Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…

Yea, doth he give the Brutes, Life, Sense, Delight and Beauty, and hath he not better things for men? for Saints?

Yea, doth he give the Bruits, Life, Sense, Delight and Beauty, and hath he not better things for men? for Saints?

There are some so blind as to think that Man shall have no better hereafter, because Brutes have not, but perish. But they know not how erroneously they think. The sensible souls of Brutes are substance: And therefore are not annihilated at death: But God put them under us, and made them for us, and us more nearly for himself. Brutes have not Faculties to know and love God, to meditate on him, or praise him, or by moral agency to obey his Precepts: They desire not any higher felicity than they have: God will have us use their service, yea, their lives and Flesh to tell us they were made for us. He tells us not what he doth with them after death: But whatever it is, it is not annihilation, and it's like they are in a state still of service unto Man: Whether united or how individuate we know not: Nor yet whether those Philosophers are in the right, that think that this Earth is but a small Image of the vast superior Regions, where there are Kingdoms answerable to these here, where the Spirits of Brutes are in the like subjection in aerial Bodies, to those low rational Spirits that inhabit the Aerial Regions as in Flesh they were to Man in Flesh. But it's enough for us that God hath given us Faculties to know, love, praise, and obey him, and trust him for Glory, which he never gave to them, because they were not made for ⟨p. 381⟩things so high. Every Creatures Faculties are suited to their use and ends:

There are some so blind as to think that Man shall have no better hereafter, because Bruits have not, but perish. But they know not how erroneously they think. The sensible souls of Bruits are substance: And therefore are not annihilated at death: But God put them under us, and made them for us, and us more nearly for himself. Bruits have not Faculties to know and love God, to meditate on him, or praise him, or by moral agency to obey his Precepts: They desire not any higher felicity than they have: God will have us use their service, yea, their lives and Flesh to tell us they were made for us. He tells us not what he doth with them after death: But whatever it is, it is not annihilation, and it's like they are in a state still of service unto Man: Whether united or how individuate we know not: Nor yet whether those Philosophers are in the right, that think that this Earth is but a small Image of the vast superiour Regions, where there are Kingdoms answerable to these here, where the Spirits of Bruits are in the like subjection in aerial Bodies, to those low rational Spirits that inhabite the Aerial Regions as in Flesh they were to Man in Flesh. But it's enough for us that God hath given us Faculties to know, love, praise, and obey him, and trust him for Glory, which he never gave to them, because they were not made for