A27016:497
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.
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.
2. If the Love of Vertue for it self should prevail with one of a thousand, that would be nothing to the Government of the world.
3. Nor could any man be effectually induced to love Virtue for it self, according to the doctrine of the Brutists: For Virtue it self is made no Virtue by them, but a deformity of the mind, while they overthrow the End, and Object, and Law that it is measured and informed by (as I shall more fully open to you anon). It is therefore most certain that no Nation is or can be Governed as beseemeth man, without Proposed punishments and Rewards.
3. Nor could any man be effectually induced to love Vertue for it self, according to the doctrine of the Brutists: For Vertue it self is made no Vertue by them, but a deformity of the mind, while they overthrow the End, and Object, and Law that it is measured and informed by (as I shall more fully open to you anon). It is therefore most certain that no Nation is or can be Governed as beseemeth man, without Proposed punishments and Rewards.