A27004:917
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.
I say not (as some) that the greatest torment or misery is more eligible (or less odious) than annihilation. But it is certain, that a great deal is. We see abundance (how ever the Roman and Greek Philosophers scorned it as baseness) who are blind, or lame, or in grievous pains of the Gout and Stone, and many that are in miserable poverty, begging their bread, or toiling from morning to night like horses, and yet seldom taste a pleasant bit, but join distracting cares with labours; and yet they are all unwilling to die: Custom hath made their misery tolerable, and they had rather continue so for ever than be annihilated. If then God may annihilate even the innocent, (supposing he had not promised the contrary) then may he lay all that pain, and care, and labour on them, which they would themselves prefer before annihilation. For its no wrong to one that hath his reason and liberty to give him his own choice.
I say not (as some) that the greatest torment or misery is more eligible (or less odious) than annihilation. But it is certain, that a great deal is. We see abundance (how ever the Roman and Greek Philosophers scorned it as baseness) who are blind, or lame, or in grievous pains of the Gout and Stone, and many that are in miserable poverty, begging their bread, or toiling from morning to night like horses, and yet seldom taste a pleasant bit, but joyn distracting cares with labours; and yet they are all unwilling to die: Custom hath made their misery tollerable, and they had rather continue so for ever than be annihilated. If then God may annihilate even the innocent, (supposing he had not promised the contrary) then may he lay all that pain, and care, and labour on them, which they would themselves prefer before annihilation. For its no wrong to one that hath his reason and liberty to give him his own choice.
§. 18. It is just with God to lay more misery on a sinner, than on one that never deserved ill: and to lay more on him for his sin, than he would choose himself before annihilation.