BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. 119 shall then be much better acquainted with myself; both with my nature, and with my sin and grace. I shall then better know the nature of a soul, and ,its formal faculties, (three in one :) I shall know the nature and wayofits operations, and how far its acts are simple, or compound, or organical. I shall know how far memo- ry, fancy, and sense, internal and external, belong to the rational soul, and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one ; and whatsenses will perish, and what not. I shall know how the soul doth act upon itself, and what acts it hath that are not felt in sleep, in apoplexies, and in the womb.* sK * . * * * I shall know how far the soul is receptive, and what the causa finolis doth to it ; and what each object . is to the constitution or production of the act ; yea, and what an act is, and what a habit; and hav a soul, acting or habited, differeth from itself not acting or habited; and how its acts are many, and yet but one ; or its faculties at least. Many other such difficulties will all be solv- ed, which now philosophers contend about in the dark, and pass but under doubtful conjectures; or, at least, are known to very few. And I shall know how God's Spirifoperateth. on souls ; and how it is sent from Christ's human nature to work on man ; andwhether grace be properly, or only metaphorically, called a nature (a new nature, a divine nature) in us. I shall know what free-will is, and how man's will can be the first determiner of any act of its own in specie morali (good or evil) without being such a causaprima, as none but God can be ; and so how far free acts are necessitated or not. I shall know what power the intellect hath on the will, and thè.will on the intellect ; and what power the sense and fancy bath on either; . and what any,intellectus agens doth ; whether it be to our intellection as the sun is to our sight. I shall know what is meant by the degrees of acts and habits in the soul; and whether there be divers degrees of substantiality, or of the virtus vel facul- tpsformalis of several souls. I shall know better the difference of habits called acquired and infused ; and what common grace is, and what it loth ; and what nature can do of itself, or by common grace, without that which is proper to the justified ; and how far any degrees of grace are lost. I shall know what measure of grace I had myself; and how far I was mistaken in myself; and what acts were sincere; and how A large page of philosophical difficulties, growing out of the inquiries of " Science falsely so called," is here omitted. What is retained is a sufficient specimen. En.
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