The Practical Works of Richard Baxter (Volume 21); With a Life of the Author and a Critical Examination of His Writings by William Orme (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1830. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... THE CONCLUSION. Defending the Soul's Immortality against the Soma lists or Epicureans, and other Pseudo-philosophers. Though in this treatise I have not wilfully balked any regardable objections, which I thought might stick with an intelligent reader, about the truth of the things here delivered; yet, those which are proper to the somatical, irreligious sect of philosophers, I thought more fit to put here as an appendix by themselves, that they might not stop the more sober in their way. As to the subject and method of this discourse, it consisteth of these four parts: 1. The proof of the Deity, and what God is. 2. Of the certain obligations which lie upon man, to be holy and obedient to this God. 3. The proofs of a life of retribution hereafter, where the holy and obedient shall be blessed, and the unholy and disobedient punished. 4. The proofs of the verity of the christian faith. For the first of these, that there is a God, though I have proved it beyond all rational contradiction, yet I have despatched it with haste and brevity; because it is to the mind as the sun is to the eye, and so evident in all that is evident in the world, that there needeth nothing to the proving of it, but to help the reader to a rational capacity and aptitude, to see that which all the world declareth. The common argument, from the effects to the cause, in all the entities and motions in the world, is undeniable. Whatsoever any being hath, and hath not originally from itself, or independently in itself, it must needs have from another; and that other cannot act beyond its power, nor give that which it hath not either formally or eminently; therefore, he that findeth in the world about him so much entity and motion, so much intellection, volition, and operation, and so m...