A27004:765
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 14: That there is a Life of Retribution after this.
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.
Answ. 1. They do it through insufficiency to attain their end by a better means: but the Omnipotent and Omniscient hath no such insufficiency. 2. They may not lie or utter any untruth to do it, though they may hide some truth by words which he is apt to mistake. But if the world be governed by such hopes and fears of futurity, it is hard to think whence they should fetch the object, but from some divine revelation in nature. 3. A whole course of Government of all the rational world, by so sorry an instrument as deceit and falsehood, is more inconsistent with the nature and perfections of God, than a particular act of deceit in a work of necessity and charity is with the nature of imperfect man.
Answ. 1. They do it through insufficiency to attain their end by a better means: but the Omnipotent and Omniscient hath no such insufficiency. 2. They may not lie or utter any untruth to do it, though they may hide some truth by words which he is apt to mistake. But if the world be governed by such hopes and fears of futurity, it is hard to think whence they should fetch the object, but from some divine revelation in nature. 3. A whole course of Government of all the rational world, by so sorry an instrument as deceit and falshood, is more inconsistent with the nature and perfections of God, than a particular act of deceit in a work of necessity and charity is with the nature of imperfect man.
The Minor is proved in the answer to the last objections, and by the common experience of the world.
Obj. How little doth the hopes and fears of another world do with the most? Do you not see that fleshly interest ruleth them, and therefore they are what the Great ones would have them be, who can help or hurt them?