Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BX5200 .B352 1835 v2

BAXTER'S DYI$G THOUGHTS. sa which, in autumn, retire from the leáves into the branches and trunk of the tree. I have proved before, that our individuation, or numerical existence, ceaseth not ; and that no union is to be feared, were it never so sure, which dèstroyeth not the being, or formal powers, or action of the soul ; and that it is the great radi- cal disease of selfishness, and want of holy love to God and our Savior, and one another, which causeth thèse unreasonable fears, even that selfishness which now maketh men so partially desirous of their own wills and pleasure in comparison of God's, and their own felicity in comparison of others, and which maketh them so easily bear God's injuries, and the sufferings of a thousand others, in comparison of their own. But he that put a great desire of the body's preservation into the soul, while it is its form, will abate that desire when the time of separation is corn, because there is thenno use for it till the ressúrrection ; else it would be a torment to the soul. III. And as we shall hive union, so also Communion, with the divine and human nature ofChrist respectively ; both, 1. As they will be the objects of our soul's most noble and constant acts; and, 2. As they will be the fountain or communicative cause of our receptions. 1. We find now that our various.faculties have various objects, suitable to their natures. The objects of sense are things sensible, and the objects of imagination, things imaginable, and the objects of intellection, things intelligible, and the objects of the will, things amiable. The eye, which, is a nobler sense than some others, bath lightfor its object, which, to other senses; is none ; and so of the rest. Therefore, we have cause to suppose, that as far as our glorified souls, and our spiritual glorified bodies, will differ, so far Christ's glorified soul and body will, respectively, be their several objects ; and beholding the glory of both will be part of our glory. Yet it is not hence to be gathered, that the separated soul, be- fore the resurrection, shall not have Christ's glorified body for its object; for the objects of the body are also the objects of the soul, or, to speak more properly, the objects of sense are also the ob- jects of intellection and will, though all the objects of the intellect and will are not objects of sense. The separated soul can know Christ's glorifiedbody, though our present bodies cannot see a soul. But how much our spiritual bodies will excel in capacity and ac- tivity these passiye bodies, that have so much earth and water, we cannot tell. And though now our souls are as a candle in a lantern, and must have extrinsic objects admitted by the senses before they can be understood, yet it followeth not that therefore a separated soul cannot know such objects 1. Because it nowknoweth them ab-

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