110 BAXTER'S. DYING TIIQÿt'li"ï d. stand, but must stay till God, by experience, or fuller light, inform me. But surely the difference is not like to be so great, as that a soul in flesh shall know in part, and a soul in a spiritual body shall know perfectly, anda soul between both shall not know at all. If it be perfection which we shall have in our spiritual body, it is like that we are nearer to that perfection, in knowledge and felici- ty, while we arebetween both, than when we are in the flesh. And sure a soul that (even Solomon saith) goeth upward, and to God that gave it, is liker to know God than that which is termi- nated in flesh, and operatethut forma, according to its capacity and state ; and a soul that is with Christ, is liker to know Christ, and the Father in him, than that which is present with the body, and absent from the Lord. What less can the promise ofbeing with him signify ? And, i. As to the kind of knowledge, how excellent and more satisfactory a way will that Of intuition, or intellective sense, be, than is our present way of abstraction, similitudes, and signs! Whatabundance of time, thoughts and labor, doth it cost us now to learn our grammar, our rhetoric and our logic! Our artes lo- quendi, dicendi.and disserendi ; to learn our wordy rules and ax- ioms, in metaphysics, physics, &c..! And when we have learned them all, (if all can be learned) how little the nearer are many to the knowing of the signified realities! We oft get but a set of words to play with, to take upour time, and divert us from the matter; even as carnal men use the creatures which signify God, and are made to lead thém up to him, to entangle them, and be the great- en and most pernicious diversion of their souls from God ; so do . too many learned then do by their organical, signal knowledge. They use it as man do cards, and romances, and plays, to delight their fancies; but theyknow less of the things that are worth their knowing than many unlearned persons do, as I said before. Had not much of the Athenian learning been then a mere game, for men to play away their precious time at, and to grow proud of, while they were ignorant of saving realities, Christ and his apostles had not so much neglected it as they did, nor Paul so much warn- ed men to take heed of being deceived by that vain kind of phi- losophy, in which he- seemeth to me to have greater respect to the universally esteemed Athenian arts, than, as Dr. Hammond thought, to the mere gnostic pretensions. This poor, dreaming, signal, artificial knowledge is,_ 1. Costly. '2. Uncertain. 3. Contentious. 4. Unsatisfactory, in compari- son of intuitive knowledge. 1. It is costly, as to the hard labor and precious time which must be laid out for it, as aforesaid. We grow old in getting us horses, and boots, and spurs, for our journey, and it is well if we
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