to be good, and to do good, is the fupreme felicity of God himself; therefore we may easily believe, that he is very ready and forward to make us happy, by all the ways that are agreeable to his wisdom and righteousness; efs; and that he is also willing to make us abundantly so, and to advance us to the highest degree of felicity, of which our nature is capable, if we do not render ourselves incapable of fuch a blessing, by an obstinate refusal of it, and utter indisposition for it.

This, I fay, is very credible, because the happiness of God himself confifts in that propenfion and disposition of nature, which tends to make others happy. And if there can be any acceffion to that which is infinite, God himself finds a new pleasure and felicity in the communication of his goodness to his creatures; and therefore is represented in fcripture, as glad of the conversion of a finner, because the finner hereby becomes capable of the happiness which God designed for his creatures, and is always ready to confer upon them whenever they are qualified for it, and he can, with the honour of his own perfections, bestow it upon them.

There are two things which raise our hopes and expectation of good from any person, if he be able and willing to bestow upon us what we hope for from him. Now if any one can confer happiness upon us, it is he who is infinitely possest of it, and hath all the treafures of it it in himfelf; and that God only is, who as he is able, so he is willing to make us happy, if we be qualified for it; and it is no impairing of his happiness to make others happy, for even that goodness which inclines him to communicate happiness to others is a great part of his own felicity; fo that, as our Saviour argues, because I live, you shall live also; we may reason in like manner, that because God is happy, we shall be happy also, if we do but fincerely defire and endeavour to qualify ourselves for it. The goodness of God does strongly incline him to defire our happiness, and makes him willing and ready to bestow it upon us, whenever we are capable to receive it.

So

So that the goodness of God is the great founda

tion of all our hopes, and the firmest ground of our assurance of a blessed immortality. It is the happiness of the divine nature to communicate himself; and the communications of God's goodness to us are the cause of our happiness; and therefore, both for our example and encouragement, the goodness of God ought always to be represented to the greatest advantage, and we should endeavour to possess our minds with a firm belief and perfuafion of it, and to remove from the divine nature (which we all acknowledge to have infinitely more goodness than is to be found in any of the fons of men) whatever we would not attribute to a good man, and to vindicate God from all fufpicion of envy and ill-will, of cruelty and arbitrary dealing with his creatures. And I cannot apprehend why men should be averse from these so agreeable and delightful apprehensions of God; or how it should be any man's intereft to lessen the goodness of God; for most certainly the better God is in himself, the better and happier it will be for us all, if it be not our own fault.

3. From what hath been faid concerning the happiness of the divine nature, we may learn wherein our happiness must consist, namely in the image and in the favour of God; in the favour of God, as the cause of our happiness; and in the image of God, as a necessary inward disposition and qualification for it. Unless God love us, we cannot be happy; for miferable are they whom he hates: for God to say of any man, that his foul hath no pieasure in him, imports as great misery, and as dreadful a curse as can be imagined, and his soul can have no pleasure in a bad man; for he loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity: he is not a God that hath pleaSure in wickedness, neither shall evil dwell with him: the wicked shall not stand in his fight; he hateth all the workers of iniquity. Nay, if we could suppose that he could love and take pleasure in any person that is unlike to him, (which is impoffible) yet that person could not be happy, because he would

would want that inward frame and disposition of mind, which is necessary to happiness: For the very same causes and ingredients which make up the happiness of God, must, in an inferior degree, be found in us, otherwise we cannot be happy; no, though a man were in heaven, if he be still a bad man, cœlum, non animum mutavit, he hath only changed the climate, and is gone into another country, but he bears himself still about him, and his mind is not changed, which would fignify a thoufand times more to his happiness, than any place or outward circumstance whatsoever. A bad man, wheresoever he goes, hath a root of gall and bitterness within him, and is miferable from himself; he hath a fiend in his own breast, and the fuel of hell in a guilty confcience.

For there is a certain temper and disposition of mind that is necessary and essential to happiness, and that is holiness and goodness, which is the nature of God; and so much as any person departs from this temper, so far he removes himself, and runs away from happiness: And as fin is a departure from God, so the punishment of it is likewise expressed by departing from him: Depart from me ye cursed; depart from me all ye that work iniquity, I know you not.

And this is one great part of the misery of those degenerate and accursed spirits, the Devils, who are for ever banished from the presence of God, that they are of a temper quite contrary to God, wicked and impure, envious and malicious, mischievous and cruel; and fuch a temper is naturally a torment and disquiet to itself. And here the foundation of hell is laid in the evil disposition of our minds; and till this be cured, and fet right, it is as impossible for any of us to be happy, as it is for a limb that is out of joint to be at ease. And the external prefence of God, and a local heaven (if we could imagine such a person to be admitted into it, and see all the glories of that place, and the pleasures and delights of that state) all this, I say, would figoify no more to make a bad man happy, than heaps VOL. VI. of

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of gold and diamonds, and conforts of the most delicious musick, and a well-fpread table, and a rich and costly bed, would contribute to a man's ease in the paroxyfin of a fever, or in a violent fit of the stone: because the man hath that within which torments him, and till that be removed, he cannot poffibly be at ease. The man's spirit is out of order, and off the hinges, and tost from its center; and till that be set right, and restored to its proper place and state by goodness and holiness, the man will be perpetually restless, and cannot possibly have any ease or peace in his mind: For how can there be peace, how can there be happiness to him, who is of a temper directly opposite to it? The wicked, faith the Prophet, Ifai. lvii. 20, 21. is like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters caft up mire and dirt. So long as there is impurity in our hearts, and guilt upon our confciences, they will be restlessly working; there is no peace, faith my God, to the wicked. The Hebrew word which we tranflate peace, signifies all kind of happiness; there can be no felicity to a bad man. The confideration whereof should put us upon the most serious and earnest endeavours to be like God, that we may be capable of his favour, and partakers of his felicity. The divine nature is the only perfect idea of happiness, and nothing but our conformity to it can make us happy.

I have been so long upon this argument, on purpose to convince men of the necessity of holiness and goodness, and all other virtues, to our present and future happiness. They understand not the nature of happiness, who hope for it, or imagine they can attain it in any other way. The author and the fountain of happiness, he that made us, and alone can make us happy, cannot make us so in any other way, than by planting in us such a disposition of mind, as is in truth a participation of the divine nature, and by endowing us with fuch qualities as are the necessary materials and ingredients of happiness. There is no way to partake of the felicity of God, blessed blessed for ever, but by becoming holy and righteous, good and merciful, as he is.

All men naturally defire happiness, and seek after it, and are, as they think, travelling towards it, but generally they mistake their way. Many are eager in the pursuit of the things of this world, and greedily catch at pleasures, and riches and honour, as if these could make them happy; but when they come to embrace them, they find that they are but clouds and shadows, and that there is no real and fubftantial felicity in them. Many say, who will shew us any good? meaning the good things of this world, corn, and wine, and oil: But wouldst thou be happy indeed, endeavour to be like the pattern of happiness, and the fountain of it; address thyself to him in the prayer of the Pfalmist, Lord lift thou upon me the light of thy countenance, and thou shalt put more joy and gladness into my heart, than the men of the world can have, when their corn and their wine increaseth.

Many say, lo here! and lo there! that happiness is in a great place, or in a plentiful estate, or in the enjoyment of sensual pleasures and delights; but believe them not; happiness is something that is nearer and more intimate to us, than any of the things of this world; it is within thee, in thine heart, and in the very inward frame and disposition of thy mind.

In a word, if ever we would be happy, we must be like the blessed God, we must be holy, and merciful, and good, and just, as he is, and then we are fecure of his favour; for the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, and his countenance will behold the upright. Then we shall be qualified for the enjoyment of him, and take pleasure in communion with him, because we shall be like him. For the surest foundation of love and friendship is a fimilitude of temper and disposition; every thing naturally affects its own likeness, and moves towards it, and greedily catcheth at it, and gladly runs into the embraces of it. God and man must be like one another, before they can take pleasure in one another; if we be unlike to God, it is in the nature of the thing impossible that

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