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98
It makes him sensible of the reality of Happiness: it feeds him with contentment, and fills him with gratitude, it delivers him from the love of money which is the root of all evil, it causes him to reign over the perverse customs and opinions that are in the world: it opens his eyes, and makes him to see men’s blindness and errors. It sateth his covetousness, feedeth his curiosity and pleaseth his ambition. It makes him too great for preferments and allurements. It causeth him to delight in retirement: and to be in love with prayer and communion with God. It lifteth him up above men’s scandals and censures. It maketh him zealous of the salvation of all. It filleth him with courage on the behalf of God. It makes him to rejoice in a present, visible, immovable treasure to which the rest of the world is blind, and strengthens his faith and hope of Invisible. Yea it makes him wise, and many invisible joys doth he see in this. Glory and Dominion are invisible joys. And so is that great interest a man hath to all Kingdoms and Ages, which a true possessor of the World is more sensible of, than of his houses and lands. It makes him meek in pardoning all injuries, because he is above the reach of all his enemies: and infinitely secure in the midst of his fruitions. How great a thing is the enjoyment of the world, how highly to be esteemed and how zealously to be thirsted after, that eminently containeth all these! Verily it is a Thing so Divine and Heavenly, that it makes vices and virtues almost visible to our very eyes.
99
Varro citeth 288 opinions of philosophers concerning happiness: they were so blind in the knowledge of it, and so different in their apprehensions. All which opinions fall in here, as all rivers fall into the sea, and agree together. Some placed happiness in riches, and some in honour, some in pleasure, and some in the contempt of all riches, honor, and pleasure; some in wisdom and some in firm stability of mind, some in empire and some in, love. Some in bare and naked contentment, some in contemplation, and some in action; some in rest and some in sufferings, and some in victory and triumph. All which occur here, for here is victory and triumph over our lusts, that we might live the life of clear reason, in the fruition of all riches, honours, and pleasures, which are by wisdom to be seen, and by love to be enjoyed in the highest empire, with great contentation, in solitude alone, in communion with all, by action and contemplation, attaining it by sufferings, and resting in the possession, with perfect victory and triumph over the world and evil men, or sin, death and hell, maugre all the oppositions of men and devils. Neither angels, nor principalities, nor power, nor height nor depth, nor things present nor things to come, being able to separate us, from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
100
Felicity is a thing coveted of all. The whole world is taken with the beauty of it: and he is no man, but a stock or stone that does not desire it. Nevertheless great offence hath been done by the philosophers and scandal given, through their blindness, many of them, in making Felicity to consist in negatives. They tell us it doth not consist in riches, it doth not consist in honors, it doth not consist in pleasures. Wherein then, saith a miserable man, doth it consist? Why in contentment, in self sufficiency, in virtues, in the right government of our passions, &c. Were it not better to show the amiableness of virtues, and the benefit of the right government of our passions, the objects of contentment, and the grounds of self sufficiency, by the truest means? Which these never do. Ought they not to distinguish between true and false riches as our Saviour doth; between real and feigned honours; between clear and pure pleasures and those which are muddy and unwholesome? The honour that cometh from above, the true treasures, and those rivers of pleasure that flow at his right hand for evermore, are by all to be sought and by all to be desired. For it is the affront of nature, a making vain the powers, and a baffling the expectations of the soul, to deny it all objects, and a confining it to the grave, and a condemning of it to death, to tie it to that inward unnatural mistaken self-sufficiency and contentment they talk of. By the true government of our passions, we disentangle them from impediments, and fit and guide them to their proper objects. The amiableness of virtue consisteth in this, that by it all happiness is either attained or enjoyed. Contentment and rest ariseth from a full perception of infinite treasures. So that whosoever will profit in the mystery of Felicity, must see the objects of his happiness, and the manner how they are to be enjoyed, and discern also the powers of his soul by which he is to enjoy them, and perhaps the rules that shall guide him in the way of enjoyment. All which you have here, GOD, THE WORLD, YOUR SELF, ALL THINGS in Time and Eternity being the objects of your Felicity, God the Giver, and you the receiver.