543. Certain spirits longed to know the nature of heavenly joy, and were therefore allowed to perceive the inmost of their own, to such a degree that they could bear no more; and yet it was not angelic joy, being scarcely equal to the least angelic joy, as was given me to perceive by a communication of their joy. It was so slight as to be as it were chilly, and yet being their inmost joy they called it most heavenly. From this it was evident not only that there are degrees of joys, but also that the inmost of one scarcely approaches the outmost or middle of another, and that when anyone receives his own inmost joy, he is in his heavenly joy, and cannot endure that which is still more interior, for it becomes painful.
