A27004:845
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.
When a man deliberateth whether he shall do this sin or not, (as lie or murder) he cannot act in general without God, but that he chooseth this act rather than another, may be without any more of God, than his giving and maintaining his free-choosing power, and his universal influx before mentioned, and his setting him among such objects as he acteth upon. Neither do those objects, nor any Physical efficient ⟨p. 157⟩motion of God, or any creature besides himself, determine his will effectually to choose the evil and refuse the good. It is not true, that nothing undetermined can determine it self to act; this is but to deny God's natural Image on the Will of Man. The Will cannot determine it self without the conduct of an Intellect, and without an Object in esse cognito, nor without Divine sustentation and universal influx: But it can determine it self to the moral species, which is but the mode of action, to this rather than that in the comparative proposal, without any pre-determining efficient: (for such none of the former are.)
And God having made such a self-determining creature,1 took delight to govern him according to his nature, by the sapiential moral means of Laws; of what he doth more to cause Good than Evil, and other such incident questions, I must now put them off to a fitter place.
- 1Casta placent superis; pura cum mente venite Et manibus puris summit fontis aquam. Tibul. Pone Deos, & quae tangendo sacra profanas; Non bene coelestes impia dextra colit. Ovid.Casta placent superis; pura cum mente venite Et manibus puris sumite fontis aquam. Tibul. Pone Deos, & quae tangendo sacra profanas; Non bene coelestes impia dextra colit. Ovid.