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

§ 5. These things reviewed (being partly mentioned before) assuring me that I shall have actual Intellection in my separated state, the Region, with the Objects, but above all the Holy Scriptures, will tell me as much as it is meet that I should here know, what it is that I shall intuitively understand. The Apostle, 1 Cor. 13. 10, 11, 12. doth distinguish our knowing in part and knowing Perfectly, knowing as a Child, and as a Man, knowing darkly and enigmatically as in a Glass, and knowing Face to Face as we are known: The great Question is, When this Time of Perfection is? Whether he mean at Death, or at the Resurrection. If Dr. Hammond's observation hold that [Greek or Hebrew] in Scripture,¹ when [The Flesh or Body] is not joined with it, signifies that Life which the Soul doth enter upon immediately after our Death, and so that the Soul hath that [after living] which is signified by the very word which we Translate Resurrection] then it will lead men to think that there is less difference between Man's state at his first departure and at his last Resurrection than most think (even than Calvin himself thought:) But the difference between our first and last state of after life (or Resurrection) cannot be now distinctly known. What difference there is now between Enoch, Elijah, and those who rose at Christs Resurrection, and the rest of the Saints, even the Spirits of the perfected Just, and whether the first have as much greater Glory than the rest, as it is conceived that we shall have at the Resurrection above that which immediately followeth Death, what mortal Man can tell? I am past doubt ⟨p. 145⟩that Flesh and Blood (formally so called, and not only ab accidente, as sinful) shall not inherit the Kingdom of God (vid. Hammond in loc.) but that our Natural Bodies shall be made Spiritual Bodies: And how a Spiritual Body differeth from a Spirit or Soul, I pretend not well to understand, but must stay till God by experience or fuller Light inform me. But surely the difference is not like to be so great, as that a Soul in Flesh shall know in part, and a Soul in a Spiritual Body shall know perfectly, and a Soul between both shall not know at all. If it be Perfection which we shall have in our Spiritual Body, it is like that we are nearer to that Perfection (in Knowledge and Felicity) while we are between both, than we are in the Flesh.