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"God hath prepared for them that love him." &c. &c. &c.

In this distinction, in this important distinction, between the feelings of the minds of the good and bad, and not in what are called the good things. of life, consists, beyond all doubt or question, the essential happiness or misery of every human being for the mind is the man; and that it is so, is a conclusion which has been ever inculcated by the wisest men. In Plato's Phædon it is mentioned, that a little while before Socrates drank the poison he was adjudged to do, Crito asked him, how he would be buried? To which, with a smile, he replied, that Crito confounded him, i. e. his mind or soul, with his corpse; desiring his friends to undeceive Crito in this particular, that he might not despair, or say at his funeral, Socrates is laid out; Socrates is carried out; Socrates is interred. You should say (addressing himself to Crito) that my body, and not Socrates, is interred: that indeed you may bury as you please, and in the manner agreeable to our laws and customs. And nothing can more strongly prove that this great man thought all genuine happiness was seated in the mind, than his noble and sublime declaration to Antipho, that he neither desired, or looked for, or expected, greater happiness in this life, than the consciousness of making a progress in virtue.

Cicero in his Tusculan Questions observes, "Corpus quidem quasi vas est aut aliquid animi "receptaculum; ab animo tuo quicquid agitur, "id agitur a te."

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Seneca likewise observes, "Major sum et ad

majora natus quam quod sim corporis mancipium, quod equidem non aliter aspicio quam "vinculum libertati meæ circumdatum

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And he further observes, "Si perpendere te 66 voles, sepone pecuniam, domum, dignitatem, "intus te ipse consule."

Marcus Aurelius writes to the same purpose; “ Ενδον βλεπε, ενδον ή πηγή τε αγαθε. Look within, "for within is the fountain of good t."

Many more quotations to the same effect might be made from Horace, Juvenal, and other writers; but these are sufficient to prove how universally it is adjudged that human happiness is determined by the mind and its feelings. Solomon observes, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it "are the issues (or the actions) of life." And our Saviour says, "What shall it profit a man, if he

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gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? "or what shall he give in exchange for his soul?" Since therefore it has pleased Almighty God to decree, that the good and the good only shall possess those happy feelings which constitute the

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Epist. lxvi.

+ Lib. vii. 59.

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essence of human felicity, every man ought to admit and to admire his goodness to the species in thus putting it in the power of each man to be happy if he will; as there is no man but may be virtuous and pious if he chooses to be so: and he ought to allow, that by this means as great a reward is decreed as could be to those that will love, honour, and obey their God: and he ought likewise to think, that there never yet was a falser assertion, or one more injurious to the character of the Deity, than that there is in all respects in this world the same event to good and bad men; and he ought to determine in his own mind, that any general inconsiderate assertion that there is so is a vulgar error, which every just, candid; and reasonable person must be ashamed to maintain.

OBJECTION III. The third objection made to the goodness of God is, that it is irreconcileable with the manifold evils which exist in the world, and with the wretched state and condition to which we see a great part of mankind apparently abandoned.

Whoever has accustomed his mind to the sublime and gratifying employ of considering and contemplating the attributes of the Deity, and has established in it an idea of his infinite goodness, from an humble and attentive perusal of

those Scriptures, which so distinctly and emphatically record and describe that goodness; and has likewise formed his ideas of God's infinite wisdom and power, from an induction of the particulars of that wisdom and power, as they are delineated and described in the writings of learned and ingenious men, in their approved systems of astronomy, anatomy, and natural philosophy: the result of this association of ideas in the mind of a candid, reasonable man must, I think, occasion a conclusion and firm belief in his inmost soul, that the God he worships is a God of infinite wisdom, infinite power, and infinite goodness; and he will be convinced, that all the decrees of this great and perfect Being are, ever have been, and ever must be, founded in infinite wisdom, power, and goodness; equally so at all times, throughout all ages and generations; and ever must be so, invariably and eternally, without one single exception to the contrary, whether those decrees are or are not comprehensible by his creatures. From the spirit and letter of Scripture, and especially from the character God has condescended to give of himself in his sacred volume, he is entirely of opinion, that by his goodness God intends the happiness, more or less, of all created beings; that by his wisdom he informs his intellectual creatures clearly and intelligibly in what their true and real temporal happiness consists; and that by his power

he will secure it to them, and likewise eternal happiness, if they will be obedient to him, and seek that happiness in the way he graciously and most condescendingly prescribes to them. If he believes in the Scriptures, he must think in this manner for notwithstanding those occasional inflictions and corrections which the present depravity of man requires, and which every man feels, and should feel, in his worldly career; the Scriptures expressly and unequivocally declare, that on his righteous servants God confers his peace, favour, and protection in this life, and eternal happiness, through the merits of his Son, in the world to come. They likewise state, in the most plain and unambiguous terms, the conditions on which both man's temporal and eternal happiness is granted; and give the plainest and most intelligible rules how both are to be attained: and as to his power of accomplishing what he promises, that is asserted in Scripture; where we read, that "when his word goeth forth out of his mouth, “it shall not return unto him void, but it shall accomplish that which he pleaseth: that power

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belongeth unto God: that there is nothing too "hard for the Lord: that he is able to subdue all "things to himself," &c. &c. &c. But it is needless to make extracts to prove that of which no man in his senses can possibly entertain the least doubt. When the ideas in a man's mind respecting

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