144 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. in an apoplexy we no more perceive than that of sense. But I have before showed that the soul will not want exercise for its es- sential faculties, for want of objects, or bodily organs ; and that men conclude basely ofthe souls of brutes, as if they were not an enduring substance, without any proof or probability;' and tell us idle dreams, that they are but vanishing temperaments, &c., which are founded .on another dream, that fire (or the motive, illuminative, calefactive cause) is no substance neither; and so our unnatural somatists knoiv none of the most excellent substances, which ac- tuate all the rest, but only the more base and gross, which are ac- tuated by them: and they think they have well acquitted them- selves by tellingus of subtile, active matter and motion, without understanding what any living, active, motive faculty or virtue is. And because no man knoweth what God doth with the souls of brutes, (whether they are only one common sensitive soul of a more common body; or whether individuate still, and transmigrant from body to body, or what else,) therefore they make ignorance a plea for error, and feign them to be no substances, or to be an- nihilated. e I doubt not but sensation (as is aforesaid) is an excellent opera- tion of the essential faculties of real substances, called spirits ; and that the highest and noblest creatures have it inthe highest excel- lency ; and though God, that fitteth every thing to its use, bath given, e. g. a dog more perfect sense of smelling than a man, yet man's internal sense is far more excellent than the brutes'; and thereby is an advantage to our intellection, volition, and joy, here in the flesh; and that in heaven we shall have not less, but more, even more excellent sense and affections of love and joy, as well asmore excellent intellection and volition ; but such as we cannot nowclearlyconceive of. Therefore, there is great reason for all those analogical collec- tions which I have mentioned in my book called ' The Saint's Rest' from the present operations and pleasures of the soul in flesh, tohelp our conceptions ofits future pleasures ; and though we can- not conclude that they will not inconceivablydiffer in their manner fromwhat we now feel, I doubt not but feel and rejoice we shall, as certainly as live, and that the soul is essential life, and that our life, and feeling, and joy; will be inconceivably better. he Concluding Application. I am convinced that it is far better todepart and bd with Christ than to be here : but there is'much more than such conviction ne- cessary to bring up my soul to such desires. Still there resisteth, I. The natural aversenessto death, which God bath put into every
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