BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. 33 lection, ana volition ; and theywill be no lower, or less excellent, if not far more ; and then what the difference will be, Christ know - eth, whom I trust; and in season I `shall knew. But to talk of a dead life, and an unactive activity, or a sleeping soul, is fitter for a . sleeping than a waking man. It is true, that diseases or hurts do now hinder the soul's intel- lectual perceptions in the body; and in infancy, and sleep, they are imperfect. Which proveth,, indeed, thát the acts, commonly called intellection and volition, have now something in them also of sensation, and that sensitive operations are diversifiedby the or- gans ofthe several senses. And that bare intellection and volition, without any sensation, is now scarce to be observed in us, though the soul may have such acts intrinsically; and in its profundity. For it is now so united to this body, that it. acteth on it as our form ; and, indeed, the acts observed by us cannot be denied to be such as are specified, or modified, at least, by the agents, and the recipients, and, sub-agents' parts conjunct. But, (1.) As the sun would do the same thing, ex parte'sui, if in vacuo only it sent forth. its beams, though this were no illumination, or calefaction, because there were no recipient to be illuminated and heated by it. And it would lose nothing by the want of objects; 'so the soul, had_ it no body to act on, would have its profound immanent acts of self- living, self-perceiving, and self- loving, and all its external acts on other objects, which need not organs of sense for their approxi- mation. And, (2.). Its sensitive faculty is itself, or such as it is not separated from, though the particular sorts of sensation may be altered with their uses; and therefore it may still act on, or with, the sense ;'and if one way of sensation 'be hindered, it bath another. (3.) And how far this lantern of flesh doth help, or hinder, its opérations, we know not yet, but shall know hereafter. Sondius de Orig. Animce (though an heretical writer) bath said much to prove that the body is a hindrance, andnot a help, to the soul's intuition. And if ratiocination be a compound act, yet in- tuition may be done forever by the soul alone. (4.) But as we are not to judge what powers the soul hash; 'when the acts are hinder- ed, but when they aredone ; nor what souls 'were made by God for, by their state in the womb, or infancy, or diseases, but by our ordinary, mature state of life ; so we have little reason to think that the same. God -who made them for life, intellection and volitions here, will not continue the same powers to the same, or as noble uses hereafter, whether with organs. or without, as pleaseth him. If in this flesh our spirits were not inactive and useless, we have no reason to think that theywill be so hereafter, and that forever. This greatest and hardest of all objections doth not make us con- fess,(with. Contarenus, contraPomponatium de Anim. Immortalit.,) VOL. II. 5
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=