A27004:72
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 1: Of the Nearest Truths, viz. of Humane 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.
1§. 1. I am past all doubt that I have sense, cogitation, understanding and will, with executive operation.
- 1Obj. Age ostende mihi Deum tuum. Resp. Age ostende mihi hominem tuum: fac te hominem esse cognoscam, & quis meus sit Deus demonstrare non morabor. Theophil. Antioch. ad Autolycum. lib. 1. initio.
Though I could not exactly define what these are, yet I am satisfied that I have them: and I discern, that a simple term doth better express one of these to me, than a definition doth: because they are known so immediately in and of themselves, partly by internal sensation, and partly by intuition. And words are but to make known my mind about them to another, and another's to me; but the things themselves are otherwise to be known. What it is to see, to hear, to smell, to taste,1 I know better by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, than by any definitions of them: and the bare denomination, when I understand the term, is my best expression. And if I could not answer a Sceptic, who denied the certainty of my judgment by sensation and reflexive intuition, yet nature would not suffer me to doubt. Or if any such should really make me doubt, whether I may not possibly live in a continual delusory dream,2 and all my senses and understanding be deceived; yet would it satisfy me in the main, that I must judge by such powers as I have, and can do no better, and therefore should be no further solicitous. If any would persuade me that I feel not when I am sick or wounded, or see not when I see, or taste not when or what I taste; yet must I be persuaded, that fallible or infallible, this sense must be used, and serve for the ends to which it is given me. And that I have no better faculties to use.
Though I could not exactly define what these are, yet I am satisfied that I have them: and I discern, that a simple term doth better express one of these to me, than a definition doth: because they are known so immediately in and of themselves, partly by internal sensation, and partly by intuition. And words are but to make known my mind about them to another, and anothers to me; but the things themselves are otherwise to be known. What it is to see, to hear, to smell, to taste,