Must it be tedious to live in the continual exercise of charity and temperance, to act wisely and virtuously, to do good to the utmost of your power, to imitate the divine perfections, and prepare yourself for the enjoyment of God? Must it be dull and tiresome to improve in holiness, to feel the comforts of conscience in all your actions, to know that God is your friend, that all must work for your good; that neither life nor death, neither men nor devils can do you any harm; but that all your sufferings and doings, are in a short time to be rewarded with everlasting glory: must such a state be dull and tiresome, for want of such happiness as Flatus or Feliciana enjoys?
Now, if this cannot be said, then there is no happiness lost, by being strictly pious; nor has the devout man any thing to envy in any other state of life. For all the art and contrivances in the world, without religion, cannot make more of human life, or carry its happiness to any greater height, than Flatus or Feliciana has done.
The finest wit, the greatest genius upon earth, if not governed by religion, must be as foolish, and low, and vain, in his method of happiness, as the poor Succus.
16. *If you was to see a man dully endeavouring all his life to satisfy his thirst, by holding up one and the same empty cup to his mouth, you would certainly despise his ignorance.
*But, if you should see others, of brighter parts, and finer understandings, ridiculing the dull satisfaction of one cup, and thinking to satisfy their own thirst by variety of gilt and golden empty cups; would you think that these were ever the wiser, or happier, or better employed, for their finer parts?
*Now, this is all the difference that you can see in the happiness of this life.
The dull and heavy soul may be content with one empty appearance of happiness, and be continually trying to hold the same empty cup to his mouth all his life. But let the wit, the deep scholar, the fine genius, the great statesman, the polite gentleman, lay all their heads together, and they can only shew you more and various, empty appearances of happiness; give them all the world into their hands, let them cut and carve as they please, they can only make a greater variety of empty cups.
*So that if you don’t think it hard to be deprived of the pleasures of gluttony, for the sake of religion, you have no reason to think it hard to be restrained from any worldly pleasure. For search as deep, and look as far as you will, there is nothing here to be found, that is nobler, or greater, than high eating and drinking, unless you look for it in the wisdom of religion.
And if all that is in the world, are only so many empty cups, what does it signify which you take, or how many?
17. If you would but use yourself to such meditations as these, to reflect upon the vanity of all orders of life without piety, to consider how all the ways of the world, are only so many different ways of error, blindness, and mistake; these meditations would awaken your soul into a zealous desire of that solid happiness which is only to be found in recourse to God.