A27004:559
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.
§. 13. Those mercies therefore are the greatest, 1which reveal most of God, with the least impediments of our ascent unto him:
- 1Bonum summum est animi operatio secundum virtutom optimam & perfectissimam in vitâ perfectâ. Aristot. Rhet. 1. Tria sunt genera bonorum; maxima animi, secunda corporis; externa tertia: Cicero 3. Tuscul. Nihil bonum nisi quod honestum; nihil malum nisi quod turpe. Cicero. At. l. 10.Bonum summum est animi operatio secundum virtutom optimam & perfectissimam in vitâ perfectâ. Aristot. Rhet. 1. Tria sunt genera bonorum; maxima animi, secunda corporis; externa tertia: Cicero 3. Tuscul. Nihil bonum nisi quod honestum; nihil malum nisi quod turpe. Cicero. Att. l. 10.
§. 14. Therefore his Love most revealed and communicated, and his perfect Goodness most manifested to the Soul, is the Greatest Mercy; and all corporal Mercies are to be estimated and desired but as they subserve and conduce to these, and not as they are pleasing to our flesh or senses.
§. 15. The Perfect Goodness of the Will of God, though it contain Benignity, and Mercy, yet is not to be measured by the good which he doth to us our selves▪ or to any Creature; But its highest excellency consisteth in its Essential Perfection, and the Perfect Love that God hath to himself, and in the conformity of his Will to his most perfect Wisdom, which knoweth what is to be willed ad extra; and in his complacency in all that is good as such.1