A27016:496
A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…
A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ... / by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by R.W. for Francis Tyton, 1662
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
Quer. 12. Do you think that the Belief of another life, is needful or useful, to the well governing of this world, or not? If you say no, 1. Why then do Infidels and Brutists say, that Religion is but the device of men for the Governing of the world? and that without it subjects would not be Ruled? You confess by this your frivolous objection, that the world cannot be Ruled well without the Belief of a life to come.
Quer. 12. Do you think that the Belief of another life, is needful or useful, to the well governing of this world, or not? If you say no, 1. Why then do Infidels and Brutists say, that Religion is but the device of men for the Governing of the world? and that without it subjects would not be Ruled? You confess by this your frivilous objection, that the world cannot be Ruled well without the Belief of a life to come.
2. And it is most manifest from the very nature of man, and from the common experience of the world. 1. If man be well-governed, it must be either by Laws containing Rewards and penalties, or without. Not without. For, 1. All the world doth find it by experience, that it cannot be; and therefore every Commonwealth on earth is Governed by Laws, either Written, Customary or Verbal.
2. And it is most manifest from the very nature of man, and from the common experience of the world. 1. If man be wellgoverned, it must be either by Laws containtng Rewards and penalties, or without. Not without. For, 1. All the world doth find it by experience, that it cannot be; and therefore every Commonwealth on earth is Governed by Laws, either Written, Customary or Verbal.
2. If the Love of Virtue for it self should prevail with one of a thousand, that would be nothing to the Government of the world.