Page images
PDF
EPUB

outward poffeffions; and it is not, like them, lost or leffened, but increased, by being communicated: and they that covet it most, are most covetous of being profufely liberal of it to others, and would find themfelves poor with it, if they were not bountiful; and therefore endeavour to poffefs it, and enrich themselves with it, by giving it to others.

The best company can make any place or prospect pleafant; but no place can make the worst company pleafant, or even tolerable.

SECT. IV. Of the most delightful living objects of contemplation.

Here it is needful to confider the nature of intellectual beauty, or that in an intelligent being which is the caufe of joy in contemplating it: and if these caufes admit of degrees, it is plain the greateft cause must have the greateft effect. Excellency, or perfection, is a name we oft-times give to that in a mind, which is the fource or cause of joy to itfelf or others; but that quality which is a hinderance of joy, or which, though it gives fome joy, hinders more than what it gives, we call an imperfection. A mind cannot have joy in itself, withour knowledge (or contemplation) and power. Thefe are called fometimes phyfical perfections: but thofe qualities of a mind, which are not only called caufes of joy to itself, but also to others, we ufe to call moral perfections; fuch as goodness and juftice. The latter confift in affections and inclinations of the mind; and no mind is the proper caufe of joy to others, without being inclined; for if the phyfical perfections of a being give us joy, merely in contemplating them, without his inclination, he is not properly the caufe of our joy, but its object, as lifelefs matter is.

It is plain, phyfical and moral perfections admit of degrees; and when they exift united in one fubject, the greater they are, the greater is the excellency and beauty of it, and the greater joy there is even in the contemplation of its perfection, befides other effects of it.

To the inward perfections of any rational agent, we may add one relation to him, if he be a friend or benefactor, or one in whom we are any other way particularly interested, more than in other ra tional agents; and when we join these together, the perfections of that being, and its relation to us, which are qualities, if I may fpeak fo, that admit of different degrees, we have a view at leaft of fome of the principal qualities in an intelligent being that give the most pleasant contemplation.

The fupreme, or highest mental perfection in being, and to which we have the nearest and most joyful relation, is that whofe contemplation is neceffary to happiness.

If there were no intellectual beauty in being, or none knowable by us, but what is finite, like human minds, there would be none fufficient to hap piness, or full and lafting contentment; for finite beauty is that than which we can conceive, and confequently defire, and reafonably wish for a greater; and while we may with for fomething better than that we have, while we may feel want in the object or fource of our joy, we have not the greateft, that is, full contentment and to tell us, that we must chiefly defire only what is attainable, and the belt object we can defire is not attainable, or is not in being, and that therefore we should be content with the want of it, is to tell us to be content with mifery, because it is fatal and unavoidable; which, instead of being a ground of contentment, would be the true ground of defpair and anguish : for experience fhews, that impoffibility of fupply

ог

or relief, is the principal thing to embitter want or trouble.

All pretence to full contentment in our prefent ftate, whatever it be, (that is, to with for nothing but what we have, and are fure of), is a pretence which every man's practice demonftrates to be ridiculous affectation; and the fame reafon that makes a man discontent, though free of all bodily uneafinefs, and enjoying the pleafant thought of any finite or inferior beauty, would make him difcontent with any below what is fupreme, or the highest poffible, which must be infinite; for the meaning of finite is that than which there might poffibly be a greater.

The name by which we fometimes diftinguish the highest beauties or perfections of any kind, even finite beauties in mind or matter, is glory, as the glory of fun and ftars, and of angels.

One of the propereft terms we have to fignify the fufficiency of fupreme glory to give perpetual fullnefs of joy, (below which nothing, as was obferved before, can give true and full contentment), is beatific.

I remember to have heard a queftion propofed in a company, fome years ago, to this effect, Whether or not it might be poffible, in the nature of the thing, for any thing we know, that a rational creature might have beatitude, or perpetual fullness of joy, in the mere contemplation of created things; of which contemplation, indeed, God would be the fource and caufe, but not the object? It will be no digreffion, 1 think, from the question which is the occafion of this little effay, to confider that queftion I have named; for the anfwer of either of them ferves both.

Let us fuppofe, then, a rational creature having access to know and contemplate the univerfal fyftem, intellectual and material, and confider the confequences.

[blocks in formation]

It is evident he would not be content to be coпfined to the knowledge of a part; for that, however durable the pleasure of it would be, in comparison of our fhort-lived joys, yet would cloy through time. When a man is in a beautiful chamber in a prifon, the beauty of it may give some pleasure at first; but let us fuppofe him confined to that contemplation for innumerable millions of ages, it would certainly prove a very great and growing torment; yea, experience fhows it would prove a fenfible pain in a few days, if a man have no other pleafant thoughts to entertain him.

There is fome proportion between the parts of the material beauty and the whole; for the very nature of material beauty includes proportions between the whole and the parts. In matter, want of proportion is deformity. This proves, that the fyftem of matter, which is beautiful, is finite; for if it was infinite, there would be no proportion between the finite parts and the infinite whole. Befides that form and figure, which are the beauty of matter, are qualities of the limits, the bounds, or furface, of matter; the world, therefore, has limits. To make matter infinite, would make the world a beautiful point, fhut up in a hollow cafe of infinite deformity and confufion; and the infide of that cafe having limits, and confequently a figure, however irregular, that figure not being effential to it, (for no particular figure is fo), would argue an external caufe or mind having power over its fubftance. But mind cannot produce infinite useless deformity and confufion; because mind always works with inclination and defign, and its work'manfhip bears the marks and impreffion of it.

But not to infift on this, fince there are fo many other arguments to prove, that matter is finite, and fince all that belongs to the present fubject is, that all the matter that has order and beauty in it, or that can afford pleafant contemplation, is finite;

its being finite, and the proportion between the whole and parts in beauty, which is the cause of joy, proves a proportion between the whole and parts in that joy, which is the effect of beauty; and therefore, fince the beauty of any part of it is cloying, it is an argument, that the like may be faid of the whole; only the beauty of the whole would ftand out longer against fatiety and distaste, than that of a part. But that object which is not fufficient to ftand out infinite repetitions, if I may speak fo, is infufficient for eternal or perpetual duration. Any part of the world has a proportion to the whole, but no part of perpetual duration has proportion to the whole of it."

This argument may be applied not only to the material, but also to the intellectual system of creatures; and we may juftly fay, that a fociety that had no joyful contemplation of the creator, but only of the creation, and of one another, would, in à finite fpace of time, (and confequently at the beginning of eternity), find the world a narrow confinement and a dungeon, and find the pleasure of their mutual fociety degenerate into melancholy folitude. For fuppofe that all of them knew all the world, fo that none of them had any thing to fhow or communicate but what all of them knew already, and all of them were weary of, the whole of their contemplation and enjoyment behoved to corrupt and turn naufeous.

A rational creature, in the above-mentioned cir- cumstances, advancing in the contemplation of God's works, could not poffibly very long avoid the knowledge of the glory of God, fo vifible in all his works.

This would give him fome knowledge of a beauty fuperior to that to which we fuppofed him confined; and the knowledge of an object infinitely fuperior to all the creatures, would hinder contentment, if he was denied that higher degree and kind

of

« PreviousContinue »