_Shewing how great devotion fills our lives with the greatest peace and happiness that can be enjoyed in this world._
1. SOME people will perhaps object, that this living unto God in all that we do, is too great a _restraint_ upon human life; and that, by depriving ourselves of so many innocent pleasures, we shall render our lives, _dull_, _uneasy_, and _melancholy_.
*It will produce just the contrary effect. Instead of making our lives dull and melancholy, it will render them full of content and strong satisfactions; as by these rules we only change the childish satisfactions of our _vain_ and _sickly_ passions, for the solid enjoyments, and real happiness of a _sound mind_.
For as there is no true foundation for comfort in life, but in the assurance that a wise and good God governeth the world: so the more we find out God in every thing, the more we apply to him in every place, the more we look up to him in all our actions, the more we conform to his will, the more we act according to his wisdom, and imitate his goodness, by so much the more do we enjoy God, and increase all that is _happy_ and _comfortable_ in human life.
And it is plain, he that is endeavouring to subdue all those passions of _pride_, _envy_, and _ambition_, which religion opposes, is doing more to make himself happy, even in this life, than he that is contriving means to indulge them.
*For these passions are the causes of all the disquiets of human life: they are the _dropsies_ and _fevers_ of our minds, vexing them with false appetites, and restless cravings after such things as we do not want, and spoiling our taste for those things which are our proper good.
2. *Do but imagine that you some where or other saw a man, that proposed _reason_ as the rule of all his actions; that had no desires but after such things as _nature_ wants, and _religion_ approves; that was as pure from all the motions of _pride_, _envy_, and _covetousness_, as from thoughts of _murder_; that in this freedom from worldly passions, he had a soul full of divine love, wishing and praying that all men may have what they want of worldly things, and be partakers of eternal glory.
Do but fancy a man living in this manner, and your own conscience will immediately tell you, that he is the happiest man in the world, and that it is not in the power of the richest fancy to invent any higher happiness in the present life.
And, on the other hand, if you suppose him to be in any degree _less perfect_; if you suppose him but subject to one foolish fondness, or vain passion, your own conscience will tell you, that he so far lessens his own happiness, and robs himself of the true enjoyment of his other virtues. So true is it, that the _more_ we live by the rules of religion, the more peaceful and happy we are.
3. Again, as it thus appears that real happiness is only to be had from religion; so the same truth will appear from a consideration of _human misery_. If we look into the world, and view the troubles of human life, we shall find that they are all owing to our irreligious passions.
Now all trouble and uneasiness is founded in the _want_ of something or other; would we therefore know the true cause of our troubles and disquiets, we must find out the cause of our wants; because that which creates and increases our wants, does in the same degree create and increase our troubles and disquiets.
God Almighty has sent us into the world with very few wants: _meat_, and _drink_, and _cloathing_, are the only things necessary in life; and as these are only our present needs, so the present world is well furnished to supply these needs.
If a man had half the world in his power, he can make no more of it than this; as he wants it only to support an _animal_ life, so is it unable to do any thing else for him, or to afford him any other happiness.
4. This is the state of man, born with few wants, and into a large world, very capable of supplying them. So that one would reasonably suppose, men should pass their lives in content and thankfulness to God; at least, that they should be free from violent disquiets and vexations, as being placed in a world that has more than enough to relieve all their wants.
But if to all this we add, that this short life, thus furnished with all that we want in it, is only a short passage to eternal glory, where we shall be cloathed with the brightness of _angels_, and enter into the joys of God, we might still more reasonably expect, that human life should be a state of peace, and joy, and delight in God. Thus it would certainly be, if reason had its full power over us.
*But alas, though God, and nature, and reason, make human life thus free from wants; yet our passions, in rebellion against God, against _nature_ and _reason_, create a new world of evils, and fill human life with imaginary wants, and vain disquiets.