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

§ 7. Organical sight is given me for my use here in the Body: And a Serpent or a Hawk hath as much or more of this than I have: Mental knowledge reacheth further than sight, and is the act of a nobler Faculty, and for a higher use: Though it be the Soul itself embodied in the igneous Spirits that seeth, yet it is by a higher and more useful Faculty, that it understandeth: And Faith is an understanding act: It knoweth things unseen because they are revealed. Who can think that all believing holy Souls, that have passed hence from the beginning of the World, have been ⟨p. 208⟩deceived in their Faith and Hope? And that all the wicked worldly Infidels, whose hope was only in this life, have been the wisest men and have been in the right: If Virtue, and Piety, are faults or follies, and brutish Sensuality be best, then why are not Laws made to command Sensuality, and forb•d Piety and Virtue? To say this, is to deny humanity, and the Wisdom of our Creator, and to feign the World to be governed by a Lie, and to take the Perfection of our Nature for its disease, and our greatest disease for our Perfection. But if Piety, and Virtue, be better than Impiety and Vice, the Principles and necessary Motives of them are certainly true, and the exercise of them is not in vain. What abominable folly and wickedness were it to say the wicked only attain their ends, and that they all lose their labour, and live, and die in miserable deceit, who seek to please God in hope of a better life to come, believing that God is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek him? Wou•d not this justify the foolish Manichees that thought a bad God made this World; yea, and would infer that he not only made us for a mischief, but Ruleth u• to our deceit and hurt, and giveth us both Natural and Supernatural Laws, in ill will to us, to mislead us to our misery, and to fill our lives with needless troubles: Shall I not abhor every suggestion that containeth such inhumane absurdities as these? Wonderful! that Satan can keep up so much Unbelief in the World, while he must make men such fools, that he may make them unbelievers and ungodly.

§ 7. Organical sight is given me for my use here in the Body: And a Serpent or a Hawk hath as much or more of this than I have: Mental knowledge reacheth further than sight, and is the act of a nobler Faculty, and for a higher use: Though it be the Soul itself embodied in the igneous Spirits that seeth, yet it is by a higher and more useful Faculty, that it understandeth: And Faith is an understanding act: It knoweth things unseen because they are revealed. Who can think that all believing holy Souls, that have passed hence from the beginning of the World, have been