outward poffeffions; and it is not, like them, loft or lessened, but increased, by being communicated: and they that covet it most, are most covetous of being profusely liberal of it to others, and would find themselves poor with it, if they were not bountiful; and therefore endeavour to poffefs * it, and enrich themselves with it, by giving it to T others. The best company can make any place or profpect pleasant; but no place can make the worst compa- ny pleasant, or even tolerable. SECT. IV. Of the most delightful living objects of contemplation. Here it is needful to consider the nature of intellectual beauty, or that in an intelligent being which is the cause of joy in contemplating it: and if these causes admit of degrees, it is plain the greateft cause must have the greatest effect. Excellency, or perfection, is a name we oft-times give to that in a mind, which is the source or cause of joy to it = self 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, without knowledge (or contemplation) and power. These are called sometimes physical perfections: but those qualities of a mind, which are not only -called causes of joy to itself, but also to others, we use to call moral perfections; fuch as goodness and justice. The latter consist in affections and inclinations of the mind; and no mind is the proper cause of joy to others, without being inclined; for if the physical perfections of a being give us joy, merely in contemplating them, without his inclination, he is not properly the cause of our joy, but its object, as lifeless matter is. It is plain, physical and moral perfections admit of degrees; and when they exist 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 rational agents; and when we join these together, the perfections of that being, and its relation to us, which are qualities, if I may speak fo, that admit of different degrees, we have a view at least 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 moft joyful relation, is that whose 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 lasting contentment; for finite beauty is that than which we can conceive, and confequently defire, and reasonably wish for a greater; and while we may wish for something better than that we have, while we may feel want in the object or fource of our joy, we have not the greatest, that is, full contentment: and to tell us, that we must chiefly defire only what is attainable, and the best 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 misery, 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 shews, that impoffibility of fupply : or or relief, is the principal thing to embitter want or trouble. All pretence to full contentment in our present state, whatever it be, (that is, to wish for nothing but what we have, and are fure of), is a pretence which every man's practice demonstrates to be ridiculous affectation; and the fame reason that makes a man discontent, though free of all bodily uneafiness, and enjoying the pleasant 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 possibly be a greater. The name by which we sometimes distinguish the highest beauties or perfections of any kind, even finite beauties in mind or matter, is glory, as the glory of fun and stars, and of angels. One of the properest terms we have to fignify the - sufficiency of fupreme glory to give perpetual fullness of joy, (below which nothing, as was observed before, can give true and full contentment), is beatific. I remember to have heard a question proposed in a company, fome years ago, to this effect, Whether or not it might be possible, 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 cause, but not the object? It will be no digreffion, 1 think, from the question which is the occasion of this little essay, to consider that question I have named; for the answer of either of them ferves both. Let us suppose, then, a rational creature having access to know and contemplate the universal system, intellectual and material, and confider the confequences. 3 Da It It is evident he would not be content to be confined to the knowledge of a part; for that, however durable the pleasure of it would be, in comparifon 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 fome pleasure at first; but let us suppose him confined to that contemplation for innumerable millions of ages, it would certainly prove a very great and growing torment; yea, experience shows 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, shut up in a hollow cafe of infinite deformity and confufion; and the infide of that cafe having limits, and consequently 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 fubstance. But mind cannot produce infinite useless deformity and confufion; because mind always works with inclination and design, and its work'manship bears the marks and impreffion of it. But not to infist on this, since there are so many other arguments to prove, that matter is finite, and fince all that belongs to the present subject is, that all the matter that has order and beauty in it, or that can afford pleasant 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, since the beauty of any part of it is cloying, it is an argument, that the like may be said of the whole; only the beauty of the whole would stand out longer against satiety and distaste, than that of a part. But that object which is not fufficient to stand 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 say, that a fociety that had no joyful contemplation of the creator, but only of the creation, and of one another, would, in a finite space 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, so that none of them had any thing to show 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 nauseous. 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, so visible in all his works. This would give him fome knowledge of a beauty fuperior to that to which we supposed him confined; and the knowledge of an object infinitely superior to all the creatures, would hinder contentment, if he was denied that higher degree and kind of |