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

Nor those essential Powers be continued useless by the wise and merciful Creator, though by Natural revelation we know not in what manner they shall act; whether on any other Body, and by what conjunction, and how far; so by Supernatural Revelation we are assured, that there is a reward for the Righteous, and that holy Souls are still members of Christ, and live because he liveth, and that in the Day of their departure they shall be with him in Paradise, and being absent from the Body, shall be present with the Lord; and that Christ therefore died, rose and revived that he might be Lord both of the Dead and of the Living, that is, of those that being Dead, hence do Live with him, and of those that yet live in the Body: For he that said, God is not the God of the dead but of the Living, that is, stands not related to them as his People as a King to Subjects, is not himself the Lord of the absolute Dead, but of the Living.

Therefore (as Contarenus against Pomponatius de Immortal. Anim: saith) the Immortality of the Soul is provable by the Light of Nature, but the manner of its future Operation must be known by Faith. And blessed be the Father of Spirits, and our Redeemer, who hath sent and set up this excellent Light, by which we see further than purblind Infidels can do.

§ 2. But I deny not but even the Scripture itself, doth tell us but little of the Manner of our Intellection when we are out of the Body; and it is not improbable that there is more Imperfection in this Mode of Notional, Organical, Abstractive knowledge which the Soul exerciseth in the Body, than most consider of: And that as the Eye hath the visive Faculty in sleep, and when we wink, and an internal action of the visive Spirits (no doubt,) and yet seeth not any thing without, till the Eyelids are opened, (and was not made to see its own sight;) so the Soul in the Body is as a winking Eye, to all things that are not by the Sense and Imagination intromitted or brought within its reach: And whether (sicut non video visum, neque facultatem, neque substantiam videntem, videndo tamen certo percipio me videre, so it may be said, Non intelligo immediatè ipsam intellectionem, neque facultatem, aut substantiam intelligentem; Intelligendo tamen certo percipio me intelligere, quia actus Intellectûs in Spiritus sensitivos operans sentitur; or whether we must further say with Ockam, that Intellectus tum intuitivè tum abstractivè se intelligit; I leave to wiser men to judge: But I am very suspicious that the Body is more a Lantern to the Soul, than some will admit; and that this Lusus notionum secundarum, or abstractive knowledge of Things by Organical Images, Names, and Notions, is occasioned by the Union of the Soul with the Body ut formae; and is that Childish knowledge which the Apostle saith shall be done away: And how much of Mans fall might consist in such a knowing of good and evil I cannot tell (or in the overvaluing such a knowledge:) And I I think that when vain Philosophy at Athens had called the thoughts and desires of Mankind from great Realities to the Logical and Philological game at Words and