of sense: But Man hath Reason, which they have not, and he is a free Agent: And therefore though God concur to his Physical motion as such, ⟨p. 45⟩yet he must move him as Rational, by such objects, and such proposals, and arguments, and means, as are suited to Reason. By presenting things absent to his understanding, to prevail against the sense of things present; and by teaching him to prefer greater things before lesser; and by showing him the commodity and discommodity, which should move him; God would not have made him Rational, if he would not have Governed him accordingly.
Otherwise Man should not differ from Inanimates and Bruits.1 A stone is to be moved Physically, and a Bruit by the necessitating objects of sense: But Man hath Reason, which they have not, and he is a free Agent: And therefore though God concurr to his Physical motion as such, ⟨p. 45⟩yet he must move him as Rational, by such objects, and such proposals, and arguments, and means, as are suited to Reason. By presenting things absent to his understanding, to prevail against the sense of things present; and by teaching him to preferre greater things before lesser; and by shewing him the commodity and discommodity, which should move him; God would not have made him Rational, if he would not have Governed him accordingly.
- 1Est enim virtus perfecta ratio, quod certè in natura est. Cicero de leg. 1. p. 226.
§. 6. III. If the way of physical motion alone, is not so excellent and suitable as the way of Moral Government by Laws also, then God doth not only move man physically, and leave it to Magistrates to Rule as Morally: But the antecedent is true: Therefore so is the Consequent.