Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BX5200 .B352 1835 v2

a 64 BAXTER'S DYING THOUGHTS. stractively, per species, because its act ofratiocination is compound as to the cause, (soul and body.) But it will then know such things intuitively, as now it can do itself, when then the lantern is cast by. 2. And whatever many oflate, that have given them- sel,ves the title óf ingenious,, have said to the contrary, we have little reason to think that the sensitive faculty is not an essential, inseparable power of the same soul that is intellectual, and that sensation ceasetll to separated souls, however the modes of it may cease with their several uses and organs. To feel intellectually, or to understand and will feelingly, we have cause to think, will be the actionof separated souls ; and if so, whymay theynot have communion with Christ's body and soul, as their objects in their separated state ? 3. Besides, that, we are uncertain whether the separated soul, have no vehicle or bodyat all. Things unknown to us must not be supposed true or false. Some think that the sensitive soul is material, and, as a body to the intellectual, never separated. I am not of their opinion that make them two sub- stances ; but I cannot say I, am certain that they err. Some think that the soul is material, of a purer substance than things visible, and that the common notion of its substantiality meaneth nothing else but a pure, (as they call it,) spiritual materiality. 'Thus thought not only Tertullian, but almost all the old Greek doctors of the chureh that write ofit, and most of the Latin, or very many, as I have elsewhere showed, and as Faustus reciteth them in the treatise answered by Mammertus. Some think that the soul, as vegetative, is an igneous body, such as we call ether, or solar fire, or rather of a higher, purer kind ; and that sensation and intellec- tion are those formal faculties-which specifically difference it from inferior mere fire or ether. There were few of the old doctors, that thought it not some of these ways material ; and, consequent- lÿ, extensive and divisible per potentiam divinam, though not nat- urally, or of its own inclination, because most strongly inclined to unity : and if any of all these uncertain opinions should prove true, the objections in hand will find no place. To say nothing of their conceit, who say, that as the spirit that retireth from the falling leaves in autumn, continueth to animate the tree, so man's soul may do, when departed, with that to which it is united, to animate some more noble, universal body. But as all these are the too bold cogitations of men that had better let unknown things alone, so yet they may be mentioned to refell that more perilous boldness which denieth the soul's action, which is certain, upon, at best, un- certain reasons. I may boldly conclude, notwithstanding such objections, that Christ's divine and human nature, soul and body, shall be the felici- tating objects of intuition and holy love to the separated soul be-

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