A27004:397
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.
§. 25. This power of Conscience causeth all the World, to praise or dispraise men according to this Moral Good or Evil.
Mark but the Infidels themselves, or any whom Vice hath turned into Monsters, and they will commend men upon the account of that inward sincerity, and honesty, which God only can make Laws for: and dispraise men for the contrary. ⟨p. 59⟩If you say,1 that they do this only because such virtues make men fit for humane converse, and profitable or not hurtful to one another; I answer, we are not enquiring of the final cause, but the formal: Though they praise sincere and honest men, and those that are loving, compassionate, kind, and dispraise dissemblers, malicious, and men of hurtful dispositions, yet you may observe that they speak not of these only as useful or hurtful qualities, but as moral good or evil; as things that men ought or ought not to do; which they are bound to do, or not do by some obligation: And what Obligation can make it any mans duty, if there be no Law of God in Nature for it, when it is out of the reach of the Laws of men. Mark Heathens, and Infidels, and Atheists in their talk, and you shall hear them praise or dispraise men, for some things which intimate a Divine Obligation; which showeth that the Conscience of the World beareth witness to the supreme universal Government of God.
Mark but the Infidels themselves, or any whom Vice hath turned into Monsters, and they will commend men upon the account of that inward sincerity, and honesty, which God only can make Laws for: and dispraise men for the contrary. ⟨p. 59⟩If you say,1 that they do this only because such virtues make men fit for humane converse, and profitable or not hurtfull to one another; I answer, we are not enquiring of the final cause, but the formal: Though they praise sincere and honest men, and those that are loving, compassionate, kinde, and dispraise dissemblers, malicious, and men of hurtfull dispositions, yet you may observe that they speak not of these only as usefull or hurtfull qualities, but as morall good or evil; as things that men ought or ought not to do; which they are bound to do, or not do by some obligation: And what Obligation can make it any mans duty, if there be no Law of God in Nature for it, when it is out of the reach of the Laws of men. Mark Heathens, and Infidels, and Atheists in their talk, and you shall hear them praise or dispraise men, for some things which intimate a Divine Obligation; which sheweth that the Conscience of the World beareth witness to the supream universal Government of God.