living behold me.”  And therefore we may well know not only that we are, for the state of this life, kept from the fruition of the bliss of heaven, but also I think that the very best man living here upon earth—­the best man, I mean, who is no more than man—­cannot attain the right imagination of it; but those who are very virtuous are yet (in a manner) as far from it as a man born blind is from the right imagination of colours.

The words that St. Paul rehearseth of the prophet Isaiah, prophesying of Christ’s incarnation, may properly be verified of the joys of heaven:  "Oculus non vidit, nec auris audivit, nec in cor hominis adscendit, quae preparavit Deus diligentibus se." For surely, for this state of this world, the joys of heaven are by man’s mouth unspeakable, to man’s ears not audible, to men’s hearts uncogitable, so far excel they all that ever men have heard of, all that ever men can speak of, and all that men can by natural possibility think on.

And yet, whereas such be the joys of heaven that are prepared for every saved soul, our Lord saith yet, by the mouth of St. John, that he will give his holy martyrs who suffer for his sake many a special kind of joy.  For he saith, “To him that overcometh, I shall give him to eat of the tree of life.  And I shall confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”  And also he saith, “Fear none of those things that thou shalt suffer . . . , but be faithful unto the death, and I shall give thee the crown of life.  He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.”  And he saith also, “To him that overcometh will I give manna secret and hid.  And I will give him a white suffrage, and in his suffrage a new name written, which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it.”  They used of old in Greece, where St. John did write, to elect and choose men unto honourable offices, and every man’s assent was called his “suffrage,” which in some places was by voices and in some places by hands.  And one kind of those suffrages was by certain things that in Latin are called calculi because, in some places, they used round stones for them.  Now our Lord saith that unto him who overcometh he will give a white suffrage, for those that were white signified approving, as the black signified reproving.  And in those suffrages did they use to write the name of him to whom they gave their vote.  Now our Lord saith that to him who overcometh he will in the suffrage give him a new name, which no man knoweth but him who receiveth it.  He saith also, “He that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out thereof, and I shall write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which descendeth from heaven from my God, and I shall write on him also my new name.”  If we wished to enlarge upon this, and were able to declare these special gifts, with yet others that are specified in the second and third chapters of the Apocalypse, then would it appear how far those heavenly joys shall surmount above all the comfort that ever came in the mind of any man living here upon earth.