A27004:904
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.
§. 11. Therefore he that would know what degree of punishment it is meet and just for God to execute, must first know what degree it is meet for him to threaten, or make Due by Law: or rather how much he hath made due: Because what God should do, is best known by what he actually doth.
If a temporal, short, or small measure of Penalty be sufficient to be threatened in the Law, for the present attaining of the ends of Government, then such a punishment is sufficient in the execution. But if the threatening of an endless punishment in another world be little enough; in suo genere, to prevail now with Subjects for order and obedience, then the execution will be therefore necessary by consequence.
If a temporal, short, or small measure of Penalty be sufficient to be threatned in the Law, for the present attaining of the ends of Government, then such a punishment is sufficient in the execution. But if the threatning of an endless punishment in another world be little enough; in suo genere, to prevail now with Subjects for order and obedience, then the execution will be therefore necessary by consequence.
§. 12. It followeth not therefore that Punishment or Rewards must cease, if the ends be past in natural existence; because Moral means may in time be after their end, to which they were ⟨p. 165⟩appointed to operate in esse cognito;1 and that penalty which is perpetuated may be a means to the ends already attained: that is, the threatenings, and the expectation of them; and then the honour of the Ruler's veracity and justice bindeth him to the execution.