RAXTÉR'S DYING THOUGHTS., 103 God, were nothing, or no fit objects for a soul ; and why not here- after, ás well as now ? or as if that which, in our compounded state, cloth operate on and by its organs, had no other way of ope- ration without them; As if the musician lost all his power, or were dead, when his instrument is out of tune, or broken, and could do nothing else but play on that; as if the fiery part of the candle were annihilated, or transmutate, as some philosophers imagine, when the candle goeth out and were not fire; and in action still, or as if that sunbeam which I shut out, or which passeth from our hori- zon, were annihilated, or did nothing, when it shineth not with 'us. Had it no other individual to illuminate, or to terminate its beams or action, were it nothing to illuminate the common air ? Though I shall not always have a body to operate in and upon, I shall al- ways have God and a Savior, and a world of fellow-creatures ; and when'I shine not in this lantern, and see not by these specta- cles, nor imaginarily in aglass, I shall yet see things suitable intui- tively., and as face to face: That which is essentially life, asa living principle, will live; and that` which is essentially an active, intel- lective, volitive principle, force, and virtue, will still be such while it is itself, and is not annihilated, or changed into another thing, (which is not to be feared ;) and that which is such can never want an object till all things be annihilated: 8. Reason assureth me, that were my will now what it should be, and fully obsequious herein to my understanding, to fulfill God's will would be the fulfilling ofmy own will ; for mywill should per- fectly comply with his;'and to please him perfectly would be my perfect pleasure: and it is the unreasonable adhesion to this body, and sinful selfishness; which maketh any one think otherwise now. I am .sure that my soul shall live, for it is life itself; and I am sure that I shall live to God, and that I shall fulfill and please his bless- ed will : and this is, as such, incomparably better thanmy felicity, as such ; and yet so far as I am pleased in so doing, it will be my felicity. 9. I begin now to think, that the strange love which the soul bath to this body (so far as it is not inordinate) is, put into us of God, partly to signify to us the great love which Christ bath to his mystical, political body, and to every member of it, even the least he will gather all his elect out of the world, and none that come to him shall be shut out, and none that are given him shall be lost: as his flesh is to them meat indeed, and his blood is to them drink indeed, and he nourisheth them for life eternal ; (his Spirit in them, turning the sacrament, the word, and Christ himself, in esse objec- tive, as believed in,,into spirit and life to us, as the soul and our natural spirits turn our food into flesh and blood, and spirits, which, is a dead body, or any lifeless repository, it would never be ;) so
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