In this rapture his soul ascended above this world, it was caught up into paradise, into the third heaven, the place in which Christ's soul was after his death ; and there he heard those a^onra ^?;/xara, unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter; For, alas ! poor mortals cannot pronounce the Shibboleth of heaven. The heavenly inhabitants talk in no other dialect; but the lan- guage of heaven is not properly spoken by any but the inhabitants of heaven. Now Paul was not admitted into their society at that time, as he was at his death, but was only a spectator, a stander- by, as the angels are in the assemblies of the saints here on earth. But, O what a day was that day to his soul ! It was as one of the days of heaven ; no words could signify to another man what he felt, what he tasted in that hour. Such favours will not be in- dulged to many : he was a chosen vessel, and appointed to extra- ordinary sufferings for Christ, and it was necessary his supports and encouragements should be answerable.
* It does not appear with certainty, whether the soul of Paul was then separated firora the body ; seeing he himself owns his ignorance as to that matter : Hence we cannot determine what befei him as to abstraction from the senses, namely, whether the senses were extinct, his body being dead, through the separation of the soul : Or only sopited, the body not being dead. Colleg. Conimbr, lib, 3. Art 5. p. 512.
f In extasiejkriuri omnes potentias prater intellectum. Abulen,
56 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAX.
It was no less an extraordinary and wonderful vision, which Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and John had * ; such representations of God as overwhelmed them, and made nature faint under them ; and no wonder, for if the eyes of creatures are so weak that they cannot directly behold such a glorious creature as the sun, how much less can they bear the glorious excellency and majesty of God ?
(2.) And sometimes, without an ecstasy, representations of Christ, and the glory of heaven, have been made, and the very bodily eye fortified and elevated above its natural vigour and ability to behold him. Thus it was with Stephen at his martyrdom. Acts vii. 55^ 56. " Who being full of the Holy Ghost, looked stedfastly into " heaven, and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the '' right-hand of God." This was not a sight of faith, but an ex- traordinary sight by the bodily eye, is evident, from its effect upon his outward man; it made his face to shine as the face of an angel.
2. There are also, beside this, ordinary, and more common fore- tastes of heaven, and the glory to come, with which many believers are favoured in this world ; and such are those which come into the heart, upon the steady and more fixed vieAvs of the world to come, by faith, and the more raised spiritual actings of grace in duty. " Believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory," 1 Pet. i. 8. %aga dido^aff/ji^svyi, with a glorified joy, or a joy of the same kind and nature with the joy of glorified spirits, though in an inferior and allayed degree.
And yet, with the allowance of its allay and rebatement, it is like new wine put into old and crazy bottles, which is ready to make them fly, and would do so, should they be of any long con^ tinuance, " Stay me (saith the spouse) with flaggons, comfort me " with apples, I am sick of love,'' Cant. ii. 5. The sickness was not the sickness of desire or of grief ; of that she had complained before ; but the sickness of love, i. e. she was ready to faint under the unsupportable weight of Christ's manifested and sealed love, not able to bear what she felt, pained with the love of Christ ; and the desired cure speaks this to be her case, " Stay me with flag- " gons, comfort me with apples." As if she had said. Lord, sup- port, and under-prop my soul, for it reels, staggers, and fails under the pressure and weight of thy love. Much like the case of a holy man, who cried out under the overwhelming sense of the love of Christ, shed abroad into his heart in prayer. Hold, Lord, hold, thy poor creature is a clay vessel, and can hold no more. Though these joys bring not the soul into a perfect ecstasy^ they certainly
* Isa. vi. 1, 2. Ezek. i. 1. Dan. x. 8, 9. Rev. i. 17.
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 57
bring it as near as may be to it. Mr. * Fox tells us of one Giles of Bruxels, a godly martyr, who in prison spent most of his time apart from the rest, in secret prayer; in which his soul was so ai'dent and intent, that he often forgot himself, and the time ; and when he was called to meat, he neither saw nor heard those that stood by him, till he was lifted up by the arms : and then he would gladly speak to them, as one newly awaked out of a sweet sleep. These foretastes of heaven may, from the manner of their convey- ance, be distinguished into,
1. Mediate, in, and by the previous use and exercise of faith, heart-examination, &c. The Spirit of God concurring with, and blessing such duties as these, helps the soul by them to a sight of its interest in Christ, and the glory to come ; which being gain- ed, joy is no more under the soufs command. I have, \vith good assurance, this account of a minister, ' Who being alone in a jour- ' ney, and willing to make the best improvement he could of that ' day's solitude, set himself to a close examination of the state of
* his soul, and then of the life to come, and the manner of its being, ' and living in heaven, in the views of all those things which are
< now pure objects of faith and hope. After a while, he perceived ' his thoughts begin to fix, and come closer to these great and as-
< lonishing things than was usual ; and as his mind settled upon
* them, his affections began to rise with answerable liveliness and
' He therefore (whilst he was yet master of his own thoughts) ' lifted up his heart to God in a short ejaculation that God would
* so order it in his providence, that he might meet with no interrupt ' tion from company, or any other accident in that journey ; which ' was granted him : For, in all that day's journey, he neither metj ' overtook, or was overtaken by any. Thus going on his way, his ' thoughts began to swell, and rise higher and higher, like the ' waters in EzekiePs vision, till at last they became an overflowing ' flood. Such was the intention of his mind, such the ravishing ' tastes of heavenly joys, and such the full assurance of his interest ' therein, that he utterly lost a sight and sense of this world, and ' all the concerns thereof; and, for some hours, knew no more ' where he was, than if he had been in a deep sleep upon his bed.
* At last he began to perceive himself very faint, and almost choak- ' ed with blood, which running in abundance froni his nose, had
* coloured his clothes and his horse from the shoulder to the hoof. ' He found himself almost spent, and nature to faint under the pres*
• Acts and Mon. p. 811,
58 A THrATISE OF THK SOt'L OF MA]5f.