A27004:671
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.
Obj. But these are things visible in their nature.
1Answ. They are so much the more vile, and less amiable. Your own Souls are invisible, will you not therefore love them? You never saw the life or form of any Plant or living Wight; you see the beauty of your Roses, and many other flowers, but you see not the life and form within, which causeth all that beauty and variety; which yet must be more excellent than the effect. Can you doubt whether all things which appear here to your sight, have an invisible Cause and Maker? or can you think him less amiable, because he is invisible, that is, more excellent?
- 1Piso ubi sup. in Cic. saith, That all the difference in this between the Stoics and the Peripatetics and Academics is but this, Whether corporal things shall be called no Good at all, or only such little Goods as to be next to none, pag 102, 203. To the shame of those nominal Christians, who know no greater good than they.Piso ubi sup. in Cic. saith, That all the difference in this between the Stoicks and the Peripateticks and Academicks is but this, Whether corporal things shall be called no Good at all, or only such little Goods as to be next to none, pag 102, 203. To the shame of those nominal Christians, who know no greater good than they.
6. In a word, it is most evident, that all this averseness of mens hearts to the Love of God, is their sin and pravity; and the unsuitableness of their nature is, because they are vitiated with sensuality, and deceived by sensible things: a disease to be cured and not defended. Their sin will not prove the contrary no duty.