Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

of confidering the memory, understanding, will, imagination, and the like faculties, is for the better enabling us to exprefs ourselves in fuch abftracted fubjects of fpeculation, not that there is fuch divifion in the foul itself. any

different

Seeing then that the foul has many faculties; or, in other words, many different ways of acting; that it can be intenfely pleased or made happy by all these different faculties, or ways of acting; that it may be endowed with feveral latent faculties, which it is not at prefent in a condition to exert; that we cannot believe the foul is endowed with any faculty which is of no ufe to it; that, whenever any one of these faculties is tranfcendently pleased, the soul is in a state of happiness; and, in the last place, confidering that the happiness of another world is to be the happiness of the whole man, who can queftion but that there is an infinite variety in thofe pleafures we are fpeaking of; of and that this fulness of joy will be made up all those pleasures which the nature of the foul is capable of receiving.

We fhall be the more confirmed in this doctrine if we obferve the nature of variety with regard to the mind of man. The foul does not care to be always in the fame bent. The faculties relieve one another by turns, and receive an additional pleasure from the novelty of thote objects about which they are converfant.

Revelation likewife very much confirms this notion, under the different views which it gives us of our future happiness. In the defcription

of

of the throne of GOD it represents to us all those objects which are able to gratify the fenfes and imagination: in very many places it intimates to us all the happiness which the underftanding can poffibly receive in that state, where all things fhall be revealed to us, and we shall know even as we are known; the raptures of devotion, of divine love, the pleasure of converfing with our Bleffed Saviour, with an innumerable hoft of angels, and with the fpirits of juft men made perfect, are likewife revealed to us in feveral parts of the holy writings. There are alfo mentioned thofe hierarchies or governments in which the bleffed fhall be ranged one above another, and in which we may be fure a great part of our happiness will likewife confift; for it will not be there as in this world, where every one is aiming at power and fuperiority: but, on the contrary, every one will find that station the most proper for him in which he is placed, and will probably think that he could not have been fo happy in any other station. Thefe, and many other particulars, are marked in divine revelation, as the feveral ingredients of our happiness in heaven, which all imply fuch a variety of joys, and fuch a gratification of the foul in all its different faculties, as I have been here mentioning.

Some of the Rabbins tell us that the cherubims are a fet of angels who know most, and the feraphims a fet of angels who love most. Whether this diftinction be not altogether imaginary I fhall not here examine; but it is

highly probable that, among the fpirits of good men, there may be fome who will be more pleased with the employment of one faculty than of another; and this perhaps according to thofe innocent and virtuous habits or inclinations which have here taken the deepest root.

I might here apply this confideration to the fpirits of wicked men, with relation to the pain which they fhall fuffer in every one of their faculties, and the respective miferies which shall be appropriated to each faculty in particular. But, leaving this to the reflection of my readers, I fhall conclude with obferving how we ought to be thankful to our great Creator, and rejoice in the being which he has bestowed upon us, for having made the foul susceptible of pleafure by fo many different ways. We fee by what a variety of paffages joy and gladness may enter into the thoughts of man; how wonderfully a human fpirit is framed, to imbibe its proper fatisfactions, and tafte the goodness of its Creator. We may therefore look into ourfelves with rapture and amazement, and cannot fufficiently exprefs our gratitude to Him who has encompaffed us with fuch a profufion of bleffings, and opened in us fo many capacities of enjoying them.

There cannot be a ftronger argument that GOD has defigned us for a state of future happinefs, and for that heaven which he has revealed to us, than that he has thus naturally qualified the foul for it, and made it a being capable of receiving fo much blifs. He would never have

made

made fuch faculties in vain, and have endowed us with powers that were not to be exerted on fuch objects as are fuited to them. It is very manifeft, by the inward frame and conftitution of our minds, that he has adapted them to an infinite variety of pleafures and gratifications which are not to be met with in this life. We fhould therefore at all times take care that we do not disappoint this his gracious purpose and intention towards us, and make thofe faculties, which he formed as fo many qualifications for happiness and rewards, to be the inftruments of pain and punishment.

N° 601. Friday, October 1, 1714.

*

«Ο άνθρωπ@· ἐνεργεῖος πεφυκώς.

ANTONIN. Lib. ix.

Man is naturally a beneficent creature."

Τ

HE following effay comes from an hand which has entertained my readers once

before.

•Nor

TWITHSTANDING a narrow contracted temper be that which obtains most in the world, we must not therefore conclude this to be the genuine characteristic of man• kind; because there are fome who delight in nothing fo much as in doing good, and receive * BY ADDISON.

+ SPECT. No. 588.

more

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

more of their happiness at fecond hand, or by • rebound from others, than by direct and im• mediate fenfation. Now, though these heroic fouls are but few, and to appearance fo far • advanced above the groveling multitude as if they were of another order of beings, yet in reality their nature is the fame; moved by the fame fprings, and endowed with all the fame effential qualities; only cleared, refined, and cultivated. Water is the fame fluid body in winter and in fummer; when it ftands ftiffened in ice as when it flows along in gentle ftreams, gladdening a thousand fields in its progrefs. It is a property of the heart of man to be diffufive: its kind wishes spread • abroad over the face of the creation; and if there be those, as we may obferve too many • of them, who are all wrapped up in their own dear felves, without any vifible concern for their species, let us fuppofe that their goodnature is frozen, and, by the prevailing force • of fome contrary quality, reftrained in its operation. I fhall therefore endeavour to affign • fome of the principal checks upon this generous propenfion of the human foul, which will enable us to judge whether, and by what • method, this most useful principle may be unfettered, and restored to its native freedom of exercise.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The firft, and leading caufe is an unhappy complexion of body. The heathens, igno⚫rant of the true fource of moral evil, generally • charged it on the obliquity of matter, which, being

6

« ForrigeFortsett »