little, insensibly consumeth the bank against which it beateth; or as ivy which seemeth to adorn the tree unto which it cleaveth, but indeed sucketh out and stealeth away the sap thereof;-may, haply, yield some measure of vanishing content to minds, which taste every thing with a corrupted palate: but certainly such sophistical premises can never infer in the conclusion any other than a perfunctory and tottering content. And therefore Senecaf is bold to find an impropriety in Virgil's epithet, Mala gaudia,' joys which issue from a polluted fountain, as not having in them that inseparable attribute of absolute delight, which is to be unvariable. For how can a mind (unless blinded with its own impostures, and entangled in the errors of a misled affection) receive any nourishing and solid content in that, which is in itself vanishing, and unto its subject destructive? Whatsoever then may be delighted in, must have some one of the forenamed conditions, tending either to the restitution of decayed nature, to the preservation of entire nature, or to the perfection of empty nature. And to the former and imperfecter sort of these, Aristotle refers all corporal and sensitive pleasures; (unto which he therefore granteth a secondary and accidental goodness) which he calleth large the medicines of an indigent nature; whereby the defects thereof are made up, and itself disburdened of those cares which, for the most part, use to follow the want of them.

Herein then I observe a double corruption; an unnatural and unlimited delight. Unnatural, I mean those accursed pleasures, which were exercised by men given over to vile affections, and greedy in the pursuing of lusts, whose very names abhor the light. Unlimited delights are those which exceed the bounds of nature, and the prime institution of lawful and indifferent things. For such is the condition of those, that if they repair not and strengthen nature, they weaken and disenable it "; as, in the body, luxury breeds diseases; and, in the mind, curiosity breeds errors.

Other objects there are of a wider nature than those, which

e Arbores necat omnem succum auferendo, &c. Plin. l. 16. c. 34. 59.-Aug. de Civit. Dei, 1. 14. c. 8.

f Epist.

8 'Αναπλήρωσίς τις καὶ ἰατρεῖα τῆς

h Un

σωματικῆς ἐνδείας. Nemes. c. 18. Ethic. I. 7. c. 14. ἀγαθαὶ μέχρι τοῦ, de factum, ut quæ ad funera pertinerent, in Templo Veneris venderentur. Vid. Plut. Quæs. Rom. q. 23.

concern the body; and they are both the moral and contemplative actions of the mind: to both which Aristotle hath attributed principally this passion1; but more especially to the latter, whose object is more pure, and whose acts less laborious, as residing in that part of the soul, which is most elevate from sense: and, therefore, most of all capable of the purest, simplest, and unmixed delights. Now every thing is the more free, clear, independent, spiritual, by how much it is the more unmixed: and these are the choicest perfections, whereby the soul may be filled with joy. It is true indeed, that oftentimes the contemplations of the mind have annexed unto them both grief and anxiety: but this is never natural to the act of knowledge, which is always in its own virtue an impression of pleasure: but it ariseth either out of the sublimity of the object, which dazzleth the power; or out of the weakness and doubtings of the understanding, which hath not a clear light thereof; or out of the admixion and steeping them in the humours of the affections, whereby men minister unto themselves desperate thoughts, or weak fears, or guilty griefs, or unlimited desires, according as is the property of the object joined with their own private distempers. Thus we see the intuition of divine truth in minds of defiled affections, worketh not that sweet effect which is natural unto it to produce; but doubtings, terrors, and disquietings of conscience; it being the property of the workers of darkness to be afraid of the word of light. But of all these former objects of man's delight, (because they are amongst Solomon's catalogue of things under the sun') none are here without vexation and vanities: for to let pass the lightning of an idle mirth, which indeed is madness and not joy, (for Seneca telleth us, that 'true joy is a serious and severe thing m') and not to meddle with riches and other secular delights, which have wings to fly from us, and thorns to prick us, even that highest natural delight of the mind, knowledge, and the heavenly eloquence of the tongues of angels, (which a man would think were above the sun, and therefore not obnoxious to Solomon's vanity) would be in man, without the right corrective thereof, but a tinkling

Eth. 1. 10. c. 7.

iii. 5.

*John iii. 20. Job xxi. 14. Isai. xxx. 11. 2 Pet. 1 Eccles. ii. 2, 3. Ηνίκ ̓ ἦν ἐν τῇ νόσῳ, Αὐτὸς μὲν ἥδεθ ̓ οἷσιν εἴχετ' ἐν κακοῖς. Sophoc. Ajax. 271. m Senec. Epist. 23.

a

noise, yielding rather a windy pleasure than a true delight. The properties whereof is not to puff up, but to replenish; and therefore it is the prayer of Saint Paul, "The God of peace fill you with all joy." True heavenly joy, is a filling, a satiating joy, a 'joy unspeakable,' with Saint Peter; peace past understanding,' with Saint Paul. Nor doth this property of overflowing and swallowing the mind, add any degrees of offence or anxiety thereunto: for it is not the weakness of the soul, as it is of the body, to receive hurt from the excellency of that which it delighteth in; nor doth the mind desire to subdue or conquer, but only to be united with its object.

And here the only corruption of our delight is, the deficiency and imperfections of it: for though this blessed light leaves not any man in the shadow of death, yet it takes him not quite out of the shadow of sin, by the darkness whereof he is without much of that lustre and glory, which he shall then have, when the righteous shall shine like the sun in the firmament. Yet, at the least, our endeavours must be, that though our joy cannot be here a replenishing joy, yet it may be an operative joy, and so work out the measure of its own fulness. I have done with the several objects of man's delight, corporal, moral, intellectual, and divine.

CHAP. XX.

Of the causes of Joy. The union of the object to the faculty, by contemplation, hope, fruition, changes, by accident, a cause of delight.

a

I Now proceed to speak of the more particular causes and effects of this passion. Touching the former, not to meddle. with those which are unnatural, belluine, and morbid, (which the philosopher hath given some instances of) the general cause is the natural goodness of the object; and the particulars under that, any thing which hath a power to unite, and make the object present with the faculty. And that is

done (to speak only of intellectual powers) three manner of ways; by contemplation, by confidence, and by fruition; by thinking of it in the mind, by expecting of it in the heart, and by enjoying of it in the whole man. Þ

b

Contemplation adds unto a soul a double delight: First, from its own property, it being the proper and natural agitation of man's mind; insomuch that those things which we abhor to know experimentally, our curious and contemplative nature desires to know speculatively. And therefore the devil's first temptation was drawn from the knowledge as well of evil as good: for he knew that the mind of man would receive content in the understanding of that, which, in its own nature, had no perfection in it.

But then, secondly, in the object of true delight, contemplation ministereth a farther joy, in that it doth in some sort pre-unite our souls and our blessedness together: and this is partly the reason why Aristotle so much advanceth his contemplative before his practick felicity for though this, in regard of its immediate reference unto communion, be of a more spreading and diffusive nature; yet certainly in that sweetness of content, that serenity of soul, that exaltation of thoughts, which we receive from those noble motions of the higher mind, the other doth far, in pleasure and satisfaction, surpass all active happiness. And hence we see in the parts of man's body, those which are (if I may so speak) more contemplative, have precedence to those that are more practick. The parts of vision are before the parts of action; the right eye is preferred before the right hand. Thus we may observe in God himself (notwithstanding in him there can be neither accession nor intermission of delight) yet by way of expression to us-ward, he did not, in the creation of the world, so much joy in his fiat,' as in his 'vidit ;'-not so much when he gave his creatures their nature, as when he saw their goodness; nature being the object of power, but goodness the object of delight:-and, therefore, the day of his rest was more holy than the days of his working; that being appointed for the contemplation, as these were for the production, of his creatures.

And as contemplation, by way of prescience, when it

looketh forward on good things hoped; so also by way of memory, when it looketh backward, and revieweth evil things escaped, doth minister matter of renewed joy. No man looketh on the sea with more comfort, than he who hath escaped a shipwreck. And therefore when Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the sea-shore, the fear of whom had so much affrighted them before, they then sang a song of triumph. Past troubles do season, and (as it were) ballast present comforts; as the snow in winter encreaseth the beauty of the spring.

But in this particular of contemplation, notwithstanding the excellency of it, there may be corruption in the excess; (for in these matters of delight, except they be such as are disproportioned to our corrupt nature, I mean divine things, we seldom err in the other extreme) and that is, when we do not divide ourselves between our parts, and let every one execute his proper function. So to attend upon mere mental notions, as to neglect the practical part of our life, and withdraw ourselves from the fellowship and regard of human society, is as wicked in religion,-as it would be, in nature, monstrous to see a fire burn without light, or shine without heat; aberrations from the supreme law being, in divine things, impious, as they are, in natural, prodigious.

And therefore that vowed sequestration, and voluntary banishment of hermits and votaries from human society, under pretence of devoting themselves to contemplation, and a fore-enjoying of the light of God, is towards him as unpleasing, as it is in itself uncomfortable: for their very Pattern which they pretend in such cases to imitate, was not only a burning lamp by the heat of his own contemplations, but a shining lamp too, by the diffusing of his own comforts to the refreshing of others.

A second cause of delight is the sure confidence of the mind, whereby, upon strong and unerring grounds, it waiteth for the accomplishment of its desires: so that whatever doth encourage our hope, doth therewithal strengthen and enlarge our delight. Spe gaudent,' saith St. Paul d; Sperantes gaudent,' saith the philosopher. Hope and joy go

Arist. Rhet. 1. 1. c. 10. c. 11, 12.

4 Rom. xii. 12.

Arist Rhet. I. 1.