The blessedness of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /The blessednesse of the righteous discoursed from Psal. 17, 15 /

That when once it finds God (whom he had before been speaking of under the name of the [Greek or Hebrew] or the beauty) shining in upon it, it now no ⟨p. 419⟩longer feels its body, or takes notice of its being in the body, but even forgets its own being, that it is a man, or a living creature, or any thing else whatsoever, for it is not at leisure to mind any thing else, nor doth it desire to be: Yea, and having sought him out, he immediately meets it, presenting its self to him. It only views him instead of it self,—and would not now change its state for any thing, not if one could give it the whole heaven in exchange.

That when once it finds God (whom he had before been speaking of under the name of the 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 or the beauty) shining in upon it, it now no ⟨p. 419⟩longer feels its body, or takes notice of its being in the body, but even forgets its own being, that it is a man, or a living creature, or any thing else whatsoever, for it is not at leisure to mind any thing else, nor doth it desire to be: Yea, and having sought him out, he immediately meets it, presenting its self to him. It onely views him instead of it self,—and would not now change its state for any thing, not if one could give it the whole heaven in exchange.

And, else where, discussing, whether life in the body be good and desirable yea or no, he concludes it to be good, not as it is an union of the soul and body; but as it may have that virtue annexed to it, by which, what is really evil may be kept off. But yet, that that death is a greater good. That life in the body is in it self evil, but the soul is by virtue stated in goodness; not as enlivening the body, with which it is compounded, but as it severs, and so joins it self from it; meaning so, as to have as little communion as possible it can with it. To which purpose is the expression of another; That the soul of an happy man so collects and gathers up it self out from all things into it self, that it hath as it were, separated it self from the body, while it is yet contained in it—And that it was possest of that fortitude,