CHAPTER VI. A THIRD DEDUCTION. 3. That all true happiness consists in a participation of God, arising out of the assimilation and conformity of our souls to Him; and, that the most real misery ariseth out of the apostasy of souls from God. No enjoyment of God without our being made like to Him. The happiness and misery of man defined and stated, with the original and foundation of both. WE proceed now to another deduction or inference, viz. That all true happiness consists in a participation of God, arising out of the assimilation and conformity of our souls to Him; and, that the most real misery ariseth out of the apostasy of souls from God. And so we are led to speak of the rewards and punishments of the life to come, præmium and pana-as the Jewish writers are wont to express them': and it will not be any hard labour from what hath been said, to find out the original and nature of both of them; and though, perhaps, we cannot dive into the bottom of them, yet we may go about them, and tell how, in a general way, to define and distinguish them. Happiness is nothing else, as we usually describe it to ourselves, but the enjoyment of some chief good: and therefore the Deity is so boundlessly happy, because it is every way one with its own immense perfection; and every thing so much the more feelingly lives upon happiness, by how much the more it comes to partake of God, and to be made like to Him: and, therefore, the Platonists well defined it to consist in idea boni. And, as it is impossible to enjoy happiness without a fruition of God; so it is impossible to enjoy Him without an assimilation and conformity of our natures to Him in a way of true goodness and godlike perfection. It is a common maxim of Socrates that 'it is not lawful for any impure nature to שכר וענש 1 touch pure divinity'.' For we cannot enjoy God by any external conjunction with Him: divine fruition is not by a mere kind of apposition or contiguity of our natures with the divine, but it is an internal union, whereby a divine spirit, informing our souls, sends the strength of a divine life through them; and as this is more strong and active, so is happiness itself more energetical within us. It must be some divine efflux running quite through our souls, awakening and exalting all the vital powers of them into an active sympathy with some absolute good, that renders us completely blessed. It is not to sit gazing upon a deity by some thin speculations; but it is an inward feeling and sensation of this mighty goodness displaying itself within us, melting our fierce and furious natures, that would fain be something in contradiction to God, into a universal compliance with itself, and wrapping up our amorous minds wholly into itself, whereby God comes to be all in all to us. And therefore, so long as our wills and affections endeavour to fix upon any thing but God and true goodness, we do indeed but anxiously endeavour to wring happiness out of something that will yield no more than a flinty rock to all our pressing and forcing. The more we endeavour to force our affections to stay and rest themselves upon any finite thing, the more violently will they recoil back again upon us. It is only a true sense and relish of God, that can tame and master that rage of our insatiable and restless desires, which is still forcing us out of ourselves to seek some perfect good-that which, from a latent sense of our own souls, we feel ourselves to want. The foundation of heaven and hell is laid in men's own souls, in an ardent and vehement appetite after happiness, 1 μὴ καθαρῷ γὰρ καθαροῦ ἐφάπτεσθαι μn où beμτov .-Plato, Phæd. 67 B. Vid. Clemens Alexand. Strom. v. cap. 4; Simplicius, in Epictet. cap. xxxi.; Hierocles, in Aur. Carm. pp. 10, 222 (Needham); Plutarch, de Is. et Osir. 352 D; and Synesius, Dione, p. 50 A. which can neither attain to it, nor finally miss it and all appearances of it, without a quick and piercing sense. Our souls are not like so many lumps of matter dead and senseless to a true living happiness; they are not like these dull clods of earth which discern not the good or ill savour of those plants that grow upon them. Gain and loss are very sensibly felt by greedy minds. The soul of man was made with such a large capacity as it has, that so it might be better fitted to entertain a full and liberal happiness; that the Divine love and goodness might more freely spread itself in it, and unite it to itself. And, accordingly, when it misseth God, it must feel so much the more the fury and pangs of misery, and find a severe Nemesis arising out of its guilty conscience, which, like a fiery scorpion, will fasten its stings within it. And thus, as heaven, love, joy, peace, serenity, and all that which happiness is, buds and blossoms out of holy and godlike spirits; so also hell and misery will perpetually spring out of impure minds, distracted with envy, malice, ambition, self-will, or any inordinate loves to any particular thing. This is that Adpaσreías vóuos that Plato speaks of— that fatal law that is first made in heaven's consistory, 'that purity and holiness shall be happy, and all vice and sin miserable'.' Holiness of mind will be more and more attracting God to itself, as all vice will lapse and slide more and more from Him. The more pure our souls are, and abstracted from all mundane things, the more sincerely will they strive after the nearest union that may be with God; the more will they pant and breathe after Him alone, leaving the chase of any other delight. There is such a noble and free-born spirit in true goodness seated in immortal natures, as will not be satisfied merely with innocency, nor rest itself in this mixed bodily state, though it could converse with bodily things without 1 Plat. Phædr. 248 c. sinking to a vicious love of them; but would always be returning to a more intimate union with that Being from whom it came, and who will be drawing it more and more to Himself: and, therefore, it seems very reasonable to believe that, if Adam had continued in a state of innocency, he would have been raised by God to a greater fruition of Him, and his nature would have been elevated to a more transcendent condition. And, if there was any covenant made with Adam in Paradise, I think we cannot understand it in any other sense than this: the Scripture speaks not of any other terms between God and man'. And this law of life, which we have spoken of, is eternal and immutable; nor does the dispensation of grace by Christ Jesus at all abrogate or disannul, but rather enforce it: for so we find that the law of Christ—that which He gave out to all His disciples-was this law of perfection that carries true happiness along in the sense of it, which, as the great Prince of souls, He dispenseth by His Eternal Spirit in a vital way unto the minds of men. CHAPTER VII. A FOURTH DEDUCTION. 4. The fourth deduction acquaints us with the true notion of the Divine Justice; That the proper scope and design of it, is to preserve righteousness, to promote and encourage true goodness. That it does not primarily intend punishment, but only takes it up as a means to prevent transgression. True justice never supplants any, that itself may appear more glorious in their ruin. How Divine Justice is most advanced. 1 According to the concurrent testimony of Christian antiquity, God did make a covenant with Adam in Paradise; our first parents would not have died, if they had preserved their state of inno cence; but after such a trial of their obedience, as should seem sufficient to the Divine Wisdom, would have been translated from earth to heaven.-Vid. Bishop Bull's State of Man before the Fall. IN the fourth place, we may further collect how to state rightly the notion of the Divine Justice, the scope whereof is nothing else but to assert and establish eternal law and right, and to preserve the integrity thereof: it is no design of vengeance, in which God takes no delight, though He inflicts it on wicked men. The Divine Justice first prescribes that which is most conformable to the Divine Nature, and mainly proposes the conservation of righteousness. We should not think him a good ruler, that should give out laws to ensnare his subjects, with an even indifferency of mind whether his laws should be kept, or punishment suffered; but such a one as should make the best security for right and equity by wholesome laws, and annexing punishments as a means to prevent transgression, and not to manifest severity. The proper scope of justice seems to be nothing else but the preserving and maintaining that which is just and right: the scope of that justice which is in any righteous law, is properly to provide for a righteous execution of that which is just and fit to be, without intending punishment; for to intend that properly and directly, might rather seem cruelty than justice: and, therefore, justice takes not up punishment, except only for securing the performance of righteous laws, viz. either for the amendment of the person transgressing, or a due example to others to keep them off from transgression'. For I would here suppose a good and righteous man, who, in some desolate place of the world, should have the command of a hundred more, and himself be supreme and under no command. He prescribes laws to this company; makes it death for any one to take away another's life. But now one proves a murderer, kills one of his fellows; afterwards, repents heartily, and is likely 1 As applied to the Deity, this must be limited to His dealings with us in this world. Hereafter, God will appear as a righteous |