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

§ 43. I think it utterly improbable, that my Soul ⟨p. 26⟩should become more nearly united to any creature, than to God: (though it be of the same kind with other Souls, and infinitely below God): For God is as near me as I am to my self: I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause; And that not as the fruit upon the Tree, which borroweth all from the Earth, Water, Air, and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit; but as a creature on its Creator, who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God, by constant communication. Hence Antonine, Seneca, and the rest of the Stoics thought that all the World was God, or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter, as Man of Soul and body; Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World, GOD, and sometime calling the whole World, God; But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God, or of the Body of God, or Accidents at least.

§ 43. I think it utterly improbable, that my Soul ⟨p. 26⟩should become more nearly united to any creature, than to God: (though it be of the same kind with other Souls, and infinitely below God): For God is as near me as I am to my self: I still depend on him as the effect upon its total constant cause; And that not as the fruit upon the Tree, which borroweth all from the Earth, Water, Air, and Fire which it communicateth to its fruit; but as a creature on its Creator, who hath no Being but what it receiveth totally from God, by constant communication. Hence Autonine, Seneca, and the rest of the Stoicks thought that all the World was God, or one Great Animal consisting of Divine Spirit and Matter, as Man of Soul and body; Sometime calling the supposed Soul of the World, GOD, and sometime calling the whole World, God; But still meaning that the Universe was but one Spirit and Body united and that we all are parts of God, or of the Body of God, or Accidents at least.

§ 44. And even the Popish Mystical Divines in their pretensions to the highest Perfection say the same in sense; such as Benedict. Anglus in his Regula Perfectionis, (approved by many Doctors,) who placeth much of his Supereminent Life, in our Believing verily that there is nothing but God, and Living accordingly; Maintaining that all creatures are nothing distinct from God, but are to God, as the Beams are to the Sun, and as the Heat is to the Fire, (which really is it self;) And so teaching us to rest in all things as Good, as being nothing but Gods essential will, which is himself (resolving even our sins and Imperfections, accordingly into God, so that they are Gods or None.)