John Flavel ended his days on the 26th of June, 1691, at Exeter. He had, before his death, left the town of Dartmouth, the scene of his long and zealous ministrations, because the rabble, headed by certain aldermen, in 1685 paraded the town, carrying the good man’s effigy to be burnt,--an insult he revenged by praying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” With his lively imagination he combined intense spiritual emotion, and the following story, which he relates of himself in his _Pneumatologia_ is so curious that, though familiar from frequent quotation, it deserves to be inserted here. It exemplifies a phase of spiritual life belonging to an age which has passed away.[212] “Being on a journey, he set himself to improve his time by meditation; when his mind grew intent, till at length he had such ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and such full assurance of his interest therein, that he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world and all its concerns, so that for hours he knew not where he was. At last, perceiving himself faint from a great loss of blood from his nose, he alighted from his horse and sat down at a spring, where he washed and refreshed himself; earnestly desiring, if it were the will of God, that he might there leave the world. His spirits reviving, he finished his journey in the same delightful frame. And all that night passed without a wink of sleep, the joy of the Lord still overflowing him, so that he seemed an inhabitant of the other world. After this, an heavenly serenity and sweet peace continued long with him; and for many years he called that day one of the days of heaven, and professed he understood more of the life of heaven by it, than by all the discourses he had heard or the books he ever read.”[213] [Sidenote: 1691.]