A27016:848
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.
1. Knowledge in it self is a pleasant thing to humane nature. Ignorance is the blindness of the soul. It is not so pleasant for the eye to behold the sun, as for the mind of man to discern the truth. To Know Good and Evil, had never been the matter of so strong a Temptation to Adam, if Knowledge had not been very desirable to innocent nature. How hard do many even ungodly persons study to know the mysteries of Nature? And nothing hath more strongly tempted some wretches to witchcraft or contracts with the Devil, then a desire of knowing unrevealed things, which by his means they have hoped to attain. A studious man hath far more natural valuable Delight, in his reading and successful studies, then a voluptuous Epicure hath in his sensual Delights.
1. Knowledge in it self is a pleasant thing to humane nature. Ignorance is the blindness of the soul. It is not so pleasant for the eye to behold the sun, as for the mind of man to discern the truth. To Know Good and Evil, had never been the matter of so strong a Temptation to Adam, if Knowledge had not been very desirable to innocent nature. How hard do many even ungodly persons study to know the mysteries of Nature? And nothing hath more strongly tempted some wretches to witchcraft or contracts with the Devil, then a desire of knowing unrevealed things, which by his means they have hoped to attain. A studious man hath far more natural valuable Delight, in his reading and succesful studies, then a voluptuous Epicure hath in his sensual Delights.
But it is a special kind of Knowledge that Holiness doth (initially) consist in, which transcendeth in true Pleasure all the common wisdom of the world: For
But it is a special kind of Knowledge that Holiness doth (initially) consist in, which transcendeth in true Pleasure all the common wisdom of the worid: For