ed with any Faculties which are to lie ufelefs and unemploy'd. The Happiness is to be the Happiness of the whole Man, and we may eafily conceive to ourselves the Happiness of the Soul, whilst any one of its Faculties is in the Fruition of its chief Good. The Happinefs may be of a more exalted Nature in Proportion as the Faculty employ'd is fo, but as the whole Soul acts in the Exertion of any of its particular Powers, the whole Soul is happy in the Pleasure which arifes from any of its particular Acts. For notwithstanding, as has been before hinted, and as it has been taken Notice of by one of the greatest modern Philofophers, we divide the Soul into feveral Powers and Faculties, there is no fuch Divifion in the Soul it felf, fince it is the whole Soul that remembers, understands, wills, or imagines. Our manner of confidering the Memory, Understanding, Will, Imagination, and the like Faculties, is for the better enabling us to exprefs our felves in fuch abstracted Subjects of Speculation, not that there is any fuch Divifion in the Soul itself.

SEEING then that the Soul has many different Faculties, or in other Words, many different Ways of acting; that it can be intenfely pleas'd, or made happy by all these different Faculties, or Ways of acting; that it may be endow'd with feveral latent Faculties, which it is not at present in a Condition to exert; that we cannot believe the Soul is endow'd with any Faculty which is of no Ufe to it; that whenever any one of these Faculties is tranfcendently pleafed, the Soul is in a State of Happiness; and in the laft Place confidering that the Happiness of another World is to be the Happiness of the whole Man; who can queftion but that there is an infinite Variety in thofe Pleasures we are fpeaking of; and that this Fulness of Joy will be made up of all thofe Pleasures which the Nature of the Soul is capable of receiving.

WE fhall be the more confirmed in this Doctrine, if we obferve the Nature of Variety, with Regard to the Mind of Man. The Soul does not care to be always in the fame Bent. The Faculties relieve one another by Turns, and receive an additional Pleafure from the Novelty of thofe Objects about which they are converfant.

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REVE

REVELATION likewife very much confirms this Notion, under the different Views which it gives us of our future Happiness. In the Description of the Throne of God, it reprefents to us all thofe Objects which are able to gratify the Senfes and Imagination: In very many Places it intimates to us all the Happiness which the Understanding can poffibly receive in that State, where all Things fhall be revealed to us, and we shall know, even as we are known; the Raptures of Devotion, of Divine Love, the Pleasure of converfing with our Bleffed Saviour, with an innumerable Hoft of Angels, and with the Spirits of Juft Men made Perfect, are likewife revealed to us in feveral Parts of the Holy Writings. There are alfo mentioned thofe Hierarchies or Governments, in which the Bleft fhall be ranged one above another, and in which we may be fure a great Part of our Happiness I will likewife confift; for it will not be there as in this World, where every one is aiming at Power and Superiority; but on the contrary, every one will find that Station the most proper for him in which he is placed, and will probably think that he could not have been fo happy in any other Station. These and many other Particulars are marked in Divine Revelation, as the feveral Ingredients of our Happiness in Heaven, which all imply fuch a Variety of Joys and fuch a Gratification of the Soul in all its different Faculties, as I have been here mentioning.

SOME of the Rabbins tell us, that the Cherubims are a Set of Angels who know moft, and the Seraphims a Set of Angels who love moft. Whether this Diftinction be not altogether imaginary, I fhall not here examine; but it is highly probable that among the Spirits of good Men, there may be fome who will be more pleased with the Employment of one Faculty than of another, and this perhaps according to thofe innocent and virtuous Habits or Inclinations which have here taken the deep.

eft Root.

I might here apply this Confideration to the Spirits of wicked Men, with relation to the Pain which they fhall fuffer in every one of their Faculties, and the respective Miferies which fhall be appropriated to each Faculty in particular.

particular. But leaving this to the Reflection of my Readers, I fhall conclude, with obferving how we ought to be thankful to our great Creator, and rejoice in the Being which he has bestowed upon us, for having made the Soul fufceptible of Pleasure by fo many different Ways. We fee by what a Variety of Paffages, Joy and Gladness may enter into the Thoughts of Man; how wonderfully a human Spirit is framed, to imbibe its proper Satisfac tions, and tafte the Goodness of its Creator. We may therefore look into our felves with Rapture and Amazement, and cannot fufficiently exprefs our Gratitude to him, who has encompaffed us with fuch a Profufion of Bleffings, and opened in us fo many Capacities of enjoying them.

THERE cannot be a ftronger Argument that God has defigned us for a State of future Happinefs, and for that Heaven which he has revealed to us, than that he has thus naturally qualified the Soul for it, and made it a Being capable of receiving fo much Blifs. He would never have made fuch Faculties in vain, and have endowed us with Powers that were not to be exerted on fuch Objects as are fuited to them. It is very manifeft, by the inward Frame and Conftitution of our Minds, that he has adapted them to an infinite Variety of Pleafures and Gratifications, which are not to be met with in this Life. We fhould therefore at all Times take Care that we do not disappoint this his gracious Purpose and Intention towards us, and make thofe Faculties which he formed as fo many Qualifications for Happiness and Rewards, to be the Instruments of Pain and Punishment.

T

Antonin. Lib. 9.

HE following Efay comes from an Hand which has entertained my Readers once before.

TOTWITHSTANDING a

narrow contracted

'N Temper be that which obtains moft in the World,

we must not therefore conclude this to be the genuine Characteristick of Mankind; becaufe there are fome who delight in nothing to much as in doing good, and receive more of their Happiness at fecond hand, or by rebound from others, than by direct and immediate Senfation. Now tho' thefe Heroick Souls are but few, and to Appearance fo far advanced above the groveling Multitude, as if they were of another Order of Beings, yet in Reality their Nature is the fame, moved by the fame Springs, and endowed with all the fame effential Qualities, only cleared, refined, and cultivated. Water is the fame fluid Body in Winter and in Summer; when it flands fliffened in Ice as when it flows along in-gentle Streams gladdening a thoufand Fields in its Progrefs. 'Tis a Property of the Heart of Man to be diffufive: Its kind Withes spread abroad over the Face of the Creation; and if there be thote, as we may observe too many of them, who are all wrapt up in their own dear felves, without any vifible Concern for their Species, let us fuppofe that their Good-nature is frozen, and by the prevailing Force of fome contrary Quality, reftrained in its Operations. I fhall therefore endeavour to affign fome of the principal Checks upon this generous Propenfion of the Human Soul, which will enable us to judge whether, and by what Method, this moft use

ful

ful Principle may be unfettered, and reflored to its native Freedom of Exercise.

THE first and leading Caufe is an unhappy Complexion of Body. The Heathens, ignorant of the true Source of Moral Evil, generally charged it on the Obliquity of Matter, which, being eternal and independent, was incapable of Change in any of its Properties, even by the Almighty Mind, who, when He caine to fashion it into a World of Beings, must take it as he found it. This Notion, as moft others of theirs, is a Compofition of Truth and Error. That Matter is eternal, that from the firft Union of a Soul to it, it perverted its Inclinations, and that the ill Influence it hath upon the Mind is not to be corrected by God himself, are all very great Errors, occafioned by a Truth as evident, that the Capacities and Difpofitions of the Soul depend, to a great Degree, on the bodily Temper. As there are fome Fools, others are Knaves, by Conftitution; and particularly, it may be faid of many, that they are born with an illiberal Caft of Mind; the Matter that compofes them is tenacious as Birdlime, and a kind of Cramp draws their Hands and their Hearts together, that they never care to open them unlefs to grafp at more. is a melancholy Lot this; but attended with one Advantage above theirs, to whom it would be as painful to forbear good Offices, as it is to thefe Men to perform them; that whereas Perfons naturally Beneficent often mistake Inflirt for Virtue, by reafon of the Difficulty of diftinguishing when one rules them and when the other, Men of the oppofite Character may be more certain of the Motive that predominates in every Action. If they cannot confer a Benefit with that Eafe and Franknefs which are neceffary to give it a Grace in the Eye of the World, in requital, the real Merit of what they do is inhanc'd by the Oppofition they furmount in doing it. The Strength of their Virtue is feen in rifing agilt the Weight of Nature, and every time they have the Refolution to discharge their Duty,. they make a Sacrifice of Inclination to Confcience, which is always too grateful to let its Followers go without fuitable Marks of its Approbation

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