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

§ 5. II. And why should my want of formal Conceptions of the future state of separated Souls, and my strangeness to the manner of their subsistence and operations, induce me to doubt of those generals, which are evident, and beyond all rational doubting? That Souls are substances, and not annihilated, and essentially the same when they forsake the Body, as before, I doubt not. Otherwise neither the Christians Resurrection, nor the Pythagoreans transmigration were a possible thing. For if the Soul cease to be, it cannot pass into another Body, nor can it re-enter into this? If God raise this Body then it must be by another Soul! For the same Soul to be Annihilated, and yet to begin again to be, is a contradiction: For the second beginning would be by Creation, which maketh a new Soul, and not the same that was before. It is the Invisible things that are excellent, active, operative and permanent: The Visible (excepting Light which maketh all things else visible) are of themselves but lifeless dross: It is the unseen part of Plants and Flowers which causeth all their growth and beauty, their fruit and sweetness: Passive Matter is but moved up and down by the invisible active Powers, as Chess-men are moved from place to place by the Gamesters hands: What a loathsome Corps were the World without the invisible Spirits and Natures that animate, actuate or move it▪ To doubt of the being or continuation of the most excellent Spiritual parts of the Creation, when we live in a World that is actuated by them, and where every thing demonstrates them as their effects, is more foolish than to doubt of the being of these gross materials which we see.

§ 5. II. And why should my want of formal Conceptions of the future state of separated Souls, and my strangeness to the manner of their subsistence and operations, induce me to doubt of those generals, which are evident, and beyond all rational doubting? That Souls are substances, and not annihilated, and essentially the same when they forsake the Body, as before, I doubt not. Otherwise neither the Christians Resurrection, nor the Pythagoreans transmigration were a possible thing. For if the Soul cease to be, it cannot pass into another Body, nor can it re-enter into this? If God raise this Body then it must be by another Soul! For the same Soul to be Annihilated, and yet to begin again to be, is a contradiction: For the second beginning would be by Creation, which maketh a new Soul, and not the same that was before. It is the Invisible things that are excellent, active, operative and permanent: The Visible (excepting Light which maketh all things else visible) are of themselves but lifeless dross: It is the unseen part of Plants and Flowers which causeth all their growth and beauty, their fruit and sweetness: Passive Matter is but moved up and down by the invisible active Powers, as Chess-men are moved from place to place by the Gamesters hands: What a loathsom Corps were the World without the invisible Spirits and Natures that animate, actuate or move it To doubt of the being or continuation of the most excellent Spiritual parts of the Creation, when we live in a World that is actuated by them, and where every thing demonstrates them as their effects, is more foolish than to doubt of the being of these gross materials which we see.