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

VIII. And it will be some addition to my future happiness that I shall then be much better acquainted with my self: Both with my Nature, and with my Sin and Grace. I shall then better know the Nature of a Soul, and its formal Faculties (Three in One:) I shall know the nature and way of its Operations, and how far its acts are simple or compound, or organical! I shall know how far Memory, Fantasy, and Sense internal and external belong to the rational Soul, and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one; and what Senses will perish and what not? I shall know how the Soul doth act upon it self, and what acts it hath that are not felt, in sleep in Apoplexies, and in the Womb? I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than Fire; and whether it be of the same Essence with the Soul (sensitive, or rational:) (and whether Fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance ⟨p. 160⟩of all Spirits, diversly specified by the Forms, (mental, sensitive and vegetative:) or whether it be as a Body or Vehicle to Spirits, or rather a nature made for the Copulation of Spirits and Bodies, and the Operation of the former on the latter, as between both: And whether Fire (and of what sort) be the active forma telluris, and of other Globes: I shall know how far Souls are One and yet Many, and how they are Individuate? And whether their Quantitas discreta in being numerically many, do prove that they have any Quantitatem continuam, and whether they are a purer sort of Bodies as the Greek Fathers, Tertullian and others Thought, and what Immateriality signifieth; and what substantiality of Spirits; and how substantia & materia differ; and how far they are penetrable and indivisible; and whether a Soul be properly pars; and whether individual Souls are parts of any common Soul: and how far the individuation doth continue? And whether separated from the Body, they operate in and by any other Vehicle, or without, and how? and whether they take with them any of the fiery Nature as a Vehicle or as a constitutive part? I shall know how God produceth Souls? And how his production by Emanation or Creation, doth consist with Generation? And how forms are multiplied? And what Causality the Parents Soul hath to the production of the Child's? Whether by communication of substance, or only by disposing the recipient matter?

VIII. And it will be some addition to my future happiness that I shall then be much better acquainted with my self: Both with my Nature, and with my Sin and Grace. I shall then better know the Nature of a Soul, and its formal Faculties (Three in One:) I shall know the nature and way of its Operations, and how far its acts are simple or compound, or organical! I shall know how far Memory, Phantasie, and Sense internal and external belong to the rational Soul, and whether the sensitive and rational are two or one; and what Senses will perish and what not? I shall know how the Soul doth act upon it self, and what acts it hath that are not felt, in sleep in Apoplexies, and in the Womb? I shall know whether the vegetative nature be any thing else than Fire; and whether it be of the same Essence with the Soul (sensitive, or rational:) (and whether Fire eminenter be a common fundamental substance