A26921:124
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and the latter times of his corporal pains and weakness.
London: printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons, 1683
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
§ 48. Were there now no more Contraction by Egoity or Propriety among men, nor Mine and Thine did signify no more, nor the distance were greater than that of the several drops of Water in the Sea, or particles of of Light in the illuminated Air, but I had all my part in such a perfect unity and Communion with all others, and knew that all were as happy as I, so that there were no divisions by cross interests or minds, but all were One, certainly it would make my own comforts greater by far than they are now? Are not an hundred Candles set together and united as splendid a flame as if they w•re all set asunder. To one Soul, one Love, one Joy would be.
§ 49. Object. But it is only the fomes that individuateth Lights; As when the same Sun by a burning Glass lighteth a thousand Candles, they are individuate only by the matter contracting, being still all united parts of the same Sun Beams. And when they are extinct, they are nothing, or all one again.
Ans. They were before they were extinct, both One and many, none but fools think that extinction annihilateth them, or any part of them: They are after, as much Substance and as much solar Fire though diffused, and as much and no more one than before, but not indeed Many as before, but Parts of one. Nature hath made the equal diffused Sun Beams to be to the Air and surface of the Earth, as the blood equally moving in the Body: And our Candles and Fires seem to be like the same blood contracted in a bile or Inflammation, which indeed is more felt than the equally diffused blood, but it is as the pain of a disease. And so when our Fires go out they are but like a healed Scattered Inflammation, & the same substance is more naturally and equally diffused. And if the Individuation of Souls were only by Corporeal matter and the Union thus as great at their departure, it would not diminish, if it did not too much increase their perfection and felicity: For there would be no diminution of any Substance, or Power, or Activity, or Perfection whatsoever.