With piercing throbs and sighs, that you may find
His face. Base fleshly fumes your drowsie eyes thus blind.”
(III. i. 31–33.)
In Giles Fletcher’s “Christ’s Triumph after Death” the most elaborate attempt is made to convey the idea of the blessedness of the union of the soul with God through the pleasure of mere sense and at the same time to show how the object with which the soul is joined is in every respect a super-sensible entity. At first the blessedness of the soul’s life in heaven is presented both as a pleasurable enjoyment of the sense of sight, of hearing, and even that of smell, and as a more spiritual pleasure in the exercise of the faculties of understanding and will. Speaking of the joy of those souls that ever hold
“Their eyes on Him, whose graces manifold
The more they doe behold, the more they would behold,”
Fletcher says:
“Their sight drinkes lovely fires in at their eyes,
Their braine sweet incense with fine breath accloyes,
That on God’s sweating altar burning lies;