A26921:830
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and…
Richard Baxter's dying thoughts upon Phil. I, 23 written for his own life and the latter times of his corporal pains and weakness.
London: printed by Tho. Snowden for B. Simmons, 1683
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Some seem to me to think too basely of Sense, and too far to separate it from Intellectual Spirits both as to Power, Act, and Object: And all because they find it in lower Creatures. They might accordingly deny substantiality to Spirits, because Brutes are substances: The higher have all the Perfections of the lower, either formally or eminently. It is not a Spirits Perfection to be insensible, or to have nothing to do with sensible things, but to be eminently sensible, and to be Superior Agents on lower sensibles. GOD IS LOVE: And LOVE is Complacency: And a high degree of Complacency is Delight or Joy. So that God is Essential Infinite Joy: But without that drossy quality which is proper to Souls in Flesh, and all that Imperfection which belongs to Creatures. Can we tell what it is to enter into our Masters Joy, or Joyfully to love and praise him, without any sense: I rather think that as vigorous Youth maketh men capable of more delight than decrepit, languid, •ainful Age and Sickness, so Heaven shall by perfecting our Natures, make them capable of unconceivably more joy than any on Earth is capable of. ⟨p. 302⟩[…] ⟨p. 303⟩[…]
Some seem to me to think too basely of Sense, and too far to separate it from Intellectual Spirits both as to Power, Act, and Object: And all because they find it in lower Creatures. They might accordingly deny substantiality to Spirits, because Bruits are substances: The higher have all the Perfections of the lower, either formally or eminently. It is not a Spirits Perfection to be insensible, or to have nothing to do with sensible things, but to be eminently sensible, and to be Superiour Agents on lower sensibles. GOD IS LOVE: And LOVE is Complacency: And a high degree of Complacency is Delight or Joy. So that God is Essential Infinite Joy: But without that drossie quality which is proper to Souls in Flesh, and all that Imperfection which belongs to Creatures. Can we tell what it is to enter into our Masters Joy, or Joyfully to love and praise him, without any sense: I rather think that as vigorous Youth maketh men capable of more delight than decrippt, languid, •ainful Age and Sickness, so Heaven shall by perfecting our Natures, make them capable of unconceivably more joy than any on Earth is capable of. ⟨p. 302⟩