OF THE NATURE AND STATE OF MAN WITH RESPECT TO HAPPINESS.
1. False notions of happiness, philosophical and popular, answered.-2. It is the end of all men, and attainable by all.-God intends happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social, since all particular happiness depends on general, and since he governs by general, not particular, laws. As it is necessary for order, and the peace and welfare of society, that external goods should be unequal, happiness is not made to consist in these.-But notwithstanding that inequality, the balance of happiness among mankind is kept even by Providence, by the two passions of hope and fear.-3. What the happiness of individuals is, as far as is consistent with the constitution of this world; and that the good man has here the advantage.The error of imputing to virtue what are only the calamities of nature, or of fortune.-4. The folly of expecting that God should alter his general laws in favour of particulars.-5. That we are not judges who are good; but that whoever they are, they must be happiest.-6. That external goods are not the proper rewards, but often inconsistent with, or destructive of, virtue.-That even these can make no man happy without virtue; instanced in Riches-Honours-Nobility-Greatness-Fame-Superior talents, with pictures of human infelicity in men possessed of them all.-7. That virtue only constitutes a happiness, whose object is universal, and whose prospect eternal. That the perfection of virtue and happiness consists in a conformity to the order of Providence here, and a resignation to it here and hereafter.
O HAPPINESS! our being's end and aim!
Good, pleasure, ease, content! whate'er thy name;
That something still which prompts the' eternal sigh,
For which we bear to live, or dare to die;
Which still so near us, yet beyond us lies,
O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise;
Plant of celestial seed! if dropp'd below,
Say in what mortal soil thou deign'st to grow?
Fair opening to some court's propitious shine,
Or deep with diamonds in the flaming mine?
Twined with the wreaths Parnassian laurels yield,
Or reap'd in iron harvests of the field?
Where grows?-where grows it not? If vain our toil,
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil:
Fix'd to no spot is happiness sincere,
"Tis no where to be found, or every
where:
'Tis never to be bought, but always free,
And fled from monarchs, St.John! dwells with thee.
Ask of the learn'd the way? the learn'd are blind;
This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
Those call it pleasure, and contentment these:
Some sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain;
Some swell'd to gods, confess e'en virtue vain!
Or indolent, to each extreme they fall,
To trust in every thing, or doubt of all.
Who thus define it, say they more or less Than this, that happiness is happiness?—
Take Nature's path and mad Opinion's leave; All states can reach it, and all heads conceive; Obvious her goods, in no extreme they dwell; There needs but thinking right and meaning well: And mourn our various portions as we please, Equal is common sense and common ease.
Remember, man, the Universal Cause Acts not by partial but by general laws,' And makes what happiness we justly call Subsist not in the good of one, but all.
There's not a blessing individuals find,
But some way leans and hearkens to the kind;
No bandit fierce, no tyrant mad with pride,
No cavern'd hermit rests self-satisfied:
Who most to shun or hate mankind pretend,
Seek an admirer, or would fix a friend.
Abstract what others feel, what others think,
All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink:
Each has his share; and who would more obtain,
Shall find the pleasure pays not half the pain.
Order is Heaven's first law; and, this confess'd,
Some are and must be greater than the rest,
More rich, more wise: but who infers from hence
That such are happier, shocks all common sense.
Heaven to mankind impartial we confess,
If all are equal in their happiness:
But mutual wants this happiness increase:
All Nature's difference keeps all Nature's peace.
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in king,
In who obtain defence, or who defend,
In him who is, or him who finds a friend:
Heaven breathes through every member of the
whole
One common blessing, as one common soul.
But Fortune's gifts, if each alike possess'd,
And each were equal, must not all contest?
If then to all men happiness was meant,
God in externals could not place content.
Fortune her gifts may variously dispose,
And these be happy call'd, unhappy those;
But Heaven's just balance equal will appear,
While those are placed in hope and these in fear:
Not present good or ill, the joy or curse,
But future views of better or of worse.
O sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise By mountains piled on mountains to the skies? Heaven still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise. Know all the good that individuals find, Or God and Nature meant to mere mankind, Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,-Health, Peace, and Compe
But Health consists with Temperance alone;
And Peace, O Virtue! Peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of Fortune gain ;
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,
Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?
Of Vice or Virtue, whether bless'd or cursed,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Count all the' advantage prosperous Vice attains,
'Tis but what Virtue flies from and disdains:
And grant the bad what happiness they would,
One they must want, which is, to pass
for good.
O blind to truth and God's whole scheme below,
Who fancy bliss to Vice, to Virtue woe!
Who sees and follows that great scheme the best,
Best knows the blessing, and will most be bless'd,
But fools the good alone unhappy call,
For ills or accidents that chance to all.
See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just!
See godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust!
See Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife!
Was this their virtue, or contempt of life?
Say, was it virtue, more though Heaven ne'er gave,
Lamented Digby! sunk thee to the grave?
Tell me, if virtue made the son expire,
Why full of days and honour lives the sire?
Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath
When Nature sicken'd, and each gale was death?
Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me?
What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates Nature, and here wanders will.
God sends not ill, if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good,
Or change admits, or Nature lets it fall
Short and but rare, till man improved it all.
We just as wisely might of Heaven complain
That righteous Abel was destroy'd by Cain,
As that the virtuous son is ill at ease
When his lewd father gave the dire disease.
Think we, like some weak prince, the' Eternal
Prone for his favourites to reverse his laws?
Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder, and recall her fires?
On air or sea new motions be impress'd,
O blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease, if you go by?
Or some old temple, nodding to its fall,
For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall?
But still this world (so fitted for the knave)
Contents us not.-A better shall we have?
A kingdom of the just then let it be;
But first consider how those just agree.
The good must merit God's peculiar care;
But who but God can tell us who they are?
One thinks on Calvin Heaven's own spirit fell;
Another deems him instrument of Hell:
If Calvin feel Heaven's blessing or its rod,
This cries there is, and that, there is no God.
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