A27004:636
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.
As a Man will look on the Picture, the Letters, the works of his absent Friend, and retain the Image of him in his heart; so God, though not absent, yet unseen, expresseth himself to us in all his works, that we may studiously there behold, admire and love him.
§. 30. Therefore Gods Works must be more valued and studied, as they are the Glass representing the Image of his perfections, ⟨p. 108⟩and showing us his chief essential amiableness, than as they are beneficial and useful to us, and so show us only his benignity to us.
§. 30. Therefore Gods Works must be more valued and studied, as they are the Glass representing the Image of his perfections, ⟨p. 108⟩and shewing us his chief essential amiableness, than as they are beneficial and useful to us, and so shew us only his benignity to us.
§. 31. Yet must self-love, and sense it self, and the sensible sweetness and experience of Mercies be improved to our easier taste of God's essential Goodness, and we must rise up from the lower to the higher object: and this is our chief use of sensible benefits.1
- 1Nihil homini metuendum, nisi ne faelicitatem excludat. Solon in Laert. p. 31. Summo Bono constituto in Philosophia, constituta sunt omnia: nam caeteris in rebus sive praetermissum, sive ignoratum est quippiam, non plus incommodi, quam quanti quaeque earum rerum est, in quibus neglectum est aliquid. Summum autem bonum si ignoretur, vivendi rationem ignorari necesse est: ex quo rantus error consequitur, ut quem in portum see recipiant, scire non possunt. Cognitis autem rerum firiibus (bonorum & malorum) inventa vitae via est conformatioque omnium officiorum. Piso in Cic. de finib. lib. 5. pag. 182. Decrescere summum bonum non potest. Mortalia eminent, cadunt, deteruntur, crescunt, exhauriuntur, implentur. Divinorum una natura est. Senec. Epist. 66. p. 644, 645.