Self-love be by a kind of Sensation and Intuition rather than by Discursive Reason I doubt not but some late Philosophers make snares to themselves and others by too much vilifying sense and sensitive Souls as if sense were but some loseable Accident of contempered Atoms But Sensation though diversified by Organs and Uses and so far mutable is the Act of a noble Spiritual Form and Virtue And as Chambre and some others make Brutes a lower rank of Rationals and Man another higher species as having his nobler Reason for higher Ends so for Man to be the noblest Order here of Sensitives and to have an Intellect to Order and Govern Sensations and connex them and improve them were a noble work if we had no higher And if Intellection and Volition were but a higher species of Internal Sensation than Imagination and the Phantasie and Memory are it might yet be a height that should set Man specifically above the Brutes And I am daily more and more persuaded that Intellectual Souls are essentially sensitive and more and that their Sensation never ceaseth 4. And still I say that it is to Nature it self a thing unlikely that the God of Nature will long continue a Soul that hath formally or naturally an Intellective Power in a state in which it shall have no use of it Let others that will enquire whether it shall have a Vehicle or none to act in and whether aereal or igneous and ethereal and whether it be really an Intellectual sort of Fire as material as the solar Fire whose not compounding but inadequate-conceptus objectivi are an Igneous substance and a Formal Virtue of Life Sense and Intellection with other such puzzling doubts it satisfieth me that God will not continue its noblest Powers in vain and how they shall be exercised is known to him And that God's Word tells us more than Nature And withal LIFE INTUITION and LOVE or Volition are Acts so natural to the Soul as Motion Light and Heat quoad actum to Fire that I cannot conceive how its Separation should hinder them but rather that its Incorporation hindereth the two latter by hiding Objects whatever be said of abstractive knowledge and memory § 33. VII But the greatest difficulty to Natural Knowledge is Whether Souls shall continue their individuation or rather fall into one common Soul or return so to God that gave them as to be no more divers or many individuals as now as extinguished Candles are united to the illuminated Air or to the Sun beams But of this I have elsewhere said much for others and for my self I find I need but this 1. That as I said before either Souls are partible substances or not If not partible how are they unible If Many may be made One by conjunction of substances then that One may by God be made Many again by partition Either All or Many Souls are now but One individuate only by Matter as many gulfs in the Sea or many Candles lighted by the Sun or not If they are not One now in several bodies what reason have we to think that they will be One hereafter any more than now Augustine de Anim. was put on the question 1. Whether Souls are One and not Many and that he utterly denieth 2. Whether they are Many and not One and that it seemeth he could not digest 3. Whether they were at once both One and Many which he thought would seem to some ridiculous but he seemeth most to incline to And as God is the God of Nature so Nature even of the Devils themselves dependeth on him as I said more than the Leaves or Fruit do on the Tree And we are all his Off-spring and Live and Move and Are in Him Acts 17. But we are certain for all this 1. That we are not God 2. That we are yet many Individuals and not all One Soul or Man I◠our Union should be as near as the Leaves and Fruit on the same Tree yet those Leaves and Fruit are numerous and individual Leaves and Fruits though parts of the Tree And were this proved of our present or our future state it would not alter our Hopes or Fears For as Now though we all Live Move and Be in God and as some dream are parts of a common Soul yet it is certain that some are Better and Happier than others some wise and good and some foolish and evil some in pain and misery and some at ease and in pleasure and as I said it is now no ease to the miserable to be told that radically all Souls are One no more will it be hereafter nor can men reasonably hope for or fear such an Union as shall make their state the same We see in Nature as I have elsewhere said that if you graff many sorts of Sciens some sweet some bitter some Crabs on the same Stock they will be One Tree and yet have diversity of fruit If Souls be not Unible nor Partible substances there is no place for this doubt If they be they will be still what they are notwithstanding any such Union with a common Soul As a drop of Water in the Sea is a separable part and still it self and as a Crab upon the foresaid Stock or Tree And the good or bad quality ceaseth not by any Union with others Sure we are that all Creatures are in God by close dependance and yet that the good are good and the bad are bad and that God is Good and hath no Evil and that when Man is tormented or miserable God suffereth nothing by it as the whole Man doth when but a Tooth doth ake For he would not hurt himself were he passive Therefore to dream of any such cessation of our Individuation by any Union with a Creature as shall make the Good less Good or happy or the Bad less Bad or miserable is a groundless folly § 34. Yet it is very probable that there will be a Nearer Union of holy Souls with God and Christ and one another than we can here conceive of But this 〈◊〉 so far from being to be feared that it is the highest of our hopes 1. God himself though equally every where in his Essence doth operate very variously on his Creatures On the wicked he operateth as the first Cause of Nature as his Sun shineth on them On some he operateth by common Grace To some he giveth Faith to prepare them for the Indwelling of his Spirit In Believers he dwelleth by Love and they in him And if we may use such a comparison as Satan acteth on some only by suggestions but on others so despotically as that it 's called His Possessing them so God's Spirit worketh on holy Souls so powerfully and constantly as is called his Possessing them And yet on the Humane Nature of Christ the Divine Nature of the Second Person hath such a further extraordinary Operation as is justly called a Personal Union which is not by a more Essential Presence for
Nos quâ—que floruimus sed flos fuit ille 〈◊〉 Flâ—mmaque de stipula nostra brepusque fuiâ— Oâ— VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OPâ— ET PATâ— FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS AN O 168â— AETAT SUAE â—8 Farewell Vaine World as thou hast bin to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ To him that 's Substance Life-Light-Love to it The Leavs Fruit are dropt for soyle Seed Heavens heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Râ—st BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS UPON PHIL. 1. 23. Written for his own Use in the latter Times of his corporal Pains and Weakness LONDON Printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons at the Three golden Cocks at the West end of St. Pauls 1683. THE PREFACE TO THE READER Reader I Have no other use for a Preface to this Book but to give you a true excuse for its Publication I wrote it for my self unresolved whether any one should ever see it but at last inclined to leave that to the will of my Executors to publish or suppress it when I am dead as they saw cause But my Person being seized on and my Library and all my Goods distrained on by Constables and sold and I constrained to relinquish my House for preaching and being in London I knew not what to do with multitudes of Manuscripâ—â— that had long lain by me having no House to go to but a narrow hired Lodging with strangers Wherefore I cast away whole Volumes which I could not carry away both Controversies and Letters practical and Cases of Conscience but having newly lain divers Weeks Night and Day in waking torments Nephritick and Colick after other long pains and languor I took this Book with me in my removal for my own use in my further sickness Three Weeks after falling into another extream fit and expecting Death where I had no Friend with me to commit my Papers to meerly lest it should be lost I thought best to give it to the Printer I think it is so much of the work of all mens lives to prepare to die with safety and comfort that the same Thoughts may be needful for others that are so for me If any mislike the Title as if it imported that the Author is Dead let him know that I die daily and that which quickly will be almost is It 's suited to my own use They that it is unsuible to may pass it by If those mens lives were spent in serious preparing Thoughts of Death who are now studying to destroy each other and tear in pieces a distressed Land they would prevent much dolorous Repentance R. B. THE CONTENTS Doct. 1. THat the Souls of Believers when departed hence shall be with Christ I. The necessity of believing this proved pag. 1 c. II. Whether it be best believing it without consideration of the difficulties or proofs p. 7. III. The certainty of it manifested 1. From the Immortality of the Soul which is proved p. 11. 1. The Soul is a substance 2. It is a substance formally differenced from lower substance by the Virtue of special Vital Activity Intellect and free will p. 14 3. It is not Annihilated at Death 4. Nor destroyed by dissolution of parts 5. Nor loseth its formal Power or Virtue p. 15. 6. Nor doth sleep or cease to act p. 16. 7. To cease to be Individuate by Vnion with any other common Spirit is not to be feared were it true p. 19. But it is not like to be true p. 31 c. II. The second proof It is a natural notice p. 33. III. From the duty of all men to seek a future happinessm p. 34. IV. From Man's capacity of knowing God c. as differenced from Bruits p. 37. V. From Godâ—s governing Justice p. 38. VI. From Revelation supernatural p. 39. VII From God's answering Prayers p. 42. VIII From our present communion with Angels p. 44. IX From Satan's temptations Witches Apparitions c. p. 45. X. Specially from the Operations of God's Spirit on our Souls preparing them for Glory p. 47. Faith excited and Objections answered in the Application The proofs summed up in Order p. 65. Why this Happiness is described by our being vvith Christ 1. What is included in our Being vvith Christ 1. Presence with Christ's glorified Body and Soul and God-head p. 66. 2. Vnion with him in each p. 73. Too near Vnion not to be feared as destroying individuation 3. Communion with him in each active and passive opened p. 74 c. We must DEPART that we may be with Christ I. From what p. 75. 1. From this Body and Life Yet it is far better so to do p. 76. 2. From all the fleshly Pleasures of this Life p. 83. Yet best 3. From the more manly delights of Study Books Friends c. considered 1. Of Knowledge and Books the vanity 2. Of Sermons p. 87. 3. Of Friends and Converse p. 95. 4. Of God's Word and Worship p. 98. Of Theology p. 99. Of my own labours herein p. 103. 6. Notice of the Affairs of the World p. 109. 7. From our Service to the Living p. 112. The Application to my self p. 115. To DEPART and to BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER or rather to be chosen p. 120. I. Simply better and properly at it is the fulfilling of God's will p. 122. II. Analogically better as it tendeth to the Perfection of the Vniverse and the Church III. Better to my self as to my own felicity p. 124. proved 1. By general Reasons from the efficients and means 2. The final Reasons 3. The constitutive Reasons from the state of my Intellect as to the Iuâ—uitive manner of knowledg and as to the matter Both opened 1. I shall know God better p 144. 2. And God's Works the Vniverse 3. And Jesus Christ 4. And the Church 5. And the Church triumphant the heavenly Jerusalem 6. And all God's Word for Matter and Method 7. God's present Works of Providence 8. The nature and worth of Mercies 9. And my self Body and Soul 10. And my fellow Creatures 11. And what the evil was from which I was delivered enemies dangers sins c. 4. The Constitutive Reasons from the state of my will I. Negatively p. 163. 1. Freed from Temptations of the Flesh World and Devil 2. There will nothing be in it that is against God my Neighbours or my self II. Positively 1. It will be conform to God's will The benefits of this p. 165. Fruition A fixed will The Object 1. God To love him and beloved of him is our end p. 169. He is a suitable full near Object II. The next Object God's golorius Image in the Perfection of the Vniverse p. 171. III. The Church Triumphant p. 174. 1. Jesus Christ 2. Angels 3. Holy Souls The Wills Reception in Glory p. 175. 1. What it is to be loved of God Excitations 179. 2. How
the wicked to prosecure his Servants to the Death and make duty costly and give no after recompence 6. If he let the most wicked on the Earth pass unpunished or to scape as well hereafter as the best and to live in greater pleasure here The Objections fetcht from the intrinsecal good of Duty I have elsewhere answered § 1. VI. But God hath not left us to the Light of meer Nature as being too dark for men so blind as we The Gospel Revelation is the clear Foundation of our Faith and Hopes Christ hath brought Life and Immortality to Light One from Heaven that is greater than an Angel was sent to tell us what is there and which is the way and to secure our hopes He hath risen and conquered death and entered before us as our Captain and Forerunner into the Everlasting habitations And he hath all power in Heaven and Earth and all Judgment is committed to him that he might give Eternal life to his Elect he hath frequently and expresly promised it them that they shall live because he liveth and shall not perish but have Everlasting life And how fully he hath proved and sealed the Truth of his Word and Office to us I have so largely opened in my Reasons of the Christian Religion and unreasonableness of Infidelity and in my Life of Faith c. and since in my Houshold Catechizing that I will not here repeat it § 2. And as all his Word is full of promises of our future Glory at the Resurrection so we are not without assurance that at Death the departing Soul doth enter upon a State of Joy and Blessedness For 1. He expresly promised the penitent crucified Thief This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23. 2. He gave us the Narrative or Parable of the damned sensualist and of Lazarus Luk. 16. to instruct us and not to deceive us 3. He tells the Sadduces that God is not the God of the Dead as his Subjects and Beneficiaries but of the Living Mat. 22. 32. 4. Henoch and Elias were taken up to Heaven and Moses that died appeared with Elias on the Mount Mat. 17. 5. He telleth us Luk. 12. 4. that they that kill the Body are not able to kill the Soul 6. And Christ's own Soul was commended into his Father's hands Luk. 23. 46. and was in Paradise when his Body was in the Grave to shew us what shall become of ours 7. And he hath promised that Where he is there shall his Servant be also Joh. 12. 26. And that the life here begun in us is Eternal life and that he that believeth in him shall not die but shall live by him as he liveth by the Father for he dwelleth in God and God in him and in Christ and Christ in him Joh. 17. 3. 6. 54. 3. 16 36. 6. 47 56 57 50. 1 Joh. 4. 5. 13. Luk. 17. 21. Rom. 14. 17. 8. And accordingly Stephen that saw Heaven opened prayed the Lord Jesus to receive his Spirit Act. 7. 5. 59. 9. And we are come to Mount Sion c. to an innumerable Company of Angels and to the Spirits of the Just made perfect Heb. 12. 22 23. 10. And Paul here desireth to depart and be with Christ as far better And to be absent from the Body and be present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5. 8. 11. And the dead that die in the Lord are blessed from henceforth that they may rest from their labours and their works follow them 12. And if the disobedient Spirits be in Prison and the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah suffer the vengeance of eternal Fire 1 Pet. 3. 19. Jude 7. then the Just have eternal Life And if the Jews had not thought the Soul immortal Saul had not desired the Witch to call up Samuel to speak with him The rest I now pass by We have many great and precious promises on which a departed Soul may trust 13. And Luk. 16. 9. Christ expresly saith that when we fail that is must leave this World we shall be received into the Everlasting habitations § 1. VII And it is not nothing to encourage us to hope in him that hath made all these Promises when we find how he heareth Prayers in this life and thereby assureth his Servants that he is their true and faithful Saviour We are apt in our distress to cry loud for Mercy and deliverances and when humane help faileth to promise God that if he now will save us we will thankfully acknowledg it his work and yet when we are delivered to return not only to security but to ingratitude and think that our deliverance came but in the course of common Providence and not indeed as an answer to our Prayers And therefore God in Mercy reneweth both our distresses and our deliverances that what once or twice will not convince us of many and great deliverances may This is my own case O how oft have I cryed to him when men and means were nothing and when no help in second Causes did appear and how oft and suddenly and mercifully hath he delivered me What sudden ease what removal of long afflictions have I had such extraordinary changes and beyond my own and others expectations when many plain-hearted upright Christians have by Fasting and Prayer sought God on my behalf as have over and over convinced me of Special Providence and that God is indeed a hearer of Prayers And wonders I have seen done for others also upon such Prayer more than for my self Yea and wonders for the Church and publick Societies Though I and others are too like those Israelites Psal 78. who cried to God in their troubles and he oft delivered them out of their distress but they quickly for got this Mercies and their Convictions Purposes and Promises when they should have praised the Lord for his Goodness and declared his works with thanksgiving to the Sons of Men. And what were all these Answers and Mercies but the fruits of Christ's Power Fidelity and Love the fulfilling of his Promises and the earnest of the greater blessings of Immortality which the same Promises give me Title to I know that no Promise of hearing Prayer setteth up our wills in absoluteness or above God's as if every will of our must be fulfilled if we do but put it into a fervent or confident Prayer But if we ask any thing through Christ according to his will expressed in his Promise he will hear us If a sinful love of this present life or of Ease or Wealth or Honour should cause me to pray to God against Death or against all sickness want reproach or other Trials as if I must live here in Prosperity for ever if I ask it this sinful desire and expectation is not the work of Faith but of Presumption What if God will not abate me my last or daily pains What if he will continue my life no longer who ever pray for
more impossible for Moses to assume such a Body as he appeared in on the Mount for that occasion than for Angels to appear in humane shapes and departed Souls too as many Apparitions have told men And if bad Souls can do it why not good ones when God will have it The Tradition seemeth but a Jewish Dream that God kept the Body of Moses uncorrupted in the Grave and that this was it that the Devil is said to strive for against Michael that the Body might be corrupted And say others that at this Transfiguration it rose again There need no such conceits to our satisfaction The Soul of Moses could assume a Body § 8. But still the dissimilitude of Henoch and Elias from all the Saints in Heaven is an unresolved difficulty If we knew that God would have it so it might satisfie us But there is a symmetry in the Body of Christ And it 's like that the same Region hath Inhabitants of the same Nature What shall we think then That Henoch and Elias at their entrance into those Regions laid by their Bodies and became such as Abraham and other holy Souls Why are they taken up to be so laid by The corruptibility no doubt they did lay by God knoweth but it s much unknown to us Or shall we think as all those Fathers cited by Faustus Regiensis and as Dr. More and some of late that all Spirits are Souls and animate some Bodies and so that all in Heaven have some Bodies If so what Bodies are they And how differ they from the Resurrection state As the Soul here operateth in and by the Igneous Spirits in our Bodies it may be so lodged in these as to take some of them with it at Death as the life of a dying Plant yet dieth not in the Seed And a Man may be said to go unclothed to Bed though he put not off his shift or nearest Garment and to be clothed again when he puts on the rest And at the Resurrection as there will be a New Heaven and Earth so Spirits now in Heaven may have much more delightful business on the New and Righteous Earth than now they have and therefore may have use for an additional Body as much differing from what they have now in Heaven as the New Earth and their employment there require and as the Seed doth differ from the Plant. And Spirits being communicative will be more happy by more communication As God delighteth to do good to all his works so the Souls now confined to Heaven will delight to be employed in doing good to the New Earth and to animate the Bodies suited to such work Though now they have use for no other than such Spiritual lucid Receptacles as are fit for the Regions where they dwell And it will be no debasement or dejection for a Spirit now in Heaven to animate a Body at the Resurrection fit for the New Earth no more than it was to Angels to speak to Adam and to Moses to Abraham Jacob Manoah and others or then it is to the Sun to enlighten and enliven things on Earth It is a foolish thing to think as some do that departed Souls will be as dormant and unactive as in Apopletick or Sleeping Persons for want of Organized Bodies to act in Spirits are Essentially Active Intellective and Volitive And will God continue such Essential Powers in vain Moses and Elias wanted not Bodies And those in Heaven can praise Jehovah and the Lamb with holy concordant Love and Joy whether in any sort of ethereal Bodies or without we shall shortly know § 8. It is said that Moses and Elias talked with Christ This sheweth that Christ hath familiar communion with the Blessed He that would come into Flesh on Earth and live with Man in an humbled state and refused not familiar converse with poor men and women and would eat and drink with Publicans and Sinners will not refuse everlasting near familiarity with the glorified If the Church be his dearly beloved Spouse and as it were one with him as his Body surely he will be no stranger to the least and lowest Member of it § 9. But what was it that they talkt about Luk. 9. 31. saith They appeared in Glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem This was not to make it known to Christ who came into the World to die for sin What then was it for Did Christ tell them of it as not knowing it before That is not likely neither Did he need their comfort as Angels in his trials ministred to him and strengthned him The particular uses of this speech we know not But in general we know it was somwhat preparatory to his great Sufferings and Death And must Christ's Sufferings and Death have such preparation and must not mine have much premeditation and do I not need the consolatory messages of God Carnal men would rather have chosen pleasanter discourse than the talk of Sufferings and Death But that which must be undergone and requireth greatest strength must be forethought of and requireth the most preparing Thoughts It 's worse than madness to be surprized with Sufferings and Death before it 's seriously forethought of So sharp a trial and so great a change require the greatest preparation He that can refuse to suffer and die may refuse to talk or think of it If Christ must have men from Heaven to talk with him of his Cross what cause have we to study the Cross Even all our lives to foresee it and by obedient consent to submit unto it and take it up to follow Christ and even to determine with Paul to know nothing in the World but Christ and him Crucified that is to take this for the only needful and excellent Learning But alas how senslesly is Death and Suffering talkt of till it comes We are to learn how to suffer when suffering is upon us and to learn how to die till Nature or the Physician pass the sentence of Death on us at hand And it is God's Mercy to some of us to make our sufferings long that we may have a competent time of learning As we learn to write by writing and to discourse by discoursing and every Art and Trade by practice even so by suffering we learn to suffer And the Lesson is very hard Malefactors suffer without Learning whether they will or not but to suffer Obediently with Child-like affections is the Lesson to be learnt O little too little do many honest Christians think how much of their most excellent Obedience consisteth in Child-like holy Suffering Therefore they little expect it and provide for it And then they are overwhelmed with the unexpected surprizal when it comes Even in the sufferings which men bring on the Faithful for Righteousness sake how many shrink and shift off their duty or venture on forbidden things for safety because they were not prepared for it The loss of goods or imprisonment and want seem