A27004:487
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 10: Of GOD's particular Laws as known in Nature.
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.
§. 28. Nature telleth us, that we should deal justly with all, 1giving to every one his due, and doing to them as we would be done by.
- 1When an Adulterer asked Thales whether he should make a vow? he answered him, Adultery is as bad as perjury: intimating, that he that made no conscience of adultery, would make none of perjury. Laert. Cyrus is praised by Plutarch, de curiosit. that would not see Panthaea: and they are by him reproved that cast a wanton eye at women in coaches as they pass by, and look out at windows to have a full view of them, and yet think that they commit no fault: suffering a curious eye and a wandering mind to slide and run every way.
§. 29. Particularly it telleth us, that we must do nothing injuriously against the life, or health, or liberty of our neighbour, but do our best for their preservation and comfort.
§. 30. Man being so noble a creature, and his education so necessary to his welfare, and promiscuous unregulated generation tending so manifestly to confusion, ill education, divisions and corruption of mankind; and unbridled exercise of lust tending to the abasement of reason, and corruption of body and mind, Nature telleth us, that carnal copulation should be very strictly regulated, and kept within the bounds of lawful marriage; and that the contract of marriage must be faithfully kept, and no one defile his neighbours bed, nor wrong another's chastity, or their own, in thought, word, or deed.