That you may understand the case, you must know that the school- men and other writers of devotion usually distinguish between consid- eration, meditation, and contemplation. Consideration is a thinking of truth, and a rolling of it in the understanding and memory. Medi- tation is an enforcing of truth upon the soul by discourse or variety of pressing arguments. Contemplation is the fruit and perfection of meditation ; and this they make a supernatural elevation of the mind, by which it adhereth to God, and pauseth in the sight of God and glory without any variety of discourse ; the soul being dazzled with the majesty of God, or the glory of heaven, and transported into a present joy, the use of reason is for a time suspended, and the soul is cast into a kind of sleep and quietness of intuition, staring and gazing with ravishing sweetness upon the divine excellences and the glory of our hopes. In short, contemplation is a ravishing sight without discourse, the work of reason not discoursing, but raised and ecstasied into the highest way of apprehension.
Now it is inquired whether there be any such thing required of a christian ? or whether there be any such dispensation in these latter times of the gospel ? As, for instance, Paul had the glory of God and Christ presented to him ; he did not barely think of these things by the apprehensions of the mind, or discourse of these things by the enforcement of reason, but he had an intuition, a steady view or sight of these things, such as did, as it were, ravish his soul from his body. Doth God use such a dispensation now ? I answer in these propositions —
1. In the primitive times these dispensations and raptures were more usual. We read of John's rapture. Rev. i. 10, ' I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day.' Mark, he doth not say the Spirit was in him, as it is present in the heart of every child of God ; but he was ' in the Spirit,'
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which intimateth height and plenty of revelations. So we read of Peter's rapture while he was praying : Acts x. 10, ' He fell into a trance,' eTreireaev iir avrov eKaraai^, a trance fell upon him, noting that those raptures are things of dis[)ensation rather than choice and duty ; they fall upon us, we do not work ourselves into them. So we read of Paul's rapture : 2 Cor. xii. 2, ' I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell, Grod knoweth), such an one caught up to the third heaven.' Whether these things were framed by way of represen- tation to the soul, or whether the soul were for a time separated from the body and was transported into heaven, Paul himself was at a loss, and could not determine and resolve the case,
2. These dispensations may still be, though not in the same height and manner which the apostles enjoyed. Grod may do it still, for he is left to the liberty and sovereignty of his own dispensations; and though sight, and the beatifical vision and contemplation be the happi- ness of the next world, yet in some measure God may begin it here, that his children may enter into their inheritance by degrees, and may be beforehand led into the suburbs of heaven. As a father gives the child not only a part of the estate, but sometimes the liberty of the whole house, so God may give us here in this world not only those more temperate enjoyments of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and the tirst-fruits of the Spirit, but he may lead us into the suburbs of heaven, and put us above the clouds into the glory of the world to come. Though there may be such a dispensation, yet not in the same manner that the apostles enjoyed it, for that was peculiar to them ; and there- fore when the apostle Paul had reported his rapture, he pleaded that he had the sign of an apostle: 2 Cor. xii. 12, ' Truly the signs of an <in apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. With these raptures there was a concom- itant revelation of the will of God. And they were for other ends ; these raptures were not so much excesses of religion, but revelations for the great ends of the gospel. John's rapture was to receive the visions of God for the comfort of the churches ; Peter's to go to the Gentiles ; Paul's that he might have commission for the apostleship, and the mark and sign of an apostle. Therefore though God may use some such dispensation (for we know not what he may do out of sovereignty), yet not in the same way, and for the same end.
3. Those raptures and transportations, which the children of God now feel sometimes, proceed from strong pangs and ecstasies of love, which for a while do suspend and forbid the distinct use of reason, and cast the soul into a quiet silent gaze. Observe that love, where it is moderate, venteth itself in thoughts and words, and it is a great help to make the inward sense more acute and sharp ; but where it is vehement and strong, it is contented with itself, and satisfied with its own heat, ardour, and intenseness, therefore there is not such a distinct actual discourse. As when a man huggeth and embraceth a friend, the closer he huggeth him, the less distinctly doth he behold and take a view of him; so in the embraces of love, when the soul falleth into the arms of Christ, and claspeth about Christ with the aims of its own love, it hindereth the distinct exercise of reason, and