A27004:409
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.
2. He is Omnipotent and All sufficient, and therefore as Able to observe and govern every the smallest Thing and ⟨p. 62⟩action, as if he had but that one to look after in the world. And I think, if God had but one man at all to mind and govern in all the world, the Adversary himself, that now denieth his particular providence, would confess, that God doth observe and regard that one individual. It is mens Atheistical or Blasphemous diminutive thoughts of God, who conceive of him as finite, though they call him infinite, which is the cause of all such kind of errors.
3. His Omniscience infallibly proveth also his particular observance of all things and actions in the world: for His Knowledge being his natural perfection is necessary: He cannot be ignorant of any thing that is. If I had but one thing just before my eyes to see, in the open light, I must needs see it, if it have the necessaries of a visible object, unless I wink. If the Sun's illumination were an act of vision, (as its like it is nothing more ignoble) how easily would it at once discern all that is upon one half of the earth at once? All things are naked and open before the eye of the Omniscient being: He cannot but behold or know them, and therefore observe them and regard them.
4. His Creation, Causation and Manutetency also prove, that he both knoweth and regardeth all things: For can he be either ignorant, forgetful or mindless of that which he made, and still doth so conserve, as to continue a kind of Creation of it? His Omnipotent Will which gave it a being, doth still continue it; should he withdraw his active sustentation, it would turn all, not only to confusion but to nothing. And doth he not know and regard what is continually as in his hand, or by continual volition produced or maintained by him? He is the universal Cause of all the agency and motion in the world; in him we Live, Move and Be: and can he be ignorant or regardless of what he doth? Why will he make, maintain, and move that which he doth not regard?