We may for awhile amuse ourselves with names, and sounds, and shadows of happiness, we may talk of this or that greatness and dignity; but if we desire real happiness, we have no other possible way to it, but by improving our talents, by so holily and piously using the powers and faculties of men in this present state, that we may be happy and glorious in the powers and faculties of angels in the world to come.
How ignorant therefore are they of the nature of religion, of the nature of man, and the nature of God, who think a life of strict piety to be a dull and uncomfortable state, when it is so plain and certain, that there is neither comfort nor joy to be found in any thing else?
CHAP. X.
The happiness of a life wholly devoted unto God, farther proved, from the vanity, and the ridiculous, poor enjoyments which they are forced to take up with, who live according to their own humours. This represented in various characters.
1.WE may see yet more of the happiness of a life devoted to God, by considering the poor contrivances for happiness, and the contemptible ways of life, which they are thrown into, who are seeking after happiness by other methods.
If one looks at their lives, who live by no rule but their own humours and fancies; if one sees what it is, which they call joy, and greatness, and happiness; if one sees how they rejoice and repent, change and fly from one delusion to another, one shall find great reason to rejoice, that God hath appointed a narrow way that leadeth unto life, and that we are not left to the folly of our own minds, or forced to take up with such shadows of happiness, as the folly of the world has invented. I say invented, because those things which make up the joy and happiness of the world, are mere inventions, which have no foundation in nature, are no way the proper good or happiness of man, no way perfect either his body or his mind.
2. *As, for instance, when a man proposes to be happy in ways of ambition, by raising himself to some imaginary heights above other people. This is an invention of happiness which has no foundation in nature, but it is as mere a cheat of our own making, as if a man should intend to make himself happy by climbing up a ladder.
*If a woman seeks for happiness from fine colours or spots upon her face, from jewels and rich cloaths, this is as merely an invention of happiness, as contrary to nature and reason, as if she should propose to make herself happy, by painting a post, and putting the same finery upon it. It is in this respect that I call these mere inventions of happiness, because neither God, nor nature, nor reason, hath appointed them as such; but whatever appears joyful or happy in them, is entirely invented by the blindness and vanity of our own minds.
And it is on these inventions of happiness, that I desire you to cast your eye, that you may thence learn how great a good religion is, which delivers you from such a multitude of follies, and vain pursuits, as are the torment of minds that wander from their true happiness in God.