ON HEAVEN
Now, the necessary mansions of our restored selves are those two contrary and incompatible places we call heaven and hell; to define them, or strictly to determine what and where these are, surpasseth my divinity. That elegant apostle which seemed to have a glimpse of heaven hath left but a negative description thereof: ‘which neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor can enter into the heart of man’: he was translated out of himself to behold it; but being returned into himself could not express it. St. John’s description by emeralds, chrysolites, and precious stones is too weak to express the material heaven we behold. Briefly, therefore, where the soul hath the full measure and complement of happiness, where the boundless appetite of that spirit remains completely satisfied that it can neither desire addition nor alteration,
that I think is truly heaven: and this can only be in the enjoyment of that essence whose infinite goodness is able to terminate the desires of itself, and the insatiable wishes of ours; wherever God will thus manifest Himself, there is heaven, though within the circle of this sensible world. Thus the soul of man may be in heaven anywhere, even within the limits of his own proper body; and when it ceaseth to live in the body it may remain in its own soul, that is, its Creator. And thus we may say that St. Paul, whether in the body, or out of the body, was yet in heaven. . . . Moses, that was bred up in all the learning of the Egyptians, committed a gross absurdity in philosophy when with these eyes of flesh he desired to see God, and petitioned his Maker, that is truth itself, to a contradiction.