infinite Goodness he cannot be intirely possess'd but by the most clear knowledge and the most ardent love And besides since the Soul is happy by her Faculties her Happiness must consist in the most perfect Operation of each Faculty For if Happiness did consist formally in the sole operation of the Vnderstanding as most say or in the sole operation of the Will as others the Man would not be compleatly and in all respects Happy For how is it possible a Man should be perfectly Happy in loving the greatest good if he did not know it or in knowing it if he did not love it And moreover these two Operations do so mutually tend to the promotion and Conservation of one another that upon this depends the perpetuity and the constancy of our Happiness For while the Blessed do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Face to Face contemplate the Supream Truth and the infinite Goodness they cannot chuse but love perpetually and while they perpetually love they cannot chuse but perpetually contemplate And in this mutual reciprocation of the actions of the Soul consists the perpetuity of Heaven the Circle of Felicity Besides this way of resolving our Fruition of God into Vision and Love there is a Famous Opinion said to be broacht by Henricus Gandavensis who upon a Supposition that God could not be so fully enjoy'd as is required to perfect Happiness only by the Operations or Powers of the Soul fancied a certain Illapse whereby the Divine Essence did fall in with and as it were penetrate the essence of the Blessed Which Opinion he endeavours to illustrate by this Similitude That as a piece of Iron red hot by reason of the Illapse of the fire into it appears all over like fire so the Souls of the Blessed by this Illapse of the Divine Essence into them shall be all over Divine I think he has scarce any Followers in this Opinion but I am sure he had a Leader For this is no more then what Plato taught before him as is to be seen in his Discourses about the refusion of the Souls of good men into the Anima Mundi which is the self same in other terms with this Opinion And the truth of what I affirm may farther appear from an expression of that great Platonist Plotinus viz. that the Soul will then be Happy when it shall depart hence to God and as another and no longer her self shall become wholely his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having joyn'd her self to him as a Center to a Center That such an intimate Conjunction with God as is here described is possible seems to me more then credible from the Nature of the Hypostatic Union but whether our Fruition of God after this Life shall consist in it none know but those Happy Souls who enjoy him and therefore I shall determine nothing before the time This only I observe that should our Fruition of God consist in such an Union or rather Penetration of Essences that would not exclude but rather infer those Operations of Vision and Love as necessary to Fruition but on the other hand there seems no such necessity of this Union to the Fruition but that it may be conceiv'd intire without it And therefore why we should multiply difficulties without cause I see no reason For my part I should think my self sufficiently happy in the clear Vision of my Maker nor should I desire any thing beyond the Prayer of Moses I beseech thee shew me thy Glory For what an infinite Satisfaction Happiness and Delight must it needs be to have a clear and intimate perception of that Primitive and Original Beauty Perfection and Harmony whereof all that appears fair and excellent either to our Senses or Vnderstandings in this Life is but a faint imitation a pale Reflection To see him who is the Fountain of all Being containing in himself the perfection not only of all that is but of all that is possible to be the Alpha and Omega the beginning and the ending the first and the last which is and which was and which is to come the Almighty To see him of whom all Nature is the Image of whom all the Harmony both of the visible and the invisible World is but the Eccho To see him who as Plato divinely and magnificently expresses it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The immense Ocean of Beauty which is it self by it self with it self uniform always existing This certainly will affect the Soul with all the pleasing and ravishing Transports of Love and Desire Joy and Delight Wonder and Amazement together with a settled Acquiescence and Complacency of Spirit only less infinite then the Loveliness that causes it and the peculiar Complacency of him who rejoyces in his own fulness and the Comprehensions of Eternity We see how strangely our sence of Seeing is affected with the Harmony of Colours and our sence of Hearing with the Harmony of Sounds insomuch that some have been too weak for the enjoyment and have grown mad with the Sublimate of Pleasure And if so what then shall we think of the Beatific Vision the pleasure of which will so far transcend that of the other as God who is all over Harmony and Proportion exceeds the sweetest Melody of Sounds and Colours and the perception of the Mind is more vigorous quick and piercing then that of the Senses This is Perfect Happiness this is the Tree of Life which grows in the midst of the Paradise of God this is Heaven which while the Learned dispute about the good only enjoy But I shall not venture to Soar any longer in these Heights I find the Aether too thin here to breath in long and the Brightness of the Region flashes too strong upon my tender sense I shall therefore hasten to descend from the Mount of God lest I grow giddy with speculation and lose those Secrets which I have learnt there the Cabala of Felicity And now Sir I come to consider your Question viz. Wherein the greatest Happiness attainable by man in this Life does consist Concerning which there is as great variety of Opinions among Philosophers as there is among Geographers about the Seat of Paradise The learned Varro reckons up no less then 288 several Opinions about it and yet notwithstanding the number of Writers who have bequeath'd Volumes upon this Subject to Posterity they seem to have been in the dark in nothing more then in this and excepting only a few Platonists who placed Mans greatest End in the Contemplation of truth they seem to have undertaken nothing so unhappily as when they essay'd to write of Happiness Some measure their Happiness by the high-tide of their Riches as the Egyptians did the Fertility of the Year by the increase of the River Nile Others place it in the Pleasures of Sence others in Honour and Greatness But these and the like were Men of the common Herd low groveling Souls that either understood not the Dignity of Humane Nature or else
above him That is not to do any thing contrary to the Divine Love And this is absolute indespensable duty less then which will not qualify us for the enjoyment of God hereafter Now this Seraphic Love which we here discourse of is in the third degree When a Man after many degrees of Abstraction from the Animal Life many a profound and steddy Meditation upon the Excellencies of God sees such a vast Ocean of Beauty and Perfection in him that he loves him to the utmost Stretch of his Power When he sits under his shadow with great delight and his fruit is sweet to his Tast. When he Consecrates and Devotes himself wholely to him and has no Passion for Inferiour Objects When he is ravish'd with the delights of his Service and breaths out some of his Soul to him in every Prayer When he is delighted with Anthems of Praise and Adoration more then with Marrow and Fatness and Feasts upon a Hallelujah When he melts in a Calenture of Devotion and his Soul breaketh out with fervent Desire When the one thing he delights in is to converse with God in the Beauty of Holiness and the one thing he desires to see him as he is in Heaven This is Seraphic Love and this with Contemplation makes up that which the Mystic Divines Stile the Vnitive way of Religion It is call'd so because it Unites us to God in the most excellent manner that we are capable of in this Life By Union here I do not understand that which is Local or Presential because I consider God as Omnipresent Neither do I mean a Union of Grace as they call it whereby we are reconciled to God or a Union of Charity whereof it is said he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him The first of these being as common to the inanimate things as to the most Extasi'd Soul upon Earth And the two last being common to all good men who indeed love God but yet want the excellency of Contemplation and the Mystic Union The Union then which I here speak of is that which is between the Faculty and the Object Which consists in some Habitude or Operation of one toward the other The Faculties here are the Vnderstanding and Will the Object God and the Operations Contemplation and Love The result of which two is the Mystic Vnion Which according to this complex Notion of it that I have here delivered is thus most admirably represented by the excellent Bishop Taylour It is says he a Prayer of quietness and silence and a Meditation extraordinary a Discourse without variety a Vision and Intuition of Divine Excellencies an immediate entry into an Orb of light and a resolution of all our Faculties into Sweetness Affections and Starings upon the Divine Beauty And is carried on to Extasies Raptures Suspensions Elevations Abstractions and Apprehensions beatifical I make no doubt but that many an honest Pious Soul arrives to the heavenly Canaan who is not fed with this Manna in the Wilderness But though every one must not expect these Antepatists of Felicity that is vertuous yet none else must Paradise was never open but to a State of Innocence But neither is that enough No this Mount of God's presence is fenced not only from the profane but also from the Moderately vertuous 'T is the Priviledge of Angelical Dispositions and the reward of eminent Piety and an excellent Religion to be admitted to these Divine Repasts these Feasts of Love And here I place the greatest Happiness attainable by Man in this Life as being the nearest Approach to the State of the Blessed above the Outer Court of Heaven These Sir are my thoughts concerning Happiness I might have spun them out into a greater length but I think a little Plot of ground thick-sown is better then a great Field which for the most part of it lies Fallow I have endeavour'd to deliver my Notions with as much perspicuity and in as good Method as I could and so to answer all the ends of Copiousness with the advantage of a shorter Cut. If I appear singular in any of my Notions 't is not out of an industrious affectation of Novelty but because in the composing of this discourse the Meditation of a few broken hours in a Garden I consulted more my own experimental Notices of things and private Reflections then the Writings of others So that if sometimes I happen to be in the Road and sometimes in a way by my self 't is no wonder I affect neither the one nor the other but write as I think Which as I do at other times so more especially when I subscribe my self Sir Yours most affectionately I. N. Allsouls Colledge Apr. 18. 1683. FINIS Books Printed for James Norris this present Year 1683. MAssinello or a Satyr against the Association and the Guild-hall Riot 4 o Eromena or the Noble Stranger a Novel 8 o Tractatus Adversus Reprobationis Absolutae decretum Nova Methodo Succinetissimo Compendio adornatus in duos Libros Digestus 8 o This in Latin is Writ by the same Author of the Idea of Happiness and these Books are Translated by the same Author out of Greek and Latin into English viz. Effigies Amoris or the Picture of Love Unveil'd 12 o Hierocles upon the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans 8 o Lib. 3 de Fin. Revel 26. Job 28. Lucretius Enn. 6. lib. 9. cap. 10. Exod. 33.18 Rev. 1.8 1 Ver. 2. Lib. 2. de monachii cap. 2. Cant. 2.3 Psal. 119. Jo. 4.16 The great Exemplar pag. 60.
are finite and consequently though never so fully enjoy'd cannot afford us perfect satisfaction No Man knoweth not the price thereof Neither is it to be found in the Land of the Living The Depth saith it is not in me and the Sea saith it is not in me The Vanity of the Creature has been so copiously discours'd upon both by Philosophers and Divines and is withal so obvious to every thinking man's experience that I need not here take an Inventory of the Creation nor turn Ecclesiastes after Solomon And besides I have already anticipated this Argument in what I have said concerning Fruition I shall only add one or two Remarks concerning the Objects of Secular Happiness which are not so commonly insisted upon to what has been there said The first is this that the Objects wherein Men generally seek for Happiness here are not only finite in their Nature but also few in number Indeed could a Man's Life be so contrived that he should have a new Pleasure still ready at hand assoon as he was grown weary of the Old and every day enjoy the Maiden-head of a fresh Delight he might then perhaps like Mr. Hobbs his Notion and for a while think himself happy in this continued Succession of new Acquisitions But alas Nature does not treat us with this Variety The compass of our enjoyments is much shorter then that of our Lives and there is a Periodical Circulation of our Pleasures as well as of our blood Versamur ibidem atque insumus usque Nec nova vivendo procuditur ulla voluptas The Enjoyments of our Lives run in a perpetual Round like the Months in the Kalendar but with a quicker Revolution we dance like Fairies in a Circle and our whole Life is but a nauseous Tautology We rise like the Sun and run the same Course we did the day before and to morrow is but the same over again So that the greatest Favourite of Fortune will have Reason often enough to cry out with him in Seneca Quousque eadem But there is another Grievance which contributes to defeat our Endeavours after perfect Happiness in the Enjoyments of this Life Which is that the Objects wherein we seek it are not only finite and few but that they commonly prove Occasions of greater Sorrow to us than ever they afforded us Content This may be made out several ways as from the Labour of Getting the Care of Keeping the fear of Losing and the like Topicks commonly insisted on by others but I wave these and fix upon another Account less blown upon and I think more material than any of the rest It is this that altho' the Object loses that great appearance in the Fruition which it had in the expectation yet after it is gone it resumes it again Now we when we lament the loss do not take our measures from that appearance which the Object had in the enjoyment as we should do to make our sorrow not exceed our Happiness but from that which it has in the reflection and consequently we must needs be more miserable in the loss then we were happy in the enjoyment From these and the like Considerations I think it will evidently appear that this perfect Happiness is not to be found in any thing we can enjoy in this Life Wherein then does it consist I answer positively in the full and intire Fruition of God He as Plato speaks is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the proper and Principal End of Man the Center of our Tendency the Ark of our Rest. He is the Object which alone can satisfy the appetite of the most Capacious Soul and stand the Test of Fruition to Eternity And to enjoy him fully is perfect Felicity This in general is no more then what is deliver'd to us in Scripture and was believ'd by many of the Heathen Philosophers But the manner of this Fruition requires a more particular Consideration Much is said by the School-men upon this Subject whereof in the first place I shall give a short and methodical account and then fix upon the Opinion which I best approve of The first thing that I observe is that 't is generally agreed upon among them that this Fruition of God consists in some Operation and I think with very good reason For as by the Objective part of Perfect Happiness we understand that which is best and last and to which all other things are to be refer'd So by the Formal part of it must be understood the best and last Habitude of Man toward that best Object so that the Happiness may both ways satisfy the Appetite that is as 't is the best thing and as 't is the Possession use or Fruition of that best thing Now this Habitude whereby the best thing is perfectly possess'd must needs be some Operation because Operation is the ultimate perfection of every Being Which Axiom as Caietan well observes must not be so understood as if Operation taken by it self were more perfect then the thing which tends to it but that every thing with its Operation is more perfect then without it The next thing which I observe is that 't is also farther agreed upon among them that this Operation wherein our Fruition of God does consist is an Operation of the Intellectual part and not of the Sensitive And this also I take to be very reasonable First Because 't is generally receiv'd that the Essence of God cannot be the Object of any of our Senses But Secondly Suppose it could yet since this Operation wherein our Perfect Happiness does consist must be the perfectest Operation and since that of the Intellectual part is more perfect then that of the Sensitive it follows that the Operation whereby we enjoy God must be that of the Intellectual part only But now whereas the Intellectual part of man as 't is opposed to the Sensitive is double viz. That of the Vnderstanding and that of the Will there has commenced a great Controversy between the Thomists and the Scotists in which Act or Operation of the Rational Soul the Fruition of God does consist whether in an act of the Vnderstanding or in an act of the Will The Thomists will have it consist purely in an act of the Vnderstanding which is Vision The Scotists in act of the Will which is Love I intend not here to launch out into those Voluminous Intricacies and Abstrusities occasion'd by the management of this Argument It may suffice to tell you that I think they are both in the extream and therefore I shall take the middle way and resolve the perfect Fruition of God partly into Vision and partly into Love These are the two arms with which we embrace the Divinity and unite our Souls to the fair one and the good These I conceive are both so essential to the perfect Fruition of God that the Idea of it can by no means be maintained if either of them be wanting For since God is both Supream Truth and
Corporeal Appearance of Christ and the Saints the 11 is the Imaginary Appearance of the same the 12 is the Intellectual Vision of God the 13 is the Vision of God in obscurity the 14 is an admirable Manifestation of God the 15 is a clear and intuitive Vision of him such as St. Austin and Tho. Aquinas attribute to S. Paul when he was rapt up into the third Heaven Others of them reckon seaven degrees only viz. Tast Desire Satiety Ebriety Security Tranquility but the name of the seaventh they say is known only to God I shall not stand to examine the Scale of this Division perhaps there may be a kind of a Pythagoric Superstition in the number But this I think I may affirm in general that the Soul may be wound up to a most strange degree of Abstraction by a silent and steddy Contemplation of God Plato defines Contemplation to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Solution and a Separation of the Soul from the Body And some of the severer Platonists have been of Opinion that 't is possible for a Man by mere intention of thought not only to withdraw the Soul from all commerce with the Senses but even really to separate it from the Body to untwist the Ligaments of his Frame and by degrees to resolve himself into the State of the Dead And thus the Iews express the manner of the Death of Moses calling it Osculum Oris Dei the Kiss of God's Mouth That is that he breath'd out his Soul by the mere strength and Energy of Contemplation and expired in the Embraces of his Maker A Happy way of Dying How ambitious should I be of such a conveyance were it practicable How passionately should I joyn with the Church in Canticles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him kiss me with the Kisses of his Mouth But however this be determin'd certain it is that there are exceeding great Measures of Abstraction in Contemplation so great that sometimes whether a Man be in the Body or out of the Body he himself can hardly tell And consequently the Soul in these Praeludiums of Death these Neighbourhoods of Separation must needs have brighter glimpses and more Beatific Ideas of God then in a State void of these Elevations and consequently must love him with greater Ardency Which is the next thing I am to consider The love of God in general may be consider'd either as it is purely intellectual or as it is a Passion The first is when the Soul upon an apprehension of God as a good delectable and agreeable Object joyns her self to him by the Will The latter is when the motion of the Will is accompany'd with a sensible Commotion of the Spirits and an estuation of the blood Some I know are of Opinion that 't is not possible for a man to be affected with this sensitive Love of God which is a Passion because there is nothing in God which falls under our imagination and consequently the imagination being the only Medium of conveyance it cannot be propagated from the Intellectual part to the Sensitive Whereupon they affirm that none are capable of this sensitive passionate love of God but Christians who enjoy the Mystery of the Incarnation whereby they know God has condescended so far as to cloath himself with flesh and to become like one of us But 't is not all the Sophistry of the old Logicians that shall work me out of the belief of what I feel and know and rob me of the sweetest entertainment of my Life the Passionate Love of God Whatever some Men pretend who are strangers to all the affectionate heats of Religion and therefore make their Philosophy a Plea for their indevotion and extinguish all Holy Ardours with a Syllogism yet I am firmly persuaded that our love of God may be not only passionate but even Wonderfully so and exceeding the Love of Women 'T is an Experimental and therefore undeniable Truth that Passion is a great Instrument of Devotion and accordingly we find that Men of the most warm and pathetic Tempers and Amorous Complexions Provided they have but Consideration enough withal to fix upon the right Object prove the greatest Votaries in Religion And upon this account it is that to heighten our Love of God in our Religious Addresses we endeavour to excite our Passions by Music which would be to as little purpose as the Fanatic thinks 'tis if there were not such a thing as the Passionate Love of God But then as to the Objection I Answer with the excellent Descartes that although in God who is the Object of our Love we can imagine nothing yet we can imagine that our Love which consists in this that we would unite our selves to the Object beloved and consider our selves as it were a part of it And the sole Idea of this very Conjunction is enough to stir up a heat about the Heart and so kindle a very vehement Passion To which I add that although the Beauty or aimableness of God be not the same with that which we see in Corporeal Beings and consequently cannot directly fail within the Sphere of the Imagination yet it is something Analogous to it and that very Analogy is enough to excite a Passion And this I think sufficient to warrant my general division of the Love of God into Intellectual and Sensitive But there is a more peculir Acceptation of the Love of God proper to this place And it is that which we call Seraphic By which I understand in short that Love of God which is the effect of an intense Contemplation of him This differs not from the other in kind but only in degree and that it does exceedingly in as much as the thoughtful Contemplative Man as I hinted before has clearer Perceptions and livelier Impressions of the Divine Beauty the lovely Attributes and Perfections of God then he whose Soul is more deeply set in the Flesh and lies groveling in the bottom of the Dungeon That the Nature of this Seraphic Love may be the better understood I shall consider how many degrees there may be in the Love of God And I think the Computation of Bellarmin is accurate enough He makes four The first is to Love God proportionably to his Loveliness that is with an infinite Love and this degree is peculiar to God himself The second is to Love him not proportionably to his Loveliness but to the utmost Capacity of a Creature and this degree is peculiar to Saints and Angels in Heaven The third is to love him not proportionably to his Loveliness nor to the utmost capacity of a Creature absolutely consider'd but to the utmost capacity of a Mortal Creature in this Life And this he says is proper to the Religious The fourth is to love him not proportionably to his Loveliness nor to the utmost capacity of a Creature consider'd either absolutely or with respect to this Life but only so as to love nothing equally with him or