HAPPINESS
HAELOT
703
obedience are associated ; in Mt 16" blessedness and knowledge are united ; in Jn 20=" blessedness 3,-aA faith are joined. In many places blessedness is reserved for the future (Lk 7-' 123'-« W^). In the Fourth Gospel Jesus distinctly offers fulness of joy (Jn 16°-^).
lii. Happiness as revealed in Cheist's Per- son.— The birth of Jesus was a proclamation of joy (Lk 2'"). Though called the ' Man of sorrows,' He was not unhajjpy. S()n(i\\s never distorted His soul, nor left the faintest shadow of melancholy or accidie. He was ' still elieerfnl and helpful and firm.' His first miracle conl i ilmted Ut the innocent pleasure of social intercourse (Jn 2'-")- The im- pression left by His address was pleasing ; nor was His voice the voice of grief (Lk 4==). His gospel was a joyous prize (Mt 13''''-*). He delighted in healing pain (Lk 4''). Instead of reflecting the sadness of households, Jesus removed it (Jn IP^, Lk 8^-). He spoke of a joy that was His own peculiar and characteristic possession (Jn 15"), and promised entrance into His own joy as a supreme reward (Mt 25=')- This joy He ottered all who followed Him (Jn 16-*), and He was anxious to complete the joy of His disciples (Jn 15" 17"). Christ shunned the moroseness of asceticism (Mt 11'"), as He turned from the selfish happiness of the epicurean (Mt 20-"). The joy of Clirist aro.se from several causes — ( 1 ) He was free from sin, that root of sorrow and bitterness : ' For by sinning we kept neither piety nor felicity ' (Augustine). (2) He had the intense joys of a Saviour (Lk 15'). His was the happiness that comes from being the creator of another's good (Lk 19""). The keen pleasure of rescue work filled His soul (Lk \5^-'>--% The thought of the countless hosts who would obtain eternal rest through His death was a secret potion to sweeten His bitter cup. For the joy set before Him He endured tlie cross. (.■)) The self-sacrifice of Jesus issued out of pure love (Jn 15'^). He was happy as a lover. (4) He rejoiced in the sense of Divine sonship. This was His earliest thought (Lk 2-«'). To do the will of God was better than food (Jn 4^*). The knowledge of His Father was life (Jn 17'). It was an incomparable ecstasy for Him to dwell upon the love of God (Jn 17). This re- lieved Him of fear (Lk23*'', Mt 6^*) ; also it freed Him from the distracting care of false ambition (Jn 18™). Being thus free from many of the ve.xing thoughts and struggles that disturb our peace of mind, He was able to find comfort in Himself and His cause. He was the first citizen in the Kingdom of Heaven, whieli is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Though tempted in all points like as \vc are, and acquainted with grief, Christ was nevevtlieless a man of joy.
Christ gives liai.i.iin'ss l,y -iving Himself. 'He that hath tlie Sun halh litV, and the causes which led to His peace art in measure in all those wlio turn to Jesus. The first and last Beatitude of the Gospels is to those who believe in Him (Lk l-*', Jn 20™). All life culminates in God, and man's summiim bonum. is God as He is revealed in Christ. Partnership with Him, even when joined with personal suffering and sacrifice, is more valuable than all worldly prosperity (Mt 10='). Plato had climbed to a lofty place when he declared that man's happiness was to be found in a supernatural good, in the knowledge of ideas, especially the idea of God. But Christianity rises higher. Jesus leads us up from imitation of God and ac- quaintance with Divine ideas to the snlilime fact that we may kiidw C,,,! |.ersonally. Not a re- semblance, but a partnership ; not :i certainty that God is good, true, ami wise, but a certainty that He loves ns, and that we may love Him in return— this is the new faith (Jn 15"). Jesus is the Chris- tian's joy. Into our restlessness of soul, due in I
part to imperfect ideas, Clirist conies with a fellow- sliiii and an ambition grand enough to supply man with the jieace after which he is ever struggling (Mt 11-"). Through Christ our sins are forgiven, our anxieties removed, our sorrows softened, our hopes revived, while He alone imparts that sup- reme gift of fellowship with God which is our highest good. Thus purest happiness comes, which some will still prefer to call blessedness, as more appropriate to such intimate and spiritual relation- ships.
Literature.— Hastings' DB, artt. 'Beatitude,' 'Happiness,' 'Sermon on the Mnimt'; Hort, Tl,e Wai/, The Truth, The Life (Macmillan, ls!)n ; Hill \ , rniri ,-.t. c Ilimirlis, Leipzig) ; PRB^, art. 'Gliicksflij! - ' ■ ^ !yl i ' ■/;•',■.■( /mi: 'Prudential Aphorisms'; s:, , , &re Homo 15 114,
195; Carlyle, ,V'/ i , ;/ . ,,i
■ I ,\i 1 - W. Falconer.
HARDENING OF HEART. -(,/) The relation in Sevi].tuie l,eiu,.,.ii tlie blood and the life (Lv 17") is sneh that tlie heart is naturally 'the typical centre ni peisoii;il life' (cf. Westcott on He 4'- and 1 Jii 1' Add. Notes) ; the seat of understanding (1 K 3»- 12), afteetion (Dt 6=), will (Jer 5=^), character (1 K 9S Ezk 11-') ; the fountain at which all issues (Pr 4'-«) may receive a Divine direction. (6) It is described as tender (2 K 22'8'-), hard (Ex 8"), of flesh or of stone (Ezk ll'""'-), not in the popular sense of merciful or cruel, but according to its receptivity (or otherwise) of Divine imiiressions. Of the Greek words employed to express such hardness the two more reiiiarkable (see below) represent the heart as callous (i.e. os.sified) or fat. (c) An important distinction is to be made between two expre.ssions : — (i.) 'Hardness of heart.' "To a certain extent this is an unavoidable infirmity of man's natural condition. As such, it is the object of Divine condescension, which (as Christ directly asserts) is the explanation of much OT legislation (Mt 19S||). It is referred to in the Gospels as (1) (TKXripoKapSia, Mt 19*" || Mk lO" [16''']; as (2) Kap5. irewbipw/j.ii'ij, Mk 6'^- S". (ii.) 'Hardening of heart.' This is a \ oluntary process : the object therefore of Divine condemnation (cf. Mt U^^- 13'= 23^'*-, Ro 2^). Its active nature, as distinguished from passive infirmity, is indicated by the form Tupui<ns, Mk 3' (ef. Kfl 11-5, Eph 4"), in contrast to the pf. pt. pass. Mk 6''- 8". [cl) Hardening is represented, alterna- tively with conversion, as a direct consequence of contact with giace and the gospel (Mt 13''*, Jn 3'"- 9™ ; cf. 2 Co 2i«). The origin of the process is variously stated, according to the side from which it is viewed. Thus— (1) The heart is hardened, as though by the action of a mechanical law : Mt 13'° = Is 6'" LXX (cf. Ac 19», Ro 11'-=', 2 Co S'-"). (2) Man harden.^ his heart. This aspect, though necessarily involved in man's responsibility and often stated in the OT (Ex 9'*, 1 S 6«, 2 Ch 36"), is not expressly referred to in the NT, except in He 38 = Ps 958. (3) Qg^ hardens it: Jn 12* = a para- phrase of Is 6'" ; see Westcott, ad loc., and cf. Ro 9''. This is often known as ' judicial hardening ' : it is 'the inexorable law of moral consequence' (Westcott on He 3"). It comes to pass that 'he who ivill not turn at last cannot. And God, who established that law of man's nature, is said in Scripture to do that which occurs under it or results from it' (Vaughan on Ro 9'*). (c) In the OT the typical case is that of Pharaoh ; in which all three statements are remarkably exemplified (Ex 7''' 8'° 9'-). Bunyan's ' Man in the iron cage ' is a power- ful picture of hardening in its final stage : at the same time, the man who is past repentance is usually past feeling (Eph 4'"-).