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

§ 30. But all that can be said with reason is that separated Souls, and Souls hereafter in Spiritual Bodies, will have Actions of another mode, and very different from these that we now perceive in flesh. And be it so. They will yet be radically, of the same Kind, and they will be formally or eminently such as we now call, Vitality, Intellection and Volition; And they will be no lower nor less excellent if not far more; And then what the difference will be, Christ knoweth whom I trust, and in season I shall know. But to talk of a Dead Life, an unactive activity, or a Sleeping Soul, is fitter for a sleeping than a waking man.

§ 31. It's true that Diseases or Hurts do now hinder the Souls Intellectual perceptions in the body, and in Infancy and Sleep they are imperfect. Which proveth indeed that the Acts commonly called Intellection and Volition, have now something in them also of sensation, and that sensitive operations are diversified by the Organs of the several senses. And that bare Intellection and Volition without any sensation is now scarce to be observed in us, though the Soul may have such acts intrinsically and in its profundity. For it is now so united to this body, that it acteth on it as our form; And indeed the Act, observed by us cannot be denied to be such as are specified or modified at least, by the Agents, and the Recipients, and Sub-Agents parts conjunct. But, 1. As the Sun would do the same thing ex parte sui if in vacuo only it sent forth its beams, though this were no Illumination or Calefaction, because there were no Recipient, to be Illuminated and Heated by it. And it would lose nothing by the want of objects; so the Soul, had it no Body ⟨p. 19⟩to act on, would have its profound Immanent Acts of self-living, self-perceiving, and self loving, (and all its external acts on other objects, which need not Organs of sense for their approximation.) And 2. Its sensitive faculty is it self, or such as it is not separated from, though the Particular sorts of sensation may be altered with their uses: And therefore it may still act on or with the sense: And if one way of sensation be hindered, it hath another. 3. And how far this Lantern of flesh doth help or hinder its operations, we know not yet, but shall know hereafter. Sondis de Orig. Animae (though an heretical Writer) hath said much to prove that the Body is a hinderance, and not a help to the Soul's Intuition. And if Ratiocination be a compound act yet Intuition may be done for ever by the Soul alone. 4. But as we are not to judge what Powers the Soul hath when the Acts are hindered, but when they are done; nor what Souls were made by God for, by their state in the Womb or Infancy, or Diseases, but by our ordinary mature state of life; so we have little reason to think that the same God who made them for Life, Intellection and Volitions here, will not continue the same Powers o the same, or as noble uses hereafter, whether with Organs, or without, as pleaseth him.