re
signs only they are not accompanied with the thing signified, which is
_the body and blood of Christ_, whose death, till his second coming,
we are hereby to represent by the vanquishing and burying our vile
affections that they may arise to a newness of life, and be united first
to each other, then all to Christ.

These are the actions and meditations of the truly pious person; while
the vulgar place all their religion in crowding up close to the altar,
in listening to the words of the priest, and in being very circumspect
at the observance of each trifling ceremony. Nor is it in such cases
only as we have here given for instances, but through his whole course
of life, that the pious man, without any regard to the baser materials
of the body, spends himself wholly in a fixed intentness upon spiritual,
invisible, and eternal objects.

Now since these persons stand off, and keep at so wide a distance
between themselves, it is customary for them both to think each other
mad: and were I to give my opinion to which of the two the name does
most properly belong, I should, I confess, adjudge it to the religious;
of the reasonableness whereof you may be farther convinced if I proceed
to demonstrate what I formerly hinted at, namely, that that ultimate
happiness which religion proposes is no other than some sort of madness.

First, therefore, Plato dreamed somewhat of this nature when he tells
us that the madness of lovers was of all other dispositions of the body
most desirable; for he who is once thoroughly smitten with this passion,
lives no longer within himself, but has removed his soul to the same
place where he has settled his affections, and loses himself to find the
object he so much dotes upon: this straying now, and wandering of a
soul from its own mansion, what is it better than a plain transport of
madness? What else can be the meaning of those proverbial phrases, _non
est apua se_, he is not himself; _ad te redi_, recover yourself; and
_sibi redditus est_, he is come again to himself? And accordingly
as love is more hot and eager, so is the madness thence ensuing more
incurable, and yet more happy. Now what shall be that future happiness
of glorified saints, which pious souls here on earth so earnestly groan
for, but only that the spirit, as the more potent and prevalent victor,
shall over-master and swallow up the body; and that the more easily,
because while here below, the several members, by being mortifie