A27004:786
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.
Obj. But you seem here to forget that you had before made Godliness to be a Mans loss and undoing, if so be there were no life to come? when now you make the loss and hurt to be as nothing.
Answ. 1. I spake before especially of those that suffer persecution for their fidelity:1 I speak here especially of all the multitude of the World, who get nothing but the pleasures of sin by their sensuality. 2. When I speak of all the pleasures, profits and honours of this World, and life it self as next to nothing, I do not say that they are simply nothing. They are nothing compared to everlasting Joy or Misery: But they are something to him that shall have no more: The ease and life of a poor Bird or Beast is naturally desirable to it: One of the best of Christians said, that If in this life only we had hope in Christ, we were of all men most miserable: and yet, that The sufferings of this present time, are not worthy to be compared to the Glory which shall be revealed in us. There is no contradiction between these two; that these short-lived pleasures are not worth one thought in comparison of the life to come: and yet that they would be considerable, if there were no other to be had and hoped for.
- 1Plato dixit finem esse, Deo similem fieri. Vittutem sufficere quidem ad bene beatéque vivendum; caeterum instrumentis indigere, corporis bonis, robore, fanitate, integritate sensuum & caeteris id genus: Exterioribus item, puta opibus, &c. Laert. in Platone. Arbitratur & Deos humana cernere atque curare — & daemones esse— Porro in Dialogis Justitiam, Divinam legem arbitratus est, ut ad justè agendum potentiùs suaderet, ne post mortem paenas improbi luerent. Id. ibid.